Chapter XXX: )

THE OLD JEW.

"Ah me," exclaimed a Jew, one day, as he reluctantly drew out his wallet to pay three dollars for his examination, prescription, and advice, "if I could only make money like the doctors of mede_cene_! Ah me." Then, taking two dollars from his purse, he asked, "Won't that do?"

This Jew was a merchant, reputed rich, and penurious as he was wealthy, and I demanded the accustomed fee.

"Let me see," said he; "how many patients have you seen to-day?"

"Nine," I replied.

"Let me see," counting his fingers as a tally. "At least twenty-seven dollars a day, and nothing out but a bit of paper. Ah, I wish I had been a doctor in mede_cene_," he added, with a sigh, and a woful look at the money, as he reluctantly handed it over.

This was casting pearls before worse than swine, prescribing for such a wretch. Brains, education, anxiety, all went for nought, with him. _Money_ was his all. A shilling before his eyes would shut out even God's sunlight. If the shilling only _shone_, _glistened_,--sunlight enough for such a wretch.

"Let _me_ see," I said, after his miserable body had taken his penurious soul out of my office; "nine patients, one three miles away. Horse-tire and carriage-wear, time, advice, and medicine given, because the patient was a widow. No. 2 patient, the sick child of an invalid mother; no fee. No. 3, an Irishman. The Irish never wish to pay anything; did pay one dollar. No. 4, a merchant. "Charge it." That was _his_ fee. No. 5, a young sewing girl, who, in sewing on army cloth, had sewed her life's blood into the seams. In consumption. Could I take her fee? God forbid. No. 6, a "lady," who, having so much upon her back, had nothing in her purse. I may get my fee at the end of the quarter. "You know my husband. Good morning." It was near two o'clock then. She had occupied my time a whole hour. My dinner was cold; my wife was out of sorts, waiting so long. Nos. 7 and 8, two sick children. Visit them daily; pay uncertain. The ninth was the wealthy Jew. Nine patients; four dollars! Don't I sometimes wish I kept an "O' clo'" store, like the old Jew? This actually occurred when I practised medicine in Hartford.

DR. HUNTER'S GENEROSITY.

No man cared _less_ for the profits of the medical profession, or _more_ for the honor thereof, than the great Dr. John Hunter. He was honest, honorable, and simple in his every day life. His works, which contributed more to the science of medicine than any other writings during a thousand years, were simply announced as by JOHN HUNTER. A plain door plate, with the same name, announced his residence. Money was a secondary consideration to him. The following shows that he desired a professional brother to so consider it:--

"DEAR BROTHER: The bearer needs your advice. He has no money, and you
have plenty; so you are well met.

"Yours, JOHN HUNTER."

To a poor tradesman from whom he had received twenty guineas for performing a surgical operation upon his wife, he returned nineteen guineas, having learned with what difficulty and extreme self-denial the husband had raised the money.

"I sent back nineteen guineas, and kept the twentieth," said he, in apology for retaining even the one, "that they might not be hurt with an idea of too great an obligation."

Where is the other man, or class of men, who would have returned the money, honestly earned, as agreed upon beforehand, unasked?

GENEROUS AT ANOTHER'S EXPENSE.

It is all very nice when one can exercise a benevolent spirit, and not draw upon his own pocket.

A well-authenticated story is repeated in this line of Dr. M. Monsey.

Passing through a market one day, he noticed a miserable old woman looking wistfully at a piece of meat hanging just within a stall.

"What is the price of this meat, sir?" she timidly inquired.

"A penny a pound, old woman," replied the butcher, sneeringly, disdaining a civil answer to the wretched-looking woman, who probably had not a penny to pay for the chop.

"Just weigh that piece of meat, my friend," said the doctor, who had been attentively watching the proceedings.

The butcher cheerfully complied with the request of so respectable-looking a customer.

"Ten pounds and a half, sir," replied the butcher.

"There, my good woman," said the doctor, "hold up your apron;" and he dumped the whole into it, saying, "Now make haste home and cook it for your family."

After blessing the very eccentric but benevolent old man over and again for the timely provision, she drew up the corners of the apron, and ran speedily down the market.

"Here, my man," said the doctor, turning to the smiling butcher, "here is ten pence ha'penny, the price of your meat."

"What? What do you mean?" asked the butcher.

"I mean, sir, that I take you at your word. You said the meat was a penny a pound. At that price I bought it for the poor old woman. It's all I'll pay you. Good morning, sir."

I can imagine the "chop-fallen" butcher, standing, in his long frock, with a _beaten_ expression of countenance, alternating his gaze between the pence in his palm and the retreating form of the wigged and laughing old doctor.

A REPORT ON TEETH.

Many stories are told of the eccentricities of Dr. Monsey, and

"No man could better gild a pill,
Or make a bill,
Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister,
Or draw a tooth out of your head,
Or chatter scandal by your bed,
Or tell a twister."

Amongst the vagaries of Dr. Monsey, says Mr. Jeaffreson, was the way in which he proceeded to extract his decaying teeth. Around the tooth sentenced to be uprooted he fastened securely a strong piece of cord, or violin string, to the other end of which he attached a bullet. He then proceeded to load a pistol with powder and the bullet. By merely pulling the trigger of the pistol, the operation was speedily and effectually performed.

It was seldom, however, that the doctor could induce his patients to adopt this original mode of extracting undesirable achers.

One gentleman, who had agreed to try this novel process upon a tooth, got so far as to allow the whole apparatus to be adjusted, when, at the very last instant, he exclaimed,--

"Stop, stop! I have changed my mind--"

"I haven't, though; and you're a fool and a coward, and here's go," which saying, the doctor pulled the trigger.

"Bang!" went the pistol, and out flew the tooth, to the delight and astonishment of the patient.

Taking this anecdote alone, it is scarcely credible; but considered in connection with what we have already selected from the life of Dr. Monsey, and what we may write of his eccentricities in our chapter under that head, this may be believed as being nearly correct.

A SAD OMISSION.

Believing, as I do, that every reader of these pages is personally cognizant of the fact of the true benevolence of our present American physicians, and because of the silence of the few biographers respecting the generosities and benevolent deeds of those "who have gone before," I have devoted more space to anecdotes of English surgeons and physicians than I otherwise would. I have searched throughout four volumes of biographies of American physicians without being able to find a single anecdote of generosity recorded therein worthy of notice. Also in the "Lives of Surgeons ----" I have to regret this almost unpardonable neglect. I am assured from my personal knowledge of some of these latter that there are a thousand instances, which, in justice to their benevolence, ought to be put upon record, as they are engraven upon the hearts of their suffering fellow-creatures, and not for the aggrandizement of the generous bestower so much as an example for the cynical and the uncharitable world.

A physician has just left my presence who has given away more than he has ever received from his practice. The good physician is always generous. A mean-souled man cannot become a successful practitioner. His success with his patients depends as much, or more, upon the kindly influences that beam from his eye, that flow from his soul, as upon the medicine that he deals out from his "saddle-bags."

Generosity and kindness are innate to the man. They require little cultivation.

The following amusing anecdote from "Every Saturday," I have reason to believe, has reference to one of our best physicians, who is also a man of letters, and illustrates my assertion:--

"INNATE GENEROSITY."

"One hot August afternoon a gentleman, whose name attached to a check would be more valuable to the reader than if written here, was standing in front of the Revere House, waiting for a Washington Street car. He was a slim, venerable gentleman, with long white hair, and a certain dignity about him which we suppose comes of always having a handsome balance in the bank, for we never knew a poor man to have this particular air. It was a sultry afternoon, and the millionaire, standing on the curb-stone in the shade, had removed his hat, and was cooling his forehead with his handkerchief, like any common person, when the Cambridge horse-car stopped at the crossing at his feet. From this car hastily descended a well-known man of letters, whose pre-occupied expression showed at once that he was wrestling with an insubordinate hexameter, or laying out the points of a new lecture. Suddenly he found himself face to face with a white-haired old man, dejectedly holding a hat in one hand. As quick as thought the poet--to whom neither old age nor young appeals in vain--thrust his hand into his vest pocket, and, dropping a handful of nickel and fractional currency into the extended hat, passed on. The millionaire gazed aghast into the hat for an instant, and then inverted it spasmodically, allowing the money to drop into the gutter, much to the amusement of a gentleman and a tooth-pick on the steps of the Revere House, and very much more to the amusement of another party, who chanced to know that the supposed mendicant and the man of letters had been on terms of personal intimacy these twenty years."

A CURB-STONE MONEY-MANIAC.

A man may possess large acquisitiveness and benevolence at the same time, like Sir Astley Cooper, and succeed both pecuniarily and professionally. Such are, however, scarce. Those with an excess of the grasping principle in their composition illustrate the truth that "where the treasure is the heart will be also." Asleep or awake, drunk or sober, such men never lose sight of the almighty dollar. The annexed story, though irreverent to the doctors, is not irrelevant to the case:--

During the late "panic," a fellow, whose prominent feature was in his Jewish nose, which presented the sign of acquisitiveness by the bridge widening on to the cheeks above the _alæ_,--all men noted for accumulating have this sign, hung out by nature as a warning to the unwary,--was making a great noise, as he clung to a friendly lamp-post, to which he was arguing the state of the money market. "Come, sir, you are making too much noise," said a policeman.

"Me? No, 'tain't me that's--hic--making the noise; it's the bulls--the bulls, sir; them's what's making all the noise," replied the fellow, skewing first one side of the post, then the other, trying to get a view of his new intruder.

"You are tight, sir--tight as a peep," continued the watchman.

"Me tight? No, sir; it's the money-market what's--ti--tight," replied the gentlemanly dressed individual, though much the worse for bad whiskey. "Go down Wall Street, and Fisk and Vanderbuilt--all of 'em--will tell you so. Everybody says money is--hic--tight. I never was more loose in my--hic--life;" and he demonstrated the assertion by swinging very loosely around the lamp-post, and falling down.

"There, you are down. Too drunk to stand up;" and the policeman helped him to his feet again, and walked him along towards the station.

"No, sir. There you are wrong again; it's stocks that's down. It's the stockholders--hic--that's staggering along; they've fallen and skinned their noses on the curb-stone of adversity. There! don't you see them--crawling along?"

"O, you've got the tremens. Come on," exclaimed the policeman.

"Me? No; it's the shorts and bears what's got the dol--hic--lar--tremens. I've caught the pan--hics--panics, sir; that's all."

The policeman thrust the money-maniac into a cell, and the last seen of him he leaned back against the wall, his feet braced out, while, hatless and the knot of his cravat round under his left ear, he stood arguing the money-market with an imaginary broker on the opposite side of his cell.

AN "EYE-OPENER."

"How much do you charge, sir?" asked a poor farmer, from Framingham, of a city doctor, who had just wiped a bit of dust from the eye of his son.

"Twenty-five dollars, if you please," was the modest reply.

"I cannot pay it, sir," said the poor man. "It only took you a half minute. Our doctor was not at home; but I didn't think you would charge me much, sir."

So the M. D. very benevolently (?) accepted ten dollars--all the poor man had.

Can you wonder, after reading this statement, the truth of which is easily avouched for, that this doctor owns a whole block--stores, hotel--and is immensely rich?

From the English book "About Doctors," here are three anecdotes:--

Radcliffe, the humbug, with a great effort at generosity, had refused his fees for visiting a poor friend a whole year. On making a final visit, the gentleman said, presenting a purse,--

"Doctor, here I have put aside a fee for every day's visit. Let not your goodness get the better of your judgment. Take your money."

The doctor took a look, resolved to carry out his attempt at benevolence, just touched the purse to restore it to his friend, when he heard "the chink of gold" within, and--put it into his pocket, saying,--

"Singly, I could have refused the fees for a twelvemonth, but collectively, they are irresistible. Good day, sir;" and the greedy doctor walked away with a heavier pocket and a lighter heart than he came with.

On visiting a nobleman, Sir Richard Jebb was paid in hand three guineas when he, by right, expected five. The doctor purposely dropped the three gold pieces on the carpet, when the nobleman directed the servant to find and restore them; but Sir Richard still continued the search after receiving the three coins.

"Are they not all found?" inquired the nobleman, looking about.

"No, there must be two more on the carpet, as I have only three restored," replied the wily doctor.

His lordship took the hint, and said, "Never mind; here are two others."

This sticking for a fee was all cast into the shade by the act of an "eminent physician of Bristol." The doctor, entering the bedroom immediately after the death of his patient, found the right hand clinched tightly, and, pulling open the fingers of the dead man, the doctor discovered that the hand contained a guinea.

"Ah!" exclaimed the doctor to the servant and friends around him, "this was doubtless intended for me;" and so saying he pocketed the coin.

"Three hungry travellers found a bag of gold.
One ran into the town where bread was sold.
He thought, 'I will poison the bread I buy,
And seize the treasure when my comrades die.'
But they, too, thought, when back his feet have hied,
We will destroy him, and the gold divide.
They killed him, and, partaking of the bread,
In a few moments all were lying dead.
O world, behold what ill thy goods have done!
Thy gold thus poisoned two and murdered one."

XVII.

LOVE AND LOVERS.

"No task is harder than that of writing to the ideas of
another."--JOHNSON.

_Duke._ "If ever thou shalt love,
In the sweet pangs of it, remember me;
For such as I am all true lovers are;
Unstaid and skittish in all things else,
Save in the constant image of the creature
That is beloved....
My life upon it, young as thou art, thine eye
Hath stayed upon some face that it loves;
Hath it not, boy?"

XANTIPPE, BEFORE JEALOUSY.--A FIRST LOVE--BLASTED HOPES.--A DOCTOR'S
STORY.--THE FLIGHT FROM "THE HOUNDS OF THE LAW."--THE EXILE AND
RETURN.--DISGUISED AS A PEDDLER.--ESCAPES WITH HIS LOVE.--ENGLISH
BEAUS.--YOUNG COQUETTES.--A GAY AND DANGEROUS BEAU.--HANDSOME
BEAUS.--LEAP YEAR.--AN OLD BEAU.--BEAUTY NOT ALL-POTENT.--OFFENDED
ROYALTY.--YOUTH AND AGE.--A STABLE BOY.--POET-DOCTOR.

An old lady once said, "I've hearn say that doctors either are, or are not, great experts in love affairs; I've forgotten which." Just so!

"I would not be a doctor's wife for the world," I have heard many a lady affirm. True; for few doctors have had the misfortune (or folly) to select a jealous woman for a life companion.

Socrates, the great philosopher, and physician of the mind, seems to have had the ugliest tempered woman in the world, whose very name, _Xantippe_, has passed into a proverb for a scolding wife; yet she was not jealous of her spouse, but was said to have sincerely loved him; and he bore her outbursts of temper only as a great philosopher could, which seemed not to have disturbed the equanimity of his living nor the humor of his dying.

"Crito,"--these were his last words,--"Crito, forget not the cock that I promised to Esculapius!"

Alas! an affecting satire on philosophy and physic.

No; we find no cases to record of the jealousies of physicians, or their wives. All the jealousies of the former are spent on their professional brethren.

It is a philosophical fact that physicians, of all men, seldom are involved in disgrace, quarrels, or litigations on account of love affairs. Yet they have affections, like other men, and above all men know how to appreciate affection and virtue in woman.

FIRST LOVE--BLASTED HOPES.

I know of a little episode in the early life of a doctor, whose name modesty forbids me to mention. Let me briefly state it in the first person.

Ah, friend, if you and I should meet
Beneath the boughs of the bending lime,
And you in the same low voice repeat
The tender words of the old love-rhyme,
It could not bring back the same old time--
No, never.

I was young when I first fell in love,--not above six years of age; but love is without reason, blind to age. The object of my first affection was my school-_mischief_, as I then called her, who was about twenty. The disparagement of years never entered my innocent noddle. I used to start for school a half hour before nine, and stop on the way at the squire's house, where Miss ---- boarded. O, with what joy I always met her! In summer she gave me roses from the beautiful great white rose-bushes in the squire's front yard; in autumn and winter, splendid red and green apples, from the orchard and cellar, and candy and kisses at all times. So I fell desperately in love with her.

I was greatly shocked, and not a little piqued, when one day she, in cold blood, bade me good by, and went away with a tall man, with shocking red whiskers. That is all I remember about him. I, however, mourned her loss for years, although my appetite remained unimpaired--my parents said.

"Like a still serpent, basking in the sun,
With subtle eyes, and back of russet gold,
Her gentle tones and quiet sweetness won
A coil upon her victims: fold on fold
She wove around them with her graceful wiles,
Till, serpent-like, she stung amid her smiles."

The next time I saw her was about ten years afterwards. O, with what pleasant anticipations I hastened to her house! I remembered her every look--her fair, intelligent face; her wavy black hair; her heavenly dark-blue eyes. O, I should know her anywhere! Her I never could forget.

With these thoughts I confidently knocked at the door. "Is Miss ---- at home?" I inquired of the--servant, I supposed, who opened the door. Just then three or four dirty-looking little children ran screaming after the woman, calling out, "Marm, marm!"

"Hush, children, hush!" said the female, and, turning again to me, said,--

"Whom did you inquire for?" pushing back one of the red-headed urchins.

"Miss Mary ----, ma'am," I answered. "She once lived at Blue Hill."

She gave a sickly-looking smile. She looked sick before; her cheeks all fallen in; her skimmed-milk colored eyes had a weary, anxious expression; and her thin, bony hands, resting on the door-latch, looked like a consumptive's, as she said,--

"When did you know her?"

"O, but a few years ago, ma'am. Is she here? Does she live in _this house_?" I eagerly inquired.

"Well," she replied, with another more sepulchral smile,

"I was once Miss Mary ----. I married Mr. ---- ----, over ten years ago. My baby, here,"--presenting the second in size of the children to my view, a reddish-brown haired girl, quite unlike any one I had ever seen before, and wiping its nose with her calico apron,--"she is named for me, Mary ----. Won't you come in, sir?"

No, I thought I would not stop. I didn't stop till I reached the hotel, where I had begged the stage-driver to wait for me but a half hour before, while I called upon the lovely Miss Mary ----.

"O, sunny dreams of childhood,
How soon they pass away!
Like flowers within the wild wood,
They perish and decay."

A HANDY DOCTOR.

A young physician was supposed to be "keepin' company" with a young lady. The matronly friend of the latter, having praised the young man from all points of view, returned one day from the death-bed of a friend, at which the physician had been present. She eulogized the living fully as much as the dead man, and finally turning to the girl, as if she had reached the _ne plus ultra_ of enthusiasm, she said, "Jane, he's the handsomest man I ever see fixin' round a corpse."

A DOCTOR'S STORY.

The writer is acquainted with a young physician, who read medicine with an old doctor, named Gitchel, or Twichel, of Portland, and commenced practice in his native village,--a great mistake for any practitioner to make,--and where he met with consequences natural to even a prophet, opposition and scandal. By some mistake, or, as his opponents charged, mal-practice, he lost a patient. Being, a few days later, in a shop in the next village, he was secretly informed that the "hounds of the law were after him--even at the next door, that very moment." Terrified beyond necessity, he caught up his medicine chest, and, climbing out of the back window, fled to the woods. In the village, at home, he had courted a lovely young girl, with whom he had exchanged vows. She knew the talk that was going on respecting the young doctor, but she believed it not, or, believing, clung the firmer to her pledges.

"After night fell I left the woods, and took to the highway. To go home I was afraid. O, had I but braved the doctors, and defied the lawyers, all would have been well," he told me afterwards. "But I had received such ill treatment, been scandalized so severely, that I was cowed to the earth. I knew not if my life, my Angie, had also turned against me, when the news was spread that I had tacitly admitted my crime by fleeing.

"I went to W., hundreds of miles away. I took a new name, and put out my shingle. I was at once patronized, and soon extensively; but I was morose and unhappy. I was offered a home and a wife. I had as good as a wife away in my far-off home; I was bound to her, and I _loved_ her as I _hated my own soul_! I dared not write to her, nor go to her. 'O, my God, what shall I do?' I cried, in my misery. He did not hear me, and I came to believe that _He was not_!

"Thus a whole year wore away, and I had not heard from home. Finally, I determined to make an attempt to see my Angie. I had, after going to W., allowed my heavy beard to go uncropped, which I had never done at home. I wore no clothes that I brought away with me from home. I purchased a few knickknacks, put on a slouched hat, and appeared in my native village as a peddler. Unless my voice betrayed me, I had no fears of detection. To prevent this mishap I kept a silver coin in my mouth when talking.

"I had called at several houses, but could learn nothing of my betrothed, without fear of exciting suspicion by too close inquiries. I therefore, unable longer to stand the suspense, entered her father's house. She and her mother only were at home. I could scarcely suppress my feelings as I beheld her, the idol of my heart. When I spoke, she started to her feet, and with staring countenance gazed fixedly upon me. Then she fell back into her chair.

"My God, she did not know me.

"The mother noticed how pale the girl looked, and proposed to get her a drink of water from the porch.

"'No, no, I am not faint.'

"'Yes, yes,' I articulated, with the coin in my mouth; 'get her some water.'

"Away went the old lady, and, dropping my basket and spitting out the coin, I cried, 'Angie, Angie, bless you, my darling,' and fell kneeling at her feet.

"'O, Charley, it is you,--the Lord be praised!--come at last.'

"I sprang to my feet. There was time to say no more. The mother returned and looked wistfully about.

"'I thought I heard some one saying, "Charley, Charley,"' she said, presenting the water to Angie, who was now flushed and excited. I was searching for my coin.

"'O, the water is warm. Mother, dear, do go to the well in the yard, and get some fresh; and look to see if there is anybody outside calling.' And away went the old lady.

"'Now, Charley, what brought you back? And why did you stay? And--'

"'Wait, wait. Number nine boots brought me. I've come for you, Angie.'

"'You will be arrested if you are seen here, I am afraid,' she said.

"'Then meet me to-night at ---- Crossing, and fly with me.'

"I then told her how I had lived, how I had suffered, and how much I loved her; and she consented to marry me, and secretly go away with me. But the difficulty now lay in getting a lawful man to marry us. The license could be bought; I was certain of that. So I went away and obtained it. I next hired a horse and carriage, and paid for it in advance, to go twelve miles.

"'Aren't you Charley ----?' asked the stable man, eying me sharply, as I was about to drive away to get Angie, that night.

"'Take this,'--and I gave him a gold piece,--'and ask no questions, nor answer any, till you see your horse and carriage safely back,' was my reply.

"As we drove out of the village, I heard wagon wheels far behind us. Reaching the woods, I drove into a wood road, and the 'hounds of the ---- doctors' rode fiercely past. Angie trembled for my safety. I reached a cross road. The moon shone quite brightly, and, jumping from the buggy, I soon found, by the fresh track, which road they had taken. I took a different. So I reached a train that night, and rode till morning; arrived at W. the next, and was married."

It was at W. that I found him first. He was smart. He had a good memory. He was a handsome man, full six feet in his stockings. In all, his address was not excelled by any physician with whom I have ever met. He is now an excellent physician and surgeon, in a large city, in good practice. When he returned on a visit to his native village, as he did last year, the affair had blown over; for after a man is honored abroad, he may become so at home,--seldom before. I wish him happiness and prosperity.

"There is no greater rogue than he who marries only for money; no greater fool than he who marries only for love. I could marry any lady I like, if I would only take the trouble," Dr. Macilvain heard an old fellow say. Of course, nobody but a conceited old bachelor would have said that, who needs a woman to just take some of the self-conceit out of him.

ENGLISH DOCTORS AS BEAUS.

Some of the old English doctors were gay fellows amongst the ladies, according to the best authorities. Nevertheless, few men have arrived at eminence in the medical profession who were known to be afflicted with an overplus of romantic or sentimental qualities in their composition.

It may be interesting, particularly to ladies, to know that the majority of those physicians who have arrived at the dignity of knighthood owe their elevation rather to the smiles of love than the rewards of professional efforts. "Considering the opportunities that medical men have for pressing a suit in love, and the many temptations to gentle emotion that they experience in the aspect of female suffering, and the confiding gratitude of their fair patients, it is to be wondered at that only one medical duke is to be found in the annals of the peerage." But the physician usually has quite sufficient self-control and honor about him, not only to keep his own tender sensibilities in subjection, but often to check those of his grateful and emotional female patient.

Thackeray has said that "girls of rank make love in the nursery, and practise the arts of coquetry upon the page boy who brings up the coals and kindlings."

In this connection Mr. Jeaffreson, whose narratives have the virtue of being true as well as interesting, says, "I could point to a fair matron who now enjoys rank and wealth among the highest, who not only aimed tender glances, and sighed amorously upon a young, waxen-faced, blue-eyed apothecary, but even went so far as to write him a letter proposing an elopement, and other merry arrangements, in which a 'carriage and four,' to speed them over the country, bore a conspicuous part."

The "silly maiden" had, like Dinah, a "fortune in silver and gold," of about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and her tall, blue-eyed Adonis, to whom she made this _almost_ resistless proposal, was twice her age. But he was a gentleman of honor, and, being in the confidence of the family, he generously, without divulging the mad proposition of the fair young lady, induced the father to take her to the continent, for a twelvemonth's change of air and scenery.

"What a cold-blooded wretch!" will some fair reader exclaim.

"What a fool he was, to be sure!" says the bachelor fortune-seeker.

Well, she didn't die for her first unrequited love, but married a "very great man," and became the mother of several children. And this is the way the fair heroine of this little story avenged herself upon this "Joseph amongst doctors."

Very recently she manifested her good will to the man who had offered her what is generally regarded as the greatest insult a woman can experience, by procuring a commission in the army for his eldest son.

It is interesting to note the various qualities which have attracted the attention, or love, of different sons of Æsculapius to female beauties. Sometimes it has been her hair, the "pride of a woman," that was the point of attraction, as it was with Dr. Mead, "whose highest delight was to comb the luxuriant tresses of the lady on whom he lavished his affections;" or the "eyes of heavenly blue," like the lady love's of Dr. Elliot, senior; or the tiny footprint in the sand, like that which first attracted Dr. Robert Ames to the woman of his choice. What the point of attraction was in the man is not easily ascertained.

A gay and dangerous beau among the "high ladies" was Dr. Hugh Smithson, the father of James Smithson (his illegitimate son), the founder of the "Smithsonian Institution" at Washington. Sir Hugh's forte lay in his remarkably handsome person, said to be only second to Sir Astley Cooper in beauty of form and features. However, he had the address which secured to him one of the handsomest and proudest heiresses of England, and this is how he accomplished it.

He was but the grandson of a Yorkshire baronet, "with no prospects," and was apprenticed to an apothecary, and for a long time paid court to mortar and pestle at Hutton Garden. The story runs, that the handsome doctor had been mittened by a "belle of private rank and modest wealth," and that the only child and heiress of Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and an acquaintance of Sir Hugh's, heard of his rejection, when she publicly observed that "the beauty who had disdained such a man was guilty of a folly that no other woman in England would have been."

Sir Hugh would have been unwise not to have taken this broad hint, and he did what none of the heiress's suitors, even of high rank, had yet aspired to,--proposed, and was accepted. Sixteen years later he was created Duke of Northumberland, and could well afford to laugh in his sleeve at the proposition that "his coronet should be surrounded with _senna_ leaves, instead of strawberry," since he had reached a rank that no other M. D. had previously done, and possessed the "_loveliest woman in England_," and a great fortune, to boot.

Lord Glenbervie, who from the druggist's counter reached the peerage, was taunted by Sheridan with his plebeian origin, from which a patrician wife had redeemed him, in the following amusing verse:--

"Glenbervie, Glenbervie!
What's good for the scurvy?
But why is the doctor forgot?
In his arms he should quarter
A pestle and mortar,
For his crest an immense gallipot."

Sir John Elliot was another handsome doctor of that period, who, notwithstanding his being disliked by King George, could, with small effort and large impudence, "capture the hearts of half the prettiest women amongst the king's subjects, and then shrug his shoulders with chagrin at his success." "One lady, the daughter of a nobleman, ignorant that he was otherwise occupied, made him an offer, and on learning, to her surprise and mortification, that he was already married, vowed she would not rest till she had assassinated his wife."

Dr. Arbuthnot, whose courtly address, sparkling wit, ready flow of language, innate cordiality, and polished manners made him a great favorite about London, was one of the finest looking gentlemen of his time. The doctor was contemporary with Dean Swift, with whom he used to enjoy flirtations with the queen's maids of honor about St. James.

"Arm in arm with the dean, he used to peer about St. James, jesting, laughing, causing matronly dowagers to smile at 'that dear Mr. Dean,' and young girls, out for their first season at court, green and unsophisticated, to blush with annoyance at his coarse, shameless badinage,--bowing to this great man, from whom he hoped for countenance; staring insolently at that one, from whom he expected nothing; quoting Martial to the prelate, who could not understand Latin; whispering French to a youthful diplomatist, who knew no tongue but English; and continually angling for the bishopric, which he never got."

From flattering court beauties, Arbuthnot became flatterer to the gouty, hypochondriacal old queen. But wine and women made sad havoc with poor Arbuthnot, who died in very straitened circumstances.

Dr. Mead, before mentioned, was twice married. He was fifty-one years old when married the second time, to a baronet's daughter. Fortunate beyond fortunate men, he had the great _mis_-fortune of outliving his usefulness. His sight failed, and his powers underwent that gradual decay which is the saddest of all possible conclusions to a vigorous and dignified existence. Even his valets domineered over him. Long before this his second childhood, he excited the ridicule of the town by his vanity and absurd pretensions as a "lady-killer."

"The extravagances of his amorous senility were not only whispered about, but some contemptible fellow seized upon the unpleasant rumors, and published them in a scandalous novelette, wherein the doctor was represented as a 'Cornuter of seventy-five,' when, to please the damsel who 'warmed his aged heart,'--she was a blacksmith's daughter,--the doctor, long past threescore and ten, went to Paris, and learned to dance."

Dr. Richard Mead died aged eighty-one. The sale of his library, pictures, and statues brought the heirs eighty thousand dollars. His other effects amounted to one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.

Another Dr. Mead, uncle to the above, lived to the age of one hundred and forty-nine years. Both of these physicians were remarkable for their kindness and liberality. The latter left five pounds a year to the poor, to continue forever.

BEAUTY NOT POTENT WITH LADIES.

A handsome person is not alone requisite to win the affections of a sensible lady. Radcliffe, who was as great a humbug in affairs matrimonial as in all other matters, was represented as being "handsome and imposing in person;" but his overbearing manner, and his coarse flings at the softer sex, made him anything but a favorite with the ladies. While he professed to be a misogynist, he made several unsuccessful attempts, particularly late in life, to commit himself to matrimony.

A lady, with "a singing noise in her head," asked what she should do for it. "Curl your hair at night with a ballad," was the coarse reply.

Once, when sitting over a bottle of wine at a public house, Queen Anne sent her servant for Dr. Radcliffe to hasten to her Royal Highness, who was taken suddenly ill with what was vulgarly called "the blue devils," to which gormandizers are subject, but more properly termed indigestion. "When the wine is in, the wits are out," was readily demonstrated in this case; for, on a second messenger arriving from the queen for her physician to make all haste, Radcliffe banged his fist down on the board, at which other physicians also sat, and exclaimed,--

"Go tell her Royal Highness that she has nothing but the vapors."

When, on the following morning, the process being reversed,--the "wine was out, and wits were in"--the doctor presented himself, with pomp and a show of dignity, at St. James', judge of his mortification, when the chamberlain stopped him in the anteroom, and informed him that he was already succeeded by Dr. Gibbons.

The queen never forgave him for saying she had the "vapors." Radcliffe never forgave Dr. Gibbons for superseding him. "Nurse Gibbons," he would bitterly exclaim, "is only fit to look after nervous women, who only fancy sickness."

When the doctor was forty-three years of age, he made love to a lady of half his years, and followed with an offer of marriage, which was accepted. As the fact became public, the doctor was warmly congratulated upon his good fortune, for the lady was not only young, but was a beauty, and an heiress to seventy-five thousand dollars.

The wedding day was set, which was to crown Radcliffe's happiness, when a little drawback arose, which was not previously mentioned in the bills. The peculiar condition of the beauty's health rendered it expedient that, instead of the doctor, she should marry her father's book-keeper.

The doctor's acetous temper towards the fair sex was not lessened by this mishap, nor were the ladies backward in giving him an occasional reminder of the fact. Nevertheless, unlike the burnt child, that avoided the fire, Radcliffe, sixteen years afterwards, made a second conspicuous throw of the dice. He was then about sixty. He came out with a new and elegant equipage, employed the most fashionable tailors, hatters, and wig-makers, "who arrayed him in the newest modes of foppery, which threw all London into fits of laughter, while he paid his addresses, with the greatest possible publicity, to a lady who possessed every requisite charm,--youth, beauty, and wealth,--except a tenderness for her aged suitor.

"Behold, love has taken the place of avarice [the affair was thus aired in a public print]; "or, rather, is become avarice of another kind, which still urges him to pursue what he does not want. But behold the metamorphosis! The anxious, mean cares of a usurer are turned into the languishments and complaints of a lover. 'Behold,' says the aged Æsculapian, 'I submit; I own, great Love, thy empire. Pity, Hebe, the fop you have made. What have I to do with gilding but on pills? Yet, O Fate, for thee I sit amidst a crowd of painted deities on my chariot, buttoned in gold, clasped in gold, without having any value for that beloved metal, but as it adorns the hat, person, and laces of the dying lover. I ask not to live, O Hebe! Give me gentle death. Euthanasia, Euthanasia! That is all I implore.'

"O Wealth, how impotent art thou, and how little dost thou supply us with real happiness, when the usurer himself cannot forget thee for the love of what is foreign to his felicity, as thou art!"

Although Radcliffe denied his own sisters during his life, "lest they should show their affection for him by dipping their hands in his pockets," some stories of his benevolence are told, one of which is, that finding one Dr. James Drake, when "each had done the utmost to injure the other," broken down and in distressed circumstances, he sent by a lady fifty guineas to his unfortunate enemy, saying,--

"Let him by no means learn who sent it. He is a gentleman who has often done his best to hurt me, and would by no means accept a benefit from one whom he had striven to make an enemy."

A STABLE-BOY, POET, AND DOCTOR.

Poor George Crabbe, the poet-doctor-apothecary, had a very hard time in this cold, unappreciative world, until Love smiled upon his unhappy lot. He was born in the old sea-side town of Aldoborough, where his father was salt inspector,--not an over-lucrative office in those days. George was the eldest of a numerous family.

From the common school he went to apprenticeship with a rough old country doctor, who lodged him with the stable-boy. From this indignity he was, however, soon released, and went to live with a kind gentleman, a surgeon of Woodbridge. Here he began to write poetry. Here, also, he became acquainted with a young surgeon, named Leavett, who introduced Crabbe to a lovely young lady, with whom he fell desperately in love.

This inestimable young lady resided at Parham Lodge with her uncle, John Tovell, yeoman, and her name was Sarah Elmy. Mr. Tovell possessed an estate worth four thousand dollars per annum, and, without assuming any "airs," was a first-class "yeoman" of that period--"one that already began to be styled, by courtesy, an esquire."

"On Crabbe's first introduction to Parham Lodge, he was received with cordiality; but when it became known that he had fallen in love with the squire's niece, it was only natural that his presumption should at first meet with the disapproval of Mrs. Tovell and the squire."

After closing his term of apprenticeship with Dr. Page, young Crabbe returned to his native village, where he furnished a little shop with "a pound's worth of drugs," and an array of empty bottles, and set himself up as an apothecary. His few patients were only amongst the poorer class of the town. Although he had plighted troth with the lovely Sarah at Parham Lodge, with starvation staring him in the face at Aldoborough, and the opposition of the lady's family at the Lodge, there was little prospect of bettering his condition in life. The temporary military appointments which he received brought him no nearer his desired object. The lady remained true to her vows; and long after his friend Leavett had quitted the shores of time, and his new and true friend Burke had extended to the promising author his patronage, she received the reward for her faithful waiting.

The union of Crabbe with Miss Elmy conferred eventually upon the poet, doctor, and apothecary, the possession of the estate of "yeoman" Tovell--Parham Lodge. A maiden sister of the squire's, dying, left him a considerable sum of money. The loving, waiting Sarah proved a faithful, though some might say a somewhat domineering, wife, as the following quotation intimates:--

"I can screw Crabbe up or down, just like an old fiddle," this amiable woman was wont to say; and throughout her life she amply demonstrated the assertion.

"But her last will and testament was a handsome apology for all her past little tiffs."

THE RIGHT MAN.

A curious story is told, and vouched for, respecting the manner in which Dr. and Rev. Thomas Dawson obtained a rich and pious wife. This gentleman combined the two professions of preacher and doctor. If, during divine services, he was called upon to prescribe for an invalid, he wound up his sermon, requested his audience to pray for the sick, and repaired forthwith to administer to the body. I presume the congregation to whom the reasonable request was made did not take it in the same light as did an "M. D." of whom we heard, who made a point to be called out of church every Sabbath.

Once the minister, who had a bit of humor in his manner, stopped on a certain occasion in his "thirdly," and said, "Dr. B. is wanted to attend upon Mr. ----, and may the Lord have mercy upon him."

The doctor was so enraged at this "insinuation" that he called upon the parson, and demanded an "apology to the congregation, before whom he felt he had been grossly slandered."

The parson agreed to this proposal, and in the afternoon he arose and said,--

"As Dr. B. feels aggrieved at my remark of this morning, and demands an apology, I hereby offer the same; and as that was the first case, I trust it may be the last in which I am ever called upon in his behalf to supplicate divine intervention."

But to return to Dr. Dawson. Amongst his patients was a Miss Mary Corbett, said to be one of the wealthiest and most pious of his flock, whom, on his calling upon her one day, he found bending in reverence over the Bible.

The doctor approached, and as she raised her eyes to his she held her finger upon the passage which occupied her immediate attention. The doctor bent down and read the words at which her finger pointed--"Thou art the man."

The doctor was not slow to take the hint. Thus he obtained a pious wife, she a devout husband.--_See "Book About Doctors."_

A great deal has been reported respecting the "off-hand" manner in which Abernethy "popped the question" to Miss Anne Threlfall. The fact of the case is given by Dr. Macilwain. The lady was visiting at a place where the doctor was attending a patient--of all places the best to learn the true merits of a lady. He was at once interested in her, and ere long there seemed a tacit understanding between them. "The doctor was shy and sensitive; which was the real Rubicon he felt a difficulty in passing; and this was the method he adopted: he wrote her a brief note, pleading professional occupation, etc., and requesting the lady to take a fortnight in which to consider her reply." From these facts a great falsehood has oft been repeated how he "couldn't afford time to make love," etc., and that she must decide to marry him in a week, or not at all.

He was married to her January 9, 1800, and attended lectures the same day.

"Many years after, I met him coming out of the hospital, and said,--

"'You are looking very gay to-day, sir.'

"'Yes,' he replied, looking at his white vest and smart attire, 'one of the girls was married this morning.'

"'Indeed, sir? You should have given yourself a holiday on such an occasion, and not come down to lecture.'

"'Nay,' he replied, 'egad, I came down to lecture the same day I was married myself.'"--_Memoirs of Abernethy._

XVIII.

MIND AND MATTER.

"The evidence of sense is the first and highest kind of evidence of
which human nature is capable."--WILKINS.

"They choose darkness rather than light because their deeds are
evil."--SCRIPTURE.

IN WHICH ANIMAL MAGNETISM, MESMERISM, AND CLAIRVOYANCE ARE
EXPLAINED.--"THE IGNORANT MONOPOLY."--YET ROOM FOR DISCOVERIES.--A
"GASSY" SUBJECT.--DRS. CHAPIN AND BEECHER.--HE "CAN'T SEE IT."--THE
ROYAL TOUCH.--GASSNER.--"THE DEVIL KNOWS LATIN."--ROYALTY IN THE
SHADE.--THE IRISH PROPHET; HE VISITS LONDON.--A COMICAL
CROWD.--MESMERISM.--A FUNNY BED-FELLOW.--CLAIRVOYANCE.--THE GATES OF
MOSCOW.--THE DOCTOR OF ANTWERP.--THE OLD LADY IN THE
POKE-BONNET.--VISIT TO A CLAIRVOYANT.--"FORETELLING" THE PAST.--THE
OLD WOMAN OF THE PENOBSCOT MOUNTAINS.--A SECRET KEPT.--CUI
BONO?--VISITS TO SEVENTEEN CLAIRVOYANTS.--A BON-TON CLAIRVOYANT.--A
BOUNCER.--RIDICULOSITY.

Mind and matter!

What is the connection?

Why does one's yawning set a whole room full to yawning?

What is the unseen power, appropriated mostly by the ignorant, which at times controls another weaker mind, or, for the time being, controls disease? The majority of medical men "get around" this question by denying the whole proposition. But that does not satisfy the jury--the people. The great community know that there is some unseen power, which is partially developed in certain persons, which has great controlling influence over certain other persons; hence over their diseases, especially mental or nervous diseases.

I hope to be able to explain something of this "phenomenon."

Those who practise it know nothing of its _modus operandi_, any more than the bird that sings on yonder willow knows of the science of music.

To the common suggestion, "It's spirits," I say, No, _no_!

If it were "spirits," why does the spirit always seek a _low organization_ through which to manifest itself? There are few exceptions to this rule.

It is unnatural, inconsistent with the divine attributes for the supernatural to mingle with the natural. The circulation of the blood was once attributed to the action of the sun--hence a man fell asleep at sunset--and to supernatural causes.

Science has done away with these absurd notions.

"It is a manifestation of divine power," say others.

Well, for that matter, everything is; but _directly_ it is not, for what answers the "spirit" suggestion answers this one also. Divine power cannot be limited.

For want of a better name, let us call this power "animal magnetism."

The man who controls the mind of another, or another's disease, through his mind, must possess the following requisites: First, health; second, will; third, faith that he can control the subject. No _reasoning_ is necessary. The less causality he possesses, the better. The less reasoning faculties, the better he can perform.

Why?

Animal magnetism is an animal power--not a spiritual. All the animal qualities--organs--are located in the back and lower part of the brain. They act independent of reason. Passions have no reason. The affections have no reason. Anger and hate have none. The force, driving power of man is centred back of the ears. The cerebellum, or lower brain, acts independent of reason. Birds, and most of the animals, possess all the qualities that the cerebellum of man contains.

The upper brain--the cerebrum--is the instrument of our thoughts--our reason. In sleep, it is still; its action is suspended. Hence there is no reason in our dreams. The motive power is in the lower brain; hence somnambulism. If there is anything of a "trance" nature, it means shutting off the action of the cerebrum, and concentring the power in the cerebellum. Some persons have but little upper brain. If they have the other requisites, they may become good clairvoyants, or magnetizers, according to the manner in which they exercise the animal power.

I have yet to find a professional clairvoyant with large or active reasoning (intellectual) qualities.

YET ROOM FOR MORE DISCOVERIES.

The _living_ blood has not yet been analyzed. It contains a vitalizing element which chemistry has not yet been adequate to detect. There is yet as much to be discovered in the science of life as has already been revealed to man. It will yet be found out.

How is the power, or force, conveyed from the operator to the person operated upon? Through what medium does it act?

Let us begin with the brain. Let us take a ball of cotton for our illustration. We draw out a piece from it, and spin it out to our fancy. It is a thread, but _cotton_ still, twisted to a fine string. The brain is located at the top of man. By means of fine threads, called nerves, the brain is distributed over the entire body, so completely that you cannot stick a pin in the flesh without touching a nerve, wounding the brain. Suspend the entire action of the brain, as by ether, chloroform, or nitrous oxygen gas, and sticking the pin is not felt. Partially suspend the action, as by a small quantity of the nitrous oxygen gas, and the force of the brain (or active force) is centred upon the lower brain, and the man under its influence acts out his animal nature in spite of reason.

A man, I hold, who magnetizes or mesmerizes another, uses only the force of the lower brain. Like begets like. He cannot affect a person of large intellectual organs; only one with the animal organs active.

You cannot _see_ the gas, yet it affects the person. You cannot see the subtile power conveyed from one man to a weaker. He conveys it by touch--nerve to nerve. I believe science will yet discover just what this subtile agent is--both in the blood and nerves; for it is in both, or why does the suspension of it in one destroy the other? Destroy the nerve, and the corresponding blood-vessel is inactive. Destroy the blood-vessel, and the corresponding nerve suffers.

It is the power that the mother exercises to hush her sobbing babe to slumber. As the child gathers strength of mind, she loses that control. A person may be used as a mesmeric subject until he becomes a mere idiotic machine. Educate a clairvoyant doctor, and what becomes of his clairvoyant power? It is lost with the increase of intellectual power. Now, is this a "divine" quality, that only ignorance can make use of? Is it really "hidden from the wise and prudent, and given to babes?" All sciences were practised by the uneducated first, before being reduced to a _science_. I think this will be yet reduced to a useful science. As it now stands, it is useless. If it is a spirit power, the spirits are mighty silent as to the fact.

We come into this world by natural causes. We live, grow, exist, and we die by natural causes. We brought no knowledge with us; we carry none out. All the qualities yet developed in man are natural, and adapted to this life. Millions upon millions have so lived and so died, and a spirit power in _this_ world is no nearer to being established than it was when Adam was a little boy. All that heretofore has been attributed to spirit, or supernatural causes, has been proven to be but natural. I claim that magnetism and the undiscovered sciences are natural, and have no connection with the next world, to which we tend. The human eye, to some extent, is magnetic. A blind man cannot thrill an audience; hardly can an orator with glasses over his eyes. Dr. Chapin approaches the nearest to it. Dr. Beecher's great magnetic power is in his eyes, and is also let off at the ends of his fingers. But to _thoroughly_ magnetize a person, he must be _touched_.

POWER OF THE HUMAN EYE.

A wild animal has only small reasoning organs. The influence of the human eye is potent over him. Lichtenstein says, "The African hunters avail themselves of the circumstance that the lion does not attempt to spring upon his prey until he has measured the ground, and has reached the distance of ten or twelve paces, when he lies crouching on the ground, gathering himself up for the effort. The hunters," he says, "make it a rule never to fire on the lion until he lies down at this short distance, so that they can aim directly at his head with the most perfect certainty. If one meets a lion, his only safety is to stand still, though the animal crouches to make his spring; that spring will not be hazarded if the man remain motionless, and look him steadfastly in the eyes. The animal hesitates, rises, slowly retreats some steps, looks earnestly about him, lies down, again retreats, till, getting by degrees quite out of the magic circle of man's influence, he takes flight in the utmost haste."

It is said of Valentine Greatrakes, the great magnetizer and forerunner of Mesmer, that the glance of his eye had a marvellously fascinating influence upon people of a susceptible or nervous organization. All magnetizers, etc., who have tried their powers upon the writer, first bent a sharp, scrutinizing gaze upon the eye of their unruly subject. Yet they have exercised no _reason_ in selecting the subject.

I attended the exhibitions of Professor Cadwell, night after night, in Boston. I went on the stage. I examined the subjects whom he controlled "like an old fiddle," and, physiognomically and phrenologically, not one of them was above mediocrity intellectually, and the most of them were far below. The best subjects had the least intellectuality. His control over them was astonishing. In some he could suspend the power of memory, others all the reasoning faculties. Some he could control muscularly, some mentally.

"This is a hot stove," he said, setting an empty chair before the row of men, boys, and girls sitting along the wall side of the stage. "_It is very hot_;" and they began drawing back--all but one. "Don't you see the stove, and feel the awful heat, Frank?" he asked of one hard subject.

"I can feel the heat, but I can't see the stove in that chair," was his droll reply.

The professor could make this gentleman forget his name, but could not make him believe that "a silk hat was a basin of water."

THE ROYAL TOUCH.

The old ignorant kings and queens were said to remove the scrofula (king's evil) by the touch. Gouty old Queen Anne was the last to exercise the royal prerogative to any extent.

A scrofulous _development_ is the result of imperfect action, and obstruction of some one or more of the five excretory organs of the human system. These are the skin (or glands of the same), the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, and the colon. The most that the regular physician does in scrofula (or one who is not a specialist in this branch of physic) is to attend to the general health of the patient of a scrofulous diathesis, build up the strength, and endeavor to increase the vitality. This _in a measure_ tends to reduce the scrofulous development. Now, will not a child sleeping continually with an aged person or invalid tend to reduce the vitality of the child? Yes, it absorbs the disease of the one, while the vitality is thrown off for the benefit of the weaker person. Here, you see, one person may partake of the vitality of another by touch. Then may not the continued touch of a healthy person (king or subject) affect the health of a weaker, on the principle of increased vitality?

But it really removes no cause, hence cannot take the place of an alterative, or anti-scrofulous medicine. The "crew of wretched souls" who waited the king's touch really believed that he "solicits Heaven." Hence the cure. The coin which he hung about the neck of these "strangely visited people, all swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye," called their attention continually to "the healing benediction."

Pyrrhus, who was placed upon the throne by force of arms B. C. 306, was said to cure the "evil" by the "grace of God." Valentine, who only held his throne--A. D. 375--by the help of Theodosius, not by the "grace of God"--claimed to cure scrofula by the latter power, as did Valentine II., whose wicked temper ended his life in a "fit of passion."

The subject of the following sketch claimed also divine power:--

HERR GASSNER. "THE DEVIL UNDERSTANDS LATIN."

It seems from the following truthful account of Herr Gassner, a clergyman at Elwangen, that the devil can understand Latin, as well as "quote Scripture." About the year 1758 this clergyman became so celebrated in curing diseases by animal magnetism, that the people came flocking from Switzerland, the Tyrol, and Swabia, in great numbers, to be cured of all sorts of ailments, a thousand persons arriving at a time, who had to lodge in tents, as the town could not lodge them all.

His _modus operandi_ was as follows. Dressed in a long scarlet cloak, a silken sash about his loins, a chain about his neck, and wearing, or holding in one hand, a crucifix, and touching with the other the diseased part, and in the Latin tongue commanding the disease, or the evil spirit, whichever the case was termed, to depart, in the name of Jesus Christ, the patient was usually healed. Dr. Schlisel says, that Gassner "spoke chiefly in Latin, in his operations, and the devil is said to have understood him perfectly."

The Austrian government gave him its assistance. The excitement became great. Elwangen was overcrowded by people, rich and poor. Riches flowed into the coffers of its trades-people, though Gassner took nothing directly for his cures. Hundreds of patients arrived daily; the apothecary gained a great revenue from dispensing simples ordered by Gassner, principally powder of _blessed thistle_, oils, and washes. The printers labored day and night at their presses in order to furnish sufficient pamphlets, prayers, pictures, etc., for the eager horde of admirers. The goldsmiths were crowded, also, to furnish all kinds of _Agni Dei_, crosses, charms, hearts, and rings. Even the beggars had their harvest, as well as bakers, hotel-keepers, and the rest.

During seven years he carried on his public cures. Hundreds of physicians went to see him. Mesmer, in answer to the inquiry of the Elector of Bavaria, declared his astonishing cures were produced merely by the exercise of magnetic spiritual excitement, of which he himself (claiming no God-like power) gave to the elector convincing proofs on the spot.

On the contrary, Gassner claimed that he could heal none unless they exercised faith. His surroundings, trappings, dress, crucifixes, appeals to Jesus Christ, and Latin mummery, had the effect to impress the patient with faith in Gassner's Christ-like powers.

"Some," says Dr. Schlisel, "described him as a prophetic and holy man; others accused him of being a fantastic fellow, an impostor, and leagued with the devil. Some accused him of dealing in the black art; others attributed his cures to the magnet, to electricity, to sympathy, to imagination; and some attributed the whole to the omnipotent power of the name of Christ."

Having touched or rubbed the affected part of the patient, Gassner, in a "loud, proud voice," commanded the disease to come forth, or to manifest itself. Sometimes he had to repeat this command ten times. Then, when the part was presented, he seized it with both hands; he inspired the patient to himself repel the disease, by saying, "Depart from me, in the name of Jesus Christ."

"He then gave the patient his blessing by spreading his cloak over the head, grasping his neck or head in both hands, repeating a silent, earnest prayer, making the sign of the cross, ordering some simple from the apothecary's, which he consecrates, compels the patient to wash his hands clean, when he is permitted to 'depart in peace.'

"Most diseases he cured instantly. Some required months, and others he could not affect in the least."

There is but one philosophical way to account for these cures. To say there is nothing in it, or, "It is all humbug," will not satisfy the people. To affirm it is the arts of the devil is merely nonsensical. It is _influence_. Of what? Of one powerful mind over another. And when Gassner found a mind equally as powerful as his own, the disease refused to depart. There you have the whole of it, "in a nutshell,"--the exercising of one mind over another; and mind (not unusually) controls matter in the living body.

For about seven years Gassner was a public healer, and then he suddenly and forever disappeared.

ROYALTY IN THE SHADE.

Sir John Fortesque, the learned legal writer of the time of Edward IV., spoke of the gift of healing by touch as a "time immemorial privilege of the kings of England." He very seriously attributed the virtue to the unction imparted to the hands in the coronation. Elizabeth was not superior to this superstition, and she frequently appeared before the people in the character of a miraculous healer. There was formerly a regular office in the English Book of Common Prayer for the performance of this ceremony. The curious reader is referred to Macbeth, Scene III. of