which their
thoughts, their remembrances, and their passions clung. The great gulf
was passed; they stood on the same shore, and felt that though
still apart and disunited, on that shore was no living creature but
themselves! Meanwhile Augustus Tomlinson, on finding himself surrounded
by persons eager to gaze and to listen, broke from his moodiness and
reserve. Looking full at his next neighbour, and flourishing his right
hand in the air, till he suffered it to rest in the direction of the
houses and chimneys below, he repeated that moral exclamation which
had been wasted on Clifford, with a more solemn and a less passionate
gravity than before,--"What a subject, ma'am, for contemplation!"

"Very sensibly said, indeed, sir," said the lady addressed, who was
rather of a serious turn.

"I never," resumed Augustus in a louder key, and looking round for
auditors,--"I never see a great town from the top of a hill without
thinking of an apothecary's shop!"

"Lord, sir!" said the lady. Tomlinson's end was gained. Struck with the
quaintness of the notion, a little crowd gathered instantly around him,
to hear it further developed.

"Of an apothecary's shop, ma'am!" repeated Tomlinson. "There lie your
simples and your purges and your cordials and your poisons,--all things
to heal and to strengthen and to destroy. There are drugs enough in that
collection to save you, to cure you all; but none of you know how to use
them, nor what medicines to ask for, nor what portions to take; so that
the greater part of you swallow a wrong dose, and die of the remedy!"

"But if the town be the apothecary's shop, what, in the plan of your
idea, stands for the apothecary?" asked an old gentleman, who perceived
at what Tomlinson was driving.

"The apothecary, sir," answered Augustus, stealing his notion from
Clifford, and sinking his voice lest the true proprietor should overhear
him (Clifford was otherwise employed),--"the apothecary, sir, is the
LAW! It is the law that stands behind the counter, and dispenses to
each man the dose he should take. To the poor it gives bad drugs
gratuitously; to the rich, pills to stimulate the appetite; to the
latter, premiums for luxury; to the former, only speedy refuges from
life! Alas! either your apothecary is but an ignorant quack, or his
science itself is but in its cradle. He blunders as much as you would
do if left to your own selection. Those who have recourse to him seldom
speak gratefully of his