little part of physic to
which I have only submitted, though the least depending upon art of all
others, has yet a great share of the confusion and uncertainty everywhere
else manifest in the profession.

The poets put what they would say with greater emphasis and grace;
witness these two epigrams:

"Alcon hesterno signum Jovis attigit: ille,
Quamvis marmoreus, vim patitur medici.
Ecce hodie, jussus transferri ex aeede vetusta,
Effertur, quamvis sit Deus atque lapis."

["Alcon yesterday touched Jove's statue; he, although marble,
suffers the force of the physician: to-day ordered to be transferred
from the old temple, where it stood, it is carried out, although it
be a god and a stone."--Ausonius, Ep., 74.]

and the other:

"Lotus nobiscum est, hilaris coenavit; et idem
Inventus mane est mortuus Andragoras.
Tam subitae mortis causam, Faustine, requiris?
In somnis medicum viderat Hermocratem:"

["Andragoras bathed with us, supped gaily, and in the morning the
same was found dead. Dost thou ask, Faustinus, the cause of this so
sudden death? In his dreams he had seen the physician Hermocrates."
--Martial, vi. 53.]

upon which I will relate two stories.

The Baron de Caupene in Chalosse and I have betwixt us the advowson of a
benefice of great extent, at the foot of our mountains, called Lahontan.
It is with the inhabitants of this angle, as 'tis said of those of the
Val d'Angrougne; they lived a peculiar sort of life, their fashions,
clothes, and manners distinct from other people; ruled and governed by
certain particular laws and usages, received from father to son, to which
they submitted, without other constraint than the reverence to custom.
This little state had continued from all antiquity in so happy a
condition, that no neighbouring judge was ever put to the trouble of
inquiring into their doings; no advocate was ever retained to give them
counsel, no stranger ever called in to compose their differences; nor was
ever any of them seen to go a-begging. They avoided all alliances and
traffic with the outer world, that they might not corrupt the purity of
their own government; till, as they say, one of them, in the memory of
man, having a mind spurred on with a noble ambition, took it into his
head, to bring his name into credit and reputation, to m