were so confused, that I seldom knew whether they visited me in sleep or in my waking moments. But round me were the sounds of blasphemy and profaneness, and though the felons with whom I was confined were inured to profligacy and crime, they shrank from me in abhorrence as from a pestilential and polluted thing, when they heard that I had imbrued my hands in blood. Thus sanctified, even in the most corrupted breast, shines the glory of the image of God! In the morning I was placed at a bar surrounded by many officials, and before me sat the Man of Power, looking fiercely and grimly upon me from beneath his shaggy brows, as if he had ascertained already that I was guilty. But my spirit, though still fighting amidst a chaos of the disjointed fragments of my past experiences, was now less clouded than on the previous night. In answer to the question of what was my name, I commenced a dissertation on the nomenclature of all ages, from Egyptian Menes downwards, but was rudely interrupted by the uncultivated Theban on the bench, and warned against any superfluous responses. On this my blood began to boil, and I vowed a vow within me to maintain inflexible silence. But this did not avail me. landlord and other individuals to whom I was known, were summoned to identify my person; they proved me to have been discovered near the body of the woman, and that, on being arrested, I had about me all the appearances of guilt. They asked me if I wished to say any thing in opposition to this evidence against me, and, in spite of the resolution I had formed to be silent, I gave vent to my indignation in a strain of eloquence that thrilled to the heart of that stone-breasted magistrate. "In me, thus abject in my attire, thus surrounded with the suspicions of an appalling crime, you behold a philosopher!-From my earliest years endowed with an acute understanding, which raised me above the debasing circumstances of my birth; strengthened in the vigour of my mind by holding converse with the mighty dead, to me the Sages of Latium speak a language which goes directly to the heart; over my spirit is poured the sonorous grandeur of the Great of Old; and my soul inhales with rapture the Dactylic and Spondaic harmonies of the Hexameter verse!"

The

Thus far had I proceeded, when from the midst of the crowd a voice exclaimed, “Tis he! I have found him! found him at last, after years of misery and despair!" and pushing impetuously through the assembly, there rushed into my arms a female form, and as she lay fainting, with her head upon my bosom, I looked down upon her pale, and, alas! emaciated features, and recognized Camilla! The magistrate demanded who was that female, and ordered her to be removed, but she seemed to cling closer than ever to my breast, though she was insensible, apparently, to all that passed. A policeman came forward, and stated he had found her sleeping on some stair or other in the city, and as she could give no account of herself, he had brought her up for examination. They had searched her, and the only thing they had discovered in her possession, carefully deposited in her bosom, was a book in an unknown tongue,-and he shewed it to the magistrate as he spoke, and I saw it was the volume of Cornelius Nepos I had given

her seven years before, and as a perception of her truth and her affection rushed into my heart, I bent down, and kissed her cheek as she still lay motionless in my arms, and as I raised my head again, my eyes were dimmed with irrepressible tears. With brute grasp they tore that miserable and loving girl from my embrace, and as she was hurried from me, she gazed on my countenance with a long and passionate gaze, and her lips moved, and she said, "A murderer! no, no, no!"—and shuddering with fearful horror, she fell senseless into the arms of the ruffian who had her in charge. It all passed so suddenly, that I almost believed it was a dream; and on looking round that assembly of scowling and abhorrent faces, to re-assure myself of the reality of my situation, my eyes rested on the savage and demoniacal features of the man who had done the deed.

"The murderer is in court," I exclaimed, and I pointed to where he stood; "There, in the grimness of undiscovered crime, stands that bos fur atque sacerdos." He was seized upon, and searched; a bloody knife was found in his possession, and overcome by conscience, he confessed the fearful truth; then turning to me, he gazed for some time upon me as I stood in the renewed consciousness of innocence, and in a moment the features struck me as being previously known to me, and the dark scowl, the gaunt figure, and wild appearance altogether of the man, rushed upon my memory, and I knew that before me, in the degradation of guilt and the misery of approaching death, stood the Gipsy who had first destroyed my happiness by flooding my senses in gin!-Oh! just retribution-Oh! satisfaction soothing and consolatory to my ruined and exasperated spirit. Murmurs of congratulation on the proof of my innocence echoed round the court, and even that man of callousness and power, relented from his pride and coldness, as he told me I was free. Free!-word which to the miserable does in general produce a sensation of the liveliest joy, but in me who had no hope, no home, awaked no sentiment of happiness-how coldly didst thou fall upon my heart! Free!-free indeed from the bonds and gyves of the prisoner and the slave,—but in the shackles of pain and misery, and inebriety and weakness, how bound, how irretrievably bound!-Yet, -for was I not free to pour into thy bosom, oh! friend of my earliest days! the pent-up fondness of a bruised, yet not a broken heart? Free, at least in fancy, to roam with thee through our own romantic valley, to gaze with thee upon the ocean, as we had often done in the sunny hours of childhood, and to forget the hopelessness of our present lot? Again was Camilla placed before the bar, and she told her story to those hardened menials of magisterial power, till they were softened by the recital of her griefs. In search of me had she wandered for many years, amidst poverty and all its woes, to recal me to the home of my youth, to happiness and to contentment. She told them that

not so,

after I had left my home it had been found that ample means for my support were left in my nurse's will; that the clergyman of the parish had secured the money for my use, if at any future period I should be discovered; and that she, on foot and unprotected, had set off to trace

me out, and inform me of my good fortune; and at last worn out and sick at heart, and penniless and weary, she had found me in the appalling form of a suspected murderer.

"Stop!" said the magistrate, and taking down a file of newspapers, he turned to one and read some passages in it, looking at the same time attentively on me, "I think," he said, "this advertisement must have reference to you. You left on the first of June, 1816?”

"I did."

"You talk a great deal about Aristotle and Logic, and the Eton Grammar?"

"With all these I am intimate; my aspirations since my youth have been only after books and philosophy."

"You are five feet three inches in height."

"I know not, the altitude of my body is beneath my care!" "Well, read the advertisement yourself."

In that vile print I saw myself registered, as "one rather weak in the understanding, but harmless and good-natured, talking almost incessantly, and striving to introduce quotations from the Eton Grammar;" and the base advertisement concluded by saying, "if I would apply to the Rev. Obadiah Gubbins, Rectory, I should hear of something to my advantage." I indignantly stamped upon the contemptible libel, and shouted, "I of a weak understanding, who can conjugate every verb in the immortal Grammar! I of a weak understanding, to whom Aristotle has been a playfellow from his childhood! "Barbara Celarent Darii ferioque prioris

Cesare Camestres festino Baroko secundæ
Tertia Darapti,

But here I found I had been hustled out of that Baotian court, and that I was standing in the open air alone,—yet not alone, for what gentle hand is that which is softly laid upon my arm, and what tearful eyes are those which are turned up to me with such a soft and beseeching expression,-thine, thine dearest and best beloved, whose home hereafter shall be my fond devoted heart, whose shelter from the storms of an unkindly world shall be ever in my arms! But a dream of horror glided into my heart

"Camilla,” I said, "how is it you have lived? this is a most wicked, sinful town."

The warm blood rushed into the pale face of that bright-eyed creature, she let go my arm, and looked proudly in my face.

"I have fared but poorly since I saw you last, I have suffered from cold, and from hunger, and from fatigue, but a thought of vice never cast its shadow on the heart of your own affectionate Camilla."

"Blessings, blessings be upon thee, thou soother of a philosopher's woes, thy soul is purer than a mirror; let us haste to our own dear valley,- -we shall live in the nurse's cottage,-come, come, come, my life, my happiness!-let us quit London for ever!

PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS IN 1831.

THE medical profession at the present period is in a more degraded state, than it was even in the days of ignorance. In those times the physician was compaparatively a well-educated man, and practised his profession honorably, meddling not nor leaguing with apothecaries or mere venders of medicines. He visited his patient when sent for, wrote out his prescription, pocketed his fee, and left the rest to the attendants. In our day the thing is managed differentlythe physician has been reduced to a very low condition indeed. He is so dependent upon the apothecary for his practice, that he is obliged, in many cases, to prescribe large quantities of medicine when he knows that little or none is required; to keep a patient in town, when he knows that the country is the best place for him; and, above all, he is reduced to the mean necessity of recommending a certain apothecary, and saying, whether he thinks so or not, that he is the most skilful and careful compounder of medicines in the metropolis. The apothecary, who in former times used to be looked upon with contempt by the physician, as a mere mechanic, has now become the great alleviator of suffering, the family confidant and attendant on all common occasions; in short, the apothecaries see more patients in one week than the physicians do in six months. They do not charge for attendance, consequently the patient is inundated with medicines. They generally have the power of choosing the physician, but the man of real talent is not the person selected; no, he is too honest for the apothecary's purpose; he must have the man who cringes to him and lauds him; who prescribes the most largely and gives the most sumptuous dinners. What would old Boerhaave or Cullen say, if they were to rise and see how matters are at present managed?-how apothecaries and quacks, men of no education, lord it over regularly-educated practitioners, and how physicians of "state and dignity," cringe to the ignorant creatures whom they in their hearts despise, and all for filthy lucre? The coup d'ail would be sufficient to drive the two worthy old disciples of Hippocrates back to their graves with disgust. No wonder that we are considered by our continental neighbours, a people who are always complaining and always swallowing drugs. No wonder that the first question an Englishman asks, on entering a continental town, is," whether there is a good English apothecary in the place?" and that the first thing he does is to bolt a lot of his compounds, or replenish his medicine chest. No wonder that the consumption of drugs is greater in England than in all the continental nations put together. We have been so accustomed, from our infancy upwards, to see our family apothecary and swallow his mixtures; we have been so constantly under the influence of pills and potions, that we do not know a state of health when we experience it. An unusual flow of spirits we dread as the prelude of some fearful malady, and we instantly have recourse to our old friend the apothecary and his nostrums, which never fail to rout our turbulent spirits, and to render our complexions as sentimental as before. It is genteel to be thin and somewhat sallow; it is fashionable to complain, and make periodical visits to the pharmacopeia.

How comes it that the different grades of practitioners in physic are busily employed in town and country, in London and Maidstone,* inflicting the extremest penalties of the law upon each other, for the transgression of corporate boundaries the dim lines traced by a forgotten antiquity, and only suited to a

At Maidstone, a few weeks ago, the Company of Apothecaries instituted a prosecution, and obtained a verdict against Mr. William Ryan, a respectable Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, for daring to compound the medicines which he had himself prescribed to his patient!!! Is it the nineteenth century we live in?

semi-barbarous age? Would it not be better for men of science and liberal education to unite in the furthering of a common cause, which is ostensibly for the good of mankind, and, leaving the absurd" privileges" to disgrace the statute book alone, to meet, en masse, in the wide arena of honourable competition? Whilst the Royal College of Physicians, London, is engaged in prosecuting the Physicians of the University of Edinburgh; and the Right Worshipful Company of Apothecaries, London, in prosecuting the Members of the Royal College of Surgeons, London; Dr. Eadie, Von Butchell, St. John Long, and Goss and Co., hold a commemorative jubilee. The lions and the bears, fiercely engaged in mortal controversy, allow the foxes to walk leisurely away with the bone of contention. Men of scientific attainments have nothing to do in the affair; they are not to be divided by the corporation circle, behind which the ignorant-and the majority of every privileged class are the ignorant-entrench their imbecility, clinging to each other in the hour of peril, like all puny creatures who are conscious of their individual weakness. The conservative affection which pervades the corporation knots is well seen in their bye-laws, and the inane productions which, from time to time, emanate from the pens of their office-bearers, to mislead the public, and puff the family interest. Our limited space shall be partly devoted to the consideration of one of these corporative bubbles; and, par excellence, that lately inflated by the Registrar of the Royal College of Physicians will furnish the text.

The "Lives of British Physicians," written by Dr. Macmichael, compiler of a volume entitled "The Gold-Headed Cane," forms a number of Mr. Murray's Family Library, and is the heaviest brochure of that useful and meritorious miscellany. It is an excellent specimen (to adopt the idiom of the learned author) of an extravagant obliquity of intellectual vision. He has most egregiously committed himself, in the palpable devotion which he has paid, not to intellect and merit, but to good fortune and favour. In this learned Theban's eyes, he only is worthy of commemoration, whose name is in repute amongst the arbiters of fashion; and although there are some high names, the omission of which it would have been monstrous to have perpetrated, yet the plan of the book is unworthy of the series to which it belongs. Will the sensible reader believe that, in a work professedly written for the purpose of exhibiting the lives of the most celebrated British physicians, the names of Caius, Huxham, Warren and Gooch, are found duly emblazoned; while those of Garth, Arbuthnot, Cheyne, Lettsom, the Fordyces, Denman, Currie, Haighton, Mason Good, Pemberton, Armstrong, and several others, are no where to be found. Now what where the merits of Caius and his three compeers? Caius founded a college at Cambridge, wrote a book on dogs, and was buried under a fine monument, with the pedantic inscription, "Fui Caius." Huxham invented a tincture of bark, to which his name is stuck for immortality. Warren bequeathed a fortune of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds to his family, and left his practice to his son, the present fashionable physician of that name; while Gooch was a writer in "the Quarterly," the friend of Southey, and the author of a book on the Diseases of Women.

"In the lives which follow"-says this impartial biographer, "the celebrity obtained in the world has alone been the guide of selection;" and, as a propitiatory plum to the ruler of the Royal College, these lives are, with great propriety, dedicated to Sir Henry Halford, Bart. M.D. K.C.H. &c. &c. &c. " with sentiments of the highest respect (it is the College-Registrar who writes) for his eminent professional skill and attainments." The "eminent professional skill” of Sir Henry Halford! Now the elegant baronet's worst enemy has never uttered so cutting a sarcasm as this; but, as Dr. Macmichael has been appointed librarian and physician to the King, we must excuse the grossness of the flattery.

The plain truth of the whole matter is this-and Dr. Macmichael, and fifty