and duration of the malady. Without the patient having occasion to speak at all, they can tell infallibly, what part is attacked, whether the brain, the heart, the liver, the lungs, the intestines, the stomach, the flesh, the bones, and so on. As they are both physicians and apothecaries, and-prepare their own medicines, they are paid only when they effect a cure. If the same rule were introduced with us, I fear we should have fewer physicians.

CIX. CURE OF FEVERS IN SWEDEN.

One thing which I saw in Sweden surprised me. The peasants who have fever, take a quantity of beer, into which they put ginger, cloves, and cinnamon, and having heated it as much as their mouth and stomach will bear, they drink it off. The remedy is found to be very effectual.

They have also another remedy which would appear a startling one to inhabitants of our climate. They have dry stoves which they call Bastou, into which they enter naked, and when the perspiration is profusely produced on all the body by the heat of the stove, they immediately come out, and lie down among the snow, or, if they can swim, throw themselves into the water. Our physicians may judge how far their aphorisms agree with the experience of these peasants.

CX. SCEPTICISM.

The sceptics, who doubt of everything, and whom Tertullian calls professors of ignorance, do affirm something, when they say we can affirm nothing, and admit that something is certain, when they maintain that nothing can be certainly known. CXI. THE GASCON.

A Gascon officer in the regiment of the Duke de Roquelaure, dining one day with the Duke, the

conversation turned on Aristotle. Some one maintained, that there were a great many admirable things in Aristotle which were to be found nowhere else. "Well," said the Duke, turning to the Gascon, who was the butt of the company, "what do you think of the matter ?"-" My opinion is," replied the Gascon, "that a great many people talk of having been at Aristotle, who never were there in their lives." He took the philosopher for the name of a town.

CXII. CARMELINE THE DENTIST.

Carmeline, the famous tooth-drawer, and maker of artificial teeth, had his portrait painted and placed in his chamber window, with a motto taken from Virgil's line on the Golden Bough, in the sixth book of the Æneid.

"Uno avulso, non deficit alter."*

The application was extremely happy.

CXIII. RUY SOUZA.

The judgment of the people is in their eyes; the mere appearance of good or evil is sufficient to deceive them. John II., King of Portugal, the son and successor of Alphonso V., was asked by Ruy Souza to have the goodness to speak to him in the street, and the King granted the favour. Souza left the palace in company with the king, who continued talking with him for a considerable time, and then asked him if that honour would suffice. Souza returned him the humblest thanks, and took his leave. The next day, the Portuguese merchants, who no longer entertained any doubt, that he was in high favour at court, lent 5 or 6000

• When one is drawn out, another is never wanting.

crowns, of which he stood in the greatest need, to liberate him from his embarrassments.

CXIV. A GASCON.

A Gascon, who had gone to a ball, danced so indifferently that all the company laughed at his performance. Observing the merriment he had caused, he turned round to a person near him, and said haughtily, that though he might dance indifferently, he could fight well. "Then, sir," replied the other, "I would advise you always to fight, and never to dance."

CXV. HELEN.

Every one speaks of the beautiful Helen, but few are aware that she had five husbands, Theseus, Menelaus, Paris, Deiphobus, and Achilles; that she was hanged in the Isle of Rhodes by the servants of Polixo; and that, in the war of which she was the cause, 886,000 Greeks and 670,000 Trojans lost their lives.

CXVI. LOUIS XII.

The speech of Louis the XII., to those who were apprehensive of punishment for the outrages they had committed against him, under the government of La Dame de Beaujeu, when he was only Duke of Orleans," That the King of France did not remember the injuries of the Duke of Orleans," is assuredly a noble sentiment, and worthy of a king, whose virtues deservedly acquired him the surname of the Just, and the title of Father of his Country. But it has not, I think, been observed, that the Emperor Hadrian had said nearly the same thing, though in other words, when, after his elevation, he met with one who had been among his chief enemies, while a subject, and said, "Fellow, you are safe, for I am Emperor."

G

CXVII. A QUID PRO QUO.

Masson, Regent of Trinity College, had asked one of his friends to lend him a book, which he wished to consult, and received for answer,— "That he never allowed his books to go out of his room, but that, if he chose to come there, he was welcome to read as long as he pleased." Some days afterwards this pedant applied to Masson for the loan of his bellows, who replied," That he never allowed his bellows to go out of his room, but that, if he chose to come there, he was welcome to blow as long as he pleased."

CXVIII. BOXHORN.

A gentleman who had studied under Boxhorn, in Holland, told me that that professor had the most extraordinary passion for smoking and reading. In order to enjoy both at once, he had a hole made in the middle of the brim of his hat, through which he used to stick his lighted pipe when he intended to read or to compose.

When

it was empty, he refilled it, stuck it into the hole, and smoked away without requiring to put his hand to it; and this was his occupation almost every hour of the day.

CXIX. M. MARIGNY.

The Greeks used to drink largely after meals, and the same custom is still practised in Germany. Marigny, who perhaps was not aware of it, dining in the principal hotel in Frankfort, with five or six persons, was called upon to drink a large bumper to the health of the emperor. He was obliged to comply, and seeing that the debauch was likely to continue, he sent for two or three loaves, and having eaten half a loaf to the health of the King of France, he handed the remaining half to his

neighbour, who could not swallow a morsel The others, surprised at this unexpected sally, allowed him to take his own way, and Marigny thus escaped the consequences which he would otherwise have experienced.

CXX. SOLON'S PHILOSOPHY.

Solon's Philosophy did not seem to be of a very austere cast, when he said that women, wine, and the muses, constituted the pleasures of human life.

CXXI. CHARLES V.

Charles V. used to say, that the Portuguese appeared to be fools, and were so; that the Spaniards appeared wise, and were not so; that the Italians seemed to be wise, and were so; and that the French seemed fools, and were not so: That the Germans spoke like carters, the English like blockheads, the French like masters, and the Spaniards like kings. The Sicilians used to call him, Scipio Africanus; the Italians, David; the French, Her-. cules; the Turks, Julius Cæsar; the Africans, Hannibal; the Germans, Charlemagne ; and the Spaniards, Alexander the Great.

CXXII. AURELIAN.

Valerius Aurelian was the first of the Roman emperors who encircled his brow with a diadem.

CXXIII. THE GRAVE OF ATTILA AND ALARIC.

Attila died in 453, and was buried in the midst of a vast plain, in a coffin, the first covering of which was of gold, the second of silver, and the third of iron. Along with the body, were buried all the spoils of his enemies, harnesses enriched with gold and precious stones, rich stuffs, and the most valuable articles taken from the palaces of the kings which he had pillaged; and that the place of his interment might not be known, the Huns put to