d her lover, exclaiming,
"_Maintenant je suis heureux--ma femme--mon meilleur ami!_" He then
may snap his fingers at Charles Phillips and Adolphus: he has not only
proved his affection to his wife, but his confidence in his friend.
Let him lay the damages at ten thousand, and, with a counsel that can
cry, he'll get every shilling of the money.

[Illustration]

A NUT FOR LADIES BOUNTIFUL.

Jean Jacques tells us, that when his wife died every farmer in the
neighbourhood offered to console him by one of their daughters; but
that a few weeks afterwards his cow having shared the same fate, no
one ever thought of replacing his loss by the offer of another;
thereby proving the different value people set upon their cows and
children--this seems absurd enough, but is it a bit more so, than what
is every day taking place in professional life? How many parsons are
there who would not lend you five pounds, would willingly lend you
their pulpit, and the commonest courtesy from a hospital surgeon is,
to present his visitor with a knife and entreat him to carve a
patient. He has never seen the individual before, he doesn't know
whether he be short-sighted, or nervous, or ignorant, or rash, all he
thinks of, is doing the honours of the institution; and although like
a hostess, who sees the best dish at her table mangled by an unskilful
carver, he suffers in secret, yet is she far too well-bred to evince
her displeasure, but blandly smiles at her friend, and says "No
matter, pray go on." This, doubtless, is highly conducive to science;
and as medicine is declared to be a science of experiment, great
results occasionally arise from the practice. Now that I am talking of
doctors--what a strange set they are, and what a singular position do
they hold in society; admitted to the fullest confidence of the world,
yet by a strange perversion, while they are the depositaries of
secrets that hold together the whole fabric of society, their
influence is neither fully recognised, nor their power acknowledged.
The doctor is now what the monk once was, with this additional
advantage, that from the nature of his studies and the research of his
art, he reads more deeply in the human heart, and penetrates into its
most inmost recesses. For him, life has little romance; the grosser
agency of the body re-acting ever on the operations of the mind,
destroy many a poetic daydream and many a high-wrought illusion. To
him alone does a man speak "_