nkly owned that he had no inclination to try the experiment;
observing, that self-preservation was the first law of nature; that his
connections with the unhappy lunatic were but slight; and that it could
not be reasonably expected that he would run such risks for his service
as were declined by one who had set out with him from England on the
footing of a companion. This insinuation introduced a dispute upon
the nature of benevolence, and the moral sense, which, the republican
argued, existed independent of any private consideration, and could
never be affected by any contingent circumstance of time and fortune;
while the other, who abhorred his principles, asserted the duties and
excellence of private friendship with infinite rancour of altercation.

During the hottest of the argument, they were joined by the Capuchin,
who being astonished to see them thus virulently engaged at the door,
and to hear the painter bellowing within the chamber, conjured them, in
the name of God, to tell him the cause of that confusion which had kept
the whole house in continual alarm during the best part of the night,
and seemed to be the immediate work of the devil and his angels. When
the governor gave him to understand that Pallet was visited with an evil
spirit, he muttered a prayer of St. Antonio de Padua, and undertook
to cure the painter, provided he could be secured so as that he might,
without danger to himself, burn part of a certain relic under his nose,
which he assured them was equal to the miraculous power of Eleazar's
ring. They expressed great curiosity to know what this treasure was; and
the priest was prevailed upon to tell them in confidence, that it was
a collection of the parings of the nails belonging to those two madmen,
whom Jesus purged of the legion of devils that afterwards entered
the swine. So saying, he pulled from one of his pockets a small box,
containing about an ounce of the parings of a horse's hoof; at sight of
which the governor could not help smiling, on account of the grossness
of the imposition. The doctor asked, with a supercilious smile, whether
those maniacs whom Jesus cured were of the sorrel complexion, or
dapple-gray; for, from the texture of these parings, he could prove that
the original owners were of the quadruped order, and even distinguish
that their feet had been fortified with shoes of iron.

The mendicant, who bore an inveterate grudge against this son of
Esculapius ever since he had