'Tis only when the brat's asleep, No polish does the cub e'er shew, Upon this imp the mother doats, Hark! there's a foot upon the stair- THE DEATH OF THE DOCTOR. EDITED BY M. L. B. "I believe, my dear, you were acquainted with Mand have as often laughed at his eccentricities as commended his skill. Poor man! he has quitted us at last! and on me bas devolved the melancholy task of accounting to you for certain of his peculiarities, by sketching feebly his latter hours. The disparity of years between M- and myself forbade that degree of confidential friendship on the part of each for the other, which those of more equal age can commonly command; and, whilst I listened as a humble tyro in the medical profession to those instructions from his lips, which his own superior talents, and long, laborious, successful practice justly enabled him to give, there was always to me a something so repellant in his manners, aspect, and very voice, that I felt I could never be upon cordial terms with the learned leech. 92qYou will remember how it was reported that, after the death of his wife, M seldom or ever slept in his accustomed chamber, but reposed in an ease-and-comfort in his study, with a light always burning, and pistols and side. arms around him. Of his unfortunate daughters you could have known little, if any thing, beyond the startling facts that the eldest was deaf, and dumb, and blind; the second hideously deformed, and a miserable cripple; and the third an idiot from her birth; these poor wretches were carefully excluded from all eyes save those of their miserable father, and if, as was bruited abroad, he was visited with apparitions, they could not, at least, have assumed a shape more formidable than that of these unfortunates. M- " previous to his marriage, is said, by those who knew him, to have been a very different being from what he became after it; but, when I became acquainted with him, he had been long a Benedict, and his occasional gloom and nervous irritability were by no means attractive. Previous to the tour he recently took for the recovery of his health and spirits, I met him at the house of the late eccentric A ; a party was there assembled, composed principally of the profession; but a young lieutenant in a marching regiment thought proper, whilst we were at table, to show his wit, sense, and good breeding by bantering the doctors', in the true Joe Miller style, about their slain patients. MI was, 1 remember, more savage with the silly lad than I thought the occasion required, whilst the other gentlemen civilly laughed at his stale jests, Well, the learned physician went abroad; for some years, as you know, I thus lost sight of him, and I have thought it curious that I was, accidentally as it should seem, called in to attend him during his last illness. "He re sided, in fact, though for some time I knew it not, within a street or two of the house I have lately taken; when he grew alarmingly ill, those about him who were not aware of our previous acquaintance, sent for me to attend him, as the nearest medical man; but, alas! I instantly read on his death-impressed countenance, that I had been summoned too late! When I reached his residence he was sensible, and made, I saw, a strong effort to recollect me, which the dim light of an unsnuffed candle, and the gloom of his nearly W closely-curtained bed, rendered more difficult than the lapse of years, and added to his failing sight: Sir, said I, sorry am I to see you thus; our last meeting was under pleasanter circunstances, at Mr. A -'s house.'" bios Was it? was it?' he answered quickly; you know best; but my memory now does not clearly serve me, as to things that happened three or four years back. A very singu lar man is that Mr. A don't you think so? but clever, decidedly clever. Why didn't they tell him to come and see me? he would cure me at once.' My dear sir, said I, 'consider what you say; poor Mr. A has b been dead several months.' "Dead! eh? Ay, well, now you talk of it, I think somebody told me so once before; but, Mr. Mr.-(I mentioned my naine)ay, well, Mr. R, they needn't have sent for you; I always prescribe for myself, and shall recover yet, shall I not?'" ་་ ‹ Dr, M———,' I replied gravely, 'I believe you to be a man of sense and nerve; a man very unlikely to be alarmed by the report which, in candid reply to your enquiry, I feel it to be my unfortunate duty to make."" 666 "Good God!' cried he with a fearful expression of countenance, you don't mean to tell me I am dying? Why, I feel quite well, except that I suffer from this cursed weakness, which will scarcely let me move without fainting-quite well; surely, you do but jest?' 666 Dr. M I replied, to jest with a man in your situation, were, indeed, a solemn thing-think you not that I must be a maniac or infidel to jest with death???? Why, yes,' he answered; but yet many have jested with me about death, who knew not the pangs they were inflicting." 31 "You allude, sir,' said I, 'to the nonsense of young Hunter, that, allow me to observe, is too long passed away, and your situation becomes too critical for you to permit it how to occupy your thoughts.' "Too long passed away now to occupy my thoughts! Hearken, Mr. R- I'll tell thee a secret; 'tis a thing that will be revived against me for ever and ever, and must employ my thoughts during the long eternity of Hell!'ws | edem is started at such language; did I misunderstand the L. 37. 1. C sick man?-Did he misconceive me? or were his senses already wandering, as the dim shadows of dissolution stole over them? His sunken eye was bright and glassy, but not wild; and his pulse was almost too feeble to be felt. "And, I'll tell you further, Mr. R,' resumed he, after a pause, you may not suspect it-nobody does-but it is of that one black thought I am dying.' "My dear Dr. M,' I answered, you surely cannot have so taken to heart the trifling unmeaning words of a foulish young man ?' 666 'Unmeaning!-I'm glad you thought them so; but hear me, young gentleman, those very words bore a meaning -and a terrible meaning to me!-Nay, more,' (and he almost yelled as he uttered this,) they were particularly aimed at me-they were intended, I say, to plant daggers in my soul, and, by Heaven, they have done it!' 666 My good sir,' said I, 'this idea can be nothing else than a mental hallucination; Hunter's common-place witticisms were addressed to all who sat at Mr. A's table, and, like similar vulgarities to lawyers and clergymen, are thrown in the teeth of us medical men daily; but what of that? Such jests cannot really injure us; the sick are glad to send for us, in spite of their pretended belief that we murder our patients, and we go to them, and to our graves with clear consciences, knowing that we have done our best to heal and save, but cannot over-rule the decrees of Providence.' "Dr. M- scarcely allowed me to conclude my speech, ere he started up in his bed, with that strength which generally accompanies the paroxysms of rage and madness, exclaiming "Who talks to me of murdering patients?' of a clear conscience?'-of going to the grave?'-and of Providence?' Out-out of my sight, this instant, and knowhad I believed in the Providence you speak of, I might never have become a murderer.' "From the horror-stricken nurse I gleaned that Mhad for several hours, ere I was summoned, talked incoherently about some long-committed and concealed crime; that sleep had, in some measure, restored him to composure, but that he was now probably set-a-going for the night,' as she expressed it, and that he seemed always so affected by the sight of his late wife's sister (who was strikingly like her), that this lady was obliged to absent herself from him, more than, from the affectionate suggestions of her mind, she desired. But lauk, poor thing!' observed Mrs. Mealing, with a sigh, what a life she do lead now to be sure, with the doctor first, and then with them unfortunate creters, his daughters. Sure, sir, I wonder he never put Miss Betsy the hidyett into a 'sylum; and as for Miss Maggy and Miss Letty, sure am I, if please God they was under the mouls, nobody in this world would be the worse for it.' "With Miss Hamilton, poor M's sister-in-law, I sought and obtained a conference; she confirmed Mrs. Mealing's statement, and I also elicited from her that, for years, Dr. M's mind had been restless, anxious, and unsettled; that this became apparent soon after his marriage with her sister, whom he madly loved, but to whom he seemed subsequently to take an unaccountable aversion; (the idea I would not suggest, but this probably arose, I thought, from her miserable offspring,) that he lived for a long time with the late Mrs. M- so unhappily, that she died, in Miss Hamilton's opinion, of a broken heart; but that M had given dark and dreadful hints of her having come to a more violent end. I endeavoured to soothe Miss Hamilton by reminding her of the prevalence of monomania in even sensible people; some singular idea obtains possession of their minds, quite bewilders them, and, in short, I told her that some able philosophers and physicians had pronounced the whole world stark mad together. Men may say what they will of women, but all are not the credulous fools for which they have been taken; and I perceived that Miss Hamilton, in politely allowing my words to pass without contradiction, did not deem them at all applicable to her brother's case. then delicately hinted the propriety, in Dr. M's precarious condition, of his being advised to set his house in order,' and see a clergyman and a lawyer, respecting his spiritual and temporal concerns. 1 "It is the very thing I have strenuously advised,' sighed Miss Hamilton, but he still flatters himself with delusive |