"Let me see my patient, sir, by fair means, in the ordinary way," cried I, "and my utmost exertions will evince the sincerity of my pro fessional zeal." "Instead of replying, the old man clapped his hands so eagerly that I concluded my terms were about to be complied with. The venerable servant instantly reappeared. "Conduct this gentleman to the stables," said he; "the chariot will instantly convey him as speedily as possible back to town. Do me the justice to accept this remuneration for your visit," concluded he, forcing five guineas into my hand. My young friend cannot drive you home again, as he must instantly seek the services of some more accommodating medical attendant." 66 "Some signal may have passed at the same time between the master and his attendant, for I was, I adınit, so nettled at his imperious mode of dismissing me, that I followed the domestic rapidly out of the room, with the expectation of being recalled ere I reached the carriage. As I traversed the vestibule I determined to demand an interview with the young man who had escorted me down. But scarcely had I stepped upon the gravel of the entrance-drive, when, turning to signify my wishes to my companion, I found myself alone. The house-door had suddenly closed upon me, and all was darkness. It was not difficult to retrace the few steps I had advanced from the door, but having regained it, what did I obtain? There was neither bell nor knocker. All that met my hands amid the darkness of the night was the cold bronze of the knob-nailed portal; to make myself heard through which was as if to knock at the tomb of the Capulets. Beyond, on either side, extended only the rugged fragments of rockwork forming the wall of this mysterious habitation, along which I crossed, first to the right then to the left, till they became unapproachable behind the thorny holly-branches of the shubbery. Not a window, not a loophole,-not a means of ingress in any direction. The only objects I encountered in my researches were the clammy, bloated leaves of the cacti and other trailing plants, which, moistened with dew, revolted the touch like the slimy skin of some noisome, crawling rep tile. Having wasted more than an hour in infructuous attempts to reenter the house, make myself heard by the inmates, or reach the stables, a drizzling rain began to fall, and as not a vestige of shelter presented itself, it suddenly occurred to me to approach the gate and clamour at the house-bell till I obtained admittance. The gate it was easy to make out, but neither bell nor bell-wire could I find. Either they had been purposely removed, or the bell rung on our arrival by my companion was suspended to some lofty tree. I might as well have attempted to force my way into a fortress, as into this abominable villa.' "You were, in short, a solitary prisoner, between the garden paling and an impervious wall, exposed to a soaking rain. What a persecu tion !" "But as if all this, madam, did not suffice, while endeavouring to find the bell I was startled by a low growl proceeding from the neighbouring bushes, and on renewing my attempts, two house-dogs of colossal size, came prowling about my legs, resisting with surly defiance all attempts at conciliation, by hand or voice, in a manner which persons conversant with the demonstrations of canine nature hold far more alarming than a snarl. "In a fit of desperation I now snatched at the handle of the gate, when, to my utter amazement, the latch yielded. Without hesitation I rushed forth. The gate closed behind me with a snap; and finding myself in a lane, and secure at least from the attacks of the gaunt guardians of this trap-hole of a villa, I determined to walk on briskly towards the nearest habitation (which as far as I could remember was a small alehouse by the road-side, about a quarter of a mile distant) whence I might despatch a person in quest of a vehicle to take me back, or at all events satisfy my curiosity concerning the originators of the extraordinary hoax of which I was the victim. Before I attained the spot, however, I became perplexed by a turning, and taking the way I flattered myself led to the London road (my hat being slouched over my eyes, and my collar drawn up to my ears as a shelter against the rain), I trudged onwards along a raised causeway, which gradually sank into the road, and became miry almost as a quagmire. Another moment and I found my feet actually in the water,—a step further, I should have been floating in the cold, dark waters of the Thames. “I had attained the river it seemed at a spot used a sa watering-place for cattle; overhung by the straggling branches of a broken old willow-tree; a most unsafe place for foot-travellers on a starless night. All I had now to do, was to retrace my steps towards the cross-road, on reaching which, I suffered myself to be again puzzled, again misled. To find the well-remembered public-house, baffled in short all my attempts! I passed the gates of several market-gardens, in which there were habitations. But at these in succession I rang in vain. The first light I discerned after quitting the hateful villa, was— "I have "But I humbly entreat your ladyship's pardon," cried Sir Jedediah, interrupting himself, as he glanced at the timepiece. intruded on your ladyship's time far beyond any reasonable hour of retiring to rest. In the engrossment of my egotism, I forgot that I am addressing an invalid, of whose ailments I have not been as yet enabled to form a definite idea. You will, perhaps, permit me to consider this a friendly visit, and return to-morrow afternoon, for a professional investigation of your symptoms? Meanwhile, I rejoice to perceive a sensible diminution of the languor I noticed in your ladyship's appearance on my first entrance. There is a slight effusion of colour on your ladyship's cheek, and your eyes are brightened, at this moment, by a degree of animation, denoting, perhaps, feverish excitement, but which might be mistaken for the looks of a young person in perfect health." My spirits have been indeed lightened of a heavy load this evening," said I, ashamed to own how deeply I was interested in his narrative; and how gladly I would have sat up till one in the morning to listen to its conclusion. "It is perhaps owing to the slight stream of air you introduced into the room by opening the window, that I have been thus relieved. I am apt to confine myself to too stagnant an atmosphere." "On that point, with your ladyship's leave, we will decide to-morrow," said he, rising to take leave, after politely declining the offered fee. "And on the morrow," cried I, in my turn, almost as much interested as Lady Anne had been herself in the first instance, to hear the conclusion of Sir Jedediah's strange adventure; "what did he suggest? and above all, what more did you learn of the extraordinary people and place with whom he had been thus singularly brought into collision ?" "That secret constitutes a main portion of Sir Jedediah's professional Arcana," said Lady Anne, with a provoking smile. "If you also are suffering from that worst of nervous disorders called ennui, you have no right to pretend to be cured gratis. Come here to-morrow at one o'clock, and meet my incomparable doctor; you shall then, if you think proper, learn from his own lips the conclusion of his story. No one but himself can do justice to the adventure." This was provoking enough, for I could only understand my fair cousin's refusal as a hint for dismission; and so excited were my feelings by all I had heard, and the expressive brilliancy of her countenance animated by the interest of the moment, that I would fain have listened for hours. But the waxlights were burning low, and even Flora got up and stretched herself, as though to remind me that the hour of rest for man and beast was at hand. "One word more, lady fair," said I, as I prepared to take leave. "Did the patient so mysteriously concealed from Sir Jedediah, turn out to be " "Ask him yourself," cried Lady Anne, extending her delicate forefinger towards me to be shaken. "Meanwhile, from the eagerness depicted in your countenance, I see that you are as likely to become a convert as myself to the new system, as well as a most capital sub.. ject for Sir Jedediah Claversham's HOT. WATER CURE." SONNET. THE world is with me, and its many cares, The shades of former and of future years Foreboding fancies and prophetic tears, Quelling a spirit that was once elate. Heavens! what a wilderness the earth appears, Where Youth, and Mirth, and Health are out of date! But no-a laugh of innocence and joy Resounds, like music of the fairy race, And gladly turning from the world's annoy I gaze upon a little radiant face, And bless, internally, the merry boy Who "makes a son-shine in a shady place." T. H. Dec.-VOL. LXVI. NO. CCLXIV. 2 к SCHOOL FRIENDSHIPS: AN ANECDOTE. Ce qu'on appelle l'amitié n'est qu'un, &c. &c. &c. &c. Nous nous aimions dès l'enfance. MARMONTEL. We will spare our readers a prelection upon the maxims of the French moralist (or immoralist as they may please to call him); the world is too old, and too much on the alert, to need further instruction on the mere A, B, C of its code. It is all very well to talk prudently before the servants and the children, or Joseph-superficially when in need of a loan, or in a moonlight tête-d-tête with a boarding-school young lady; every one knows (and acts upon the knowledge) how the case really stands,-that friendship (as Gray says) is but a name, that quoad that virtue, man is a beast, woman a beastess, and the whole race of children, male and female, a set of the most selfish, self-centred, self-conceited animals in all creation. It is little to the purpose, that in the daily intercourse of life people must come together, that their respective qualities (good or bad) must sometimes dovetail, that connexions may be useful, acquaintances convenient, and that these necessities must beget habits difficult to break through. Men, therefore, may live in society more comfortably than dog and cat-that is, without coming to an open rupture; but to imagine, on the strength of such premises, that in these liaisons there is more than a game of brag, a bargain and sale of good offices, or rather a trial of wit and dexterity, is to be a very dupe: and this is known lippis et tonsoribus. But though the fact be thus familiar, its cause is less generally bruited; and it merits a word of explanation, not merely as confirmatory of a great principle, but for its own curiosity. Had La Rochefoucauld been aware of the causation, it would have saved him an immensity of trouble in arriving at those first elements of human action, which enabled him to reduce the whole conduct of life within the compass of a few pages; and if the great masters of sentimental ethics had possessed the remotest notion of the ground they stood upon, it would have spared them many an extravagance. To Cuvier, humanity is indebted for the organic bases of our veritable theory of friendship, as it is for a knowledge of the earth's formations, and for the recovered memoirs of "the buried majesty" of countless antediluvian respectabilities with exceedingly hard names. Whoever will take the pains to study the writings of this greatest of physiologists and naturalists, will learn that nature's first rude idea of an animal is comprised in a simple digesting sack,—that a stomach is the most elemental form in which sensation is manifested, and that, as we mount in the scale of beings, there are discovered, grouped around this centre in succession, an ascending series of members, viscera, and faculties. A closer examination will further show that through all this admirable diversity of form, of structure, and of action, the end to be attained is one and the same that what ever may be the secondary and specific purposes answered by such additional pieces in the machine, they are all en dernier ressort subservient to the common end of assuring to the stomach a better supply of congruous aliment. Even that crowning miracle, the magnificent faculty which penetrates the immensity of space, and in the moral world elevates its possessor to the conception of a great first cause, exists in the closest connexion with alimentary necessities; and by ninety-nine out of every hundred thinkers, it is exclusively employed in discovering what is good to eat, and in laying schemes for the better compassing a more or less succulent dinner. One of the most knowing of the Greek physicians (and the Greeks were shrewd guessers at truth), has declared the stomach to be the seat and controlling cause of all pleasures and pains; and Rabelais (who had more vous than the entire Sorbonne, and knew more than a bench of Puseyite bishops, and a seceding Synod of presbyterians, all lumped together), arrived substantially at the same conclusion, which he reduced into his well-known maxim of tout pour la trippe. Although a French critic therefore may have been right in saying that the style is the man (meaning, thereby, that it is an exponent of the man, an outward sign of his intellectual modality), yet in a more transcendental and philosophical sense, it is the stomach that constitutes the man. Might we not, indeed, say, that men are but stomachs of a larger growth; for that organ is the true centre from which all human actions arise, and in which all human desires terminate. The pineal gland be hanged, the true seat of the soul is in the abdomen, or to speak more precisely, in the solar plexus, the nervous ganglion which animates the stomach, with all its dependent viscera. Accordingly, the earliest developed instinct of the new-born babe is connected with these organs; infants carry all things that they can grasp to their mouth, while there is nothing which the adult will not swallow-ay, and digest, too-provided it may be turned to profit, id est, to keep the pot boiling. Every wise and good man assures himself with reasonable certainty of his daily bread, before he permits himself to indulge in any other propensity;-the wise man, because of the major importance of that sine quâ non ;the good man, because he fully understands that the wretch who is starving, is brouillé with all holy thoughts, and on the very brink of determined wickedness. Instinctively, the unlettered many have been led to acknowledge the truth of this matter; and the wisdom of nations is not in fault, when it talks of stomaching injuries, and possessing bowels of compassion; for only let the stomach and bowels be put thoroughly out of humour by a long and distressing fast, and then see what becomes of every human sympathy and affection. Mediately or immediately every passion may be resolved into the instinct of self-preservation, and consequently it tends to the stomach, and is subservient, as we have said, to its ends: and though anatomists have regarded the passion of love as an exception, and referred it to an object of its own; yet when it is considered that the end of love is matrimony, and the end of matrimony a marriage portion or a settlement, the exception must be taken as more apparent then real. Henceforth, then, let man be defined as being a more or less well-conditioned substantive stomach, armed with its adjective accidents, videlicet, a |