rally find it necessary to give preparatory medicines to the patients, that the constitution may be made fit to receive properly, and digest efficaciously, the qualities of the spring.

Not many years ago, a gentleman who was not very well, was advised to go to Bath, and try what Bath water would do for him. Travelling is become so very easy and expeditious, that the day after 'he was so advised, he reached Bath by dinner-time.

On his arrival he hired apartments in a lodging-house, and sent for the apothecary who had been recommended to him by his medical adviser in London. The apothecary, after making all necessary inquiries about this, that, and the other, and receiving as explanatory answers as Mr. Malcombe knew how to give, told him that he had a very much overcharged habit, and that it would be necessary to relieve him before he ventured to drink the Bath water. I will send you, Sir,' said he, 'an emetic. After you have swallowed it, if you find it slow in its operation, you will walk about the room; and you will use camomile; and do all that is usually done with such a medicine.' He then took leave.

In the same house where Mr. Malcombe had fixed himself, the good apothecary had another patient, a lady who had been a long time under his care, whose malady baffled all his skill; and who daily grew worse. Though it was not his usual hour of visiting her; yet being in the house, he thought that it would save him the trouble of returning if he saw her then; so he paid a visit also to her. He found her exhausted, and almost dying away, lying on a sofa. Well, my good lady, how go we on?' said be.

Sadly, sadly, Sir,' she replied, I have no rest by night, no ease by day.' 'Did not the draught I sent you procure any sleep?" 'O, no- -I counted the clock, hour after hour, from the time I went to bed till I arose.'

'I will change the medicine,' said he. 'I will send you a little soporific mixture, and I trust that you will have a good night's rest.'

Do, Sir,' said Mrs. Sandby. 'I will-good day to you.'

When he went home he ordered the two medicines, and left them to their operations.

Mr. Malcombe received his little bottle; and Mrs. Sandby received hers. Mr. Malcombe put on his dressing gown -took off his cravat-made his camomile tea-surrounded himself with every

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thing that he thought necessary; and then swallowed his dose. He swallowed" it in vain. He rose from the elbow chair, in which he had deemed it prudent to seat himself, and walked up and down the room, as he had been ordered to do. All to no purpose. While he was thus parading, with long strides, from corner to corner, in order to lengthen his walk, he grew very tired, and somewhat sleepy, and threw himself on the bed, where he fell fast asleep.

Mrs. Sandby also swallowed her potion and went to bed, hoping to have a good night's rest: instead of which she was almost convulsed by a pain here, and a pain there; and her shrieks verily alarmed the house. Every one thought that she was about to expire; and every one was clamorous for better advice than that of the man who had so ignorantly mistaken her case, as to kill her by such a violent experiment. However, they all said, 'send for the brute, and let him see what he has done.'

Away went the servant, and roused the sleeping apothecary from his bed. Mrs. Sandby is dying, Sir,-your physic has absolutely killed her—she has swallowed her death, Sir,' said the servant.

Poor man! he rose; followed the servant, and went into Mrs. Sandby's room.

'O, Sir!' said the nurse-O, Sir!' said the maid-'See what a condition she is in,' said the landlady. Here was a medicine truly, to give to a woman in Mrs. Sandby's weak state.'

The poor apothecary was a little alarmed. The good lady had been so bad-I cannot say how bad.-He looked at her with a very long face; that lengthened all the faces round her; and that lengthened her's. O, Sir, I shall die, I shall die, Sir!' said she.

"No, no,' said he, not so bad as that, I assure you, my dear Madam.-Depend upon it, the worst is over; and I will send you another soporific draught, which will, I make no doubt, set all to rights very shortly.'

By the way, he found on putting the phial to his mouth, and tasting the dregs, that what she had swallowed was not very soporific. However, he kept that to himself, and was careful to put the empty bottle in his pocket.

Now I am here,' thought he to himself, "I will visit my patient up stairs, and see how he goes on with his emetic.' He knocked at Mr. Malcombe's door; nobody said, come in.' He knocked again; no one spoke. He knocked a third time; no answer; so in he went. There lay Mr. Malcombe in a fine com

posed sleep. His empty bottle lay on the table, and explained all that had happened. The two patients being in the same house, the wrong bottles had been taken into their respective apartments; and each without reading the label, drank off the contents. Fortunately they both did well, the gentleman's long nap did no harm to his overcharged habit; and the violent rummage, by mistake given to Mrs. Sandby, and which the apothecary had been afraid to order her, entirely carried off her complaints. The gossips, nevertheless, all said that it would have been less hard-hearted to let her die, than to save her by such rough

means.

As for Mr. Malcombe, who was let into the secret, he is thoroughly convinced that physic is physic, be it what it may, and now, instead of sending for advice, if by chance he happen to be sick, he walks into the first apothecary's shop he comes to, lays down eighteen pence, and takes a phial of any mixture which he finds ready prepared; and he says that it always answers the purpose.

THE FATALIST.

THE subject of the following melancholy tale has long ceased to exist, and there is not in the place of his uativity a being who bears his name. The recital will, therefore, wound the feelings of no one; nor will it disturb the ashes of the dead, to give the world the story of his madness, rather than his crime.

The name of John Mackay appears on the criminal records of the town of Belfast, in the north of Ireland. He was the murderer of his own child. It is unnecessary to dwell on the character of this unhappy man; suffice it that, from early education and deeply rooted habits, he was a fatalist. An enthusiastic turn of mind had been warped into a superstitious dread; and the fabric that might have been great and beautiful, became a ruin that betokened only death and gloom. Yet into his breast the Creator had infused much of the milk of human kindness, and his disposition peculiarly fitted him to be at peace with all men. The poison had laid dormant in his bosom, but it rankled there. Domestic sorrows contributed to strengthen his gloomy creed; and its effects were darker as it took a deeper root. Life soon lost all its pleasures for him; his usual employ ments were neglected; his dress and appearance altered; his once animated countenance bore the traces of shame or guilt; and a sort of suspicious eagerness was in every look and action.

He had an only child; one of the loveliest infants that ever blessed a father's heart. It was the melancholy legacy of the woman he had loved; and never did a parent doat with more affection on an earthly hope. This little infant, all purity and innocence, was destined to be the victim of his madness. One morning his friend entered his apartment, and what was his horror at beholding the child stretched on the floor, and the father standing over it, his hands reeking with the blood of his babe. 'God of heaven! exclaimed his friend, what is here?" Mackay approached, and calmly welcomed him, bidding him behold what he had done. His friend beat his bosom and sunk on a chair, covering his face with his hands. Why do you grieve? asked the maniac; why are you unhappy? I was the father of that breathless corpse, and I do not weep; I am even joyful when I gaze on it. Listen, my friend, listen; I knew I was predestined to murder, and who was so fit to be my victim as that little innocent, to whom I gave life, and from whom I have taken it? He had no crime to answer for ;-besides, how could I leave him in a cold world, which would mock him with my name? Even before the commission of the crime, he had sent to a magistrate, whose officers shortly entered and apprehended him. He coolly surrendered himself, and betrayed no emotion; but he took from his bosom a miniature of his wife, dipped in the blood of his babe, and, without a sigh, or a tear, departed. It was this circumstance that made many loath him, and created against him a sentiment of general abhorrence; but when he afterwards, in prison, declared to his friend the storm of passions to which that horrid calm succeeded---that he had torn his hair until the blood trickled down his forehead, while his brain seemed bursting his skull; his friend was satisfied and still loved him. In the prison he was with him; though all others deserted him, he pitied and wept. Still, even to the last, he believed he had but fulfilled his duty in the death of his child; and often when he described the scene, and told how the infant smiled on its father at the moment he was prepared to kill it, lisping his name as the weapon was at its throat, he would start with horror at his own tale, and curse the destiny which had decreed it, but always spoke of it as a necessary deed. The time appointed for his trial approached; he contemplated it without dread, and talked of the fate that awaited him without a shudder. But his friend had exerted himself to procure such testi

IT IS MYSELF.

pay

William Bilderdyck, admired as the first poet that modern Holland has produced, and not less distinguished by the other brilliant qualities of his mind, did not in his youth seem to show any happy disposition for study. His father, who formed an unfavourable opinion of his talents, was much distressed, and frequently reproached him in severe terms for his inattention and idleness, to which young Bilderdyck did not appear to much attention. In 1776, the father, with a newspaper in his hand, came to stimulate him by showing him the advertisement of a prize offered by the Society of Leyden, and decreed to the author of a piece of poetry, signed with the words, "An Author eighteen years old," who was invited to make himself known. "You ought to blush, idler," said old Bilderdyck to his son: "here is a boy who is only of your age, and, though so young, is the pride and happiness of his parents; and you-"It is myself,' answered young William, throwing himself into his father's arms.

ANECDOTE.

The following curious fact took place sometime ago, in a village in Surrey: A little colony of hornets entrenched themselves in the thatch of a building of a farmer, who thought that the surest way of dislodging the enemy would be to burn them out. He accordingly set the building on fire, which spread and consumed property that cost him 500l. to reinstate; but this did not so much vex him as the escape of some of the hornets, which induced him to exclaim then and even to the present day; "Dang it, I should not have miuded it, if some of the rascals had'nt got away!"

ANECDOTE.

A very genteel looking young man was seen to enter a church in the time of service; he paused at the entrance; the congregation stared; he advanced a few steps, and deliberately surveying the whole assembly, commenced a slow march up the broad aisle; not a pew was opened; the audience were too busy for civility; he wheeled, and in the same manner performed a march, stepping as if to Roslin Custle, or the Dead March in Saul, and disappeared. A few moments after, he re-entered with a huge block on his shoulders, as heavy as be His countecould well stagger under. nance was immoveable; again the good people stared, and some half rose from their seats, with their books in their hands.

At length he placed the block in the very centre of the principal passage, and seated himself upon it. Then for the first time the reproach was felt.

Every pew door in the Church was instantly flung open.--But no--the stranger was a gentleman; he came not there for disturbance; he moved not; he smiled ot; but preserved the utmost decorum until the service was concluded, when he shouldered his block, and to the same slow step bore it away, and placed it where he found it.

ORIENTAL ANECDOTE.

A slave of Amrou Leits, the second prince of the dynasty of the Saffarides, who reigned over Khorasan and Persia, ran away. Being brought back, the Grand Vizir, who had some pique against the man, earnestly counselled the King to put him to death for an example to others. On this the slave prostrated himself before Amrou, and said: "It is not for a slave to dispute the judgment of his lord and master, but as I have been brought up and supported in your palace, I owe you some return of gratitude. I am therefore desirous that you should not have to answer, at the day of judgment, for the shedding of innocent blood. If I must die, let me die under some pretext of justice. Just allow me to murder the vizir, and then you can avenge his death by mine, without any violation of equity. Thus shall your soul be saved!" The sultan smiled, and asked the vizir his opinion of the proposal. The latter replied, that as his Highness's soul was concerned in the affair (to say nothing of his own life, and the slave's infallible damuation), perhaps the safest method for all parties would be to let the fellow go about his busines