"Babel, madam," said the architect," as Herodotus informs me-and he saw the building -occupied a square of a furlong each way, and the height was equal to the circumference of the base. I think I have proved, in my first volume, page one hundred and forty-four, that it was intended for a granary, and left unfinished on account of the funds being exhausted, as but too often happens with great national works. As to the confusion of tongues, it was, doubtless, a miracle. I myself have occasionally employed all sorts of fellows;—the howling Irishman, the broad Scot, the spluttering Welchman; and I never encountered any difficulty from the mixture: as to -"

"Just allow me, for a moment," interrupted the Knight, with a peculiar chuckling in his throat, and an elevation of the eye brow,"Babel was down long before my grandfather's time, and you have just spoken of some gentleman of your acquaintance, who informs you he saw it! Now, sir, I remember when I was churchwarden -"

Here an expressive glance from the glowing countenances of the ladies appeared to call the Knight to order, and to remind him, at the same time, of the act of oblivion passed by the family on their accession to the patrician dignity.

Lord Percival Lorn kindly relieved their embarrassment by proposing a toast, and endeavouring to change the conversation; he observed, "that England could boast some very fine specimens of architecture.”

"If you allude to the Giant's Causeway," said Sir Paul, “I saw it when I was a lad, and I think it a very fine thing of the kind; indeed, the finest in the kingdom, except, perhaps, Chesterfield spire, built in the form of a corkscrew."

“It is often a subject of surprise to me," said one of the young ladies, addressing the architect," how you can distinguish so quickly the different orders."

O, instantly, ma'am, with a glance! The Doric is known by its tryglyphs, the Ionic by its volutes, and the Corinthian by its acanthus." Of the Tuscan and Composite -” "Excuse me, Mr. "interrupted Lord Percival: "I must call on you for a toast. (6 Always happy to obey the commands of your lordship; allow me to propose our friend PALLADIO"

"With all my heart," said Sir Paul; "they tell me he is a very clever fellow; I often see his name in the paper; he sings at the Opera: our friend Palladio, and a good house on his benefit night!"

The laugh of Lord Percival and the architect, in which the Knight joined with the happy good-humour of ignorance, and the lungs of a Stentor, reminded Lady Jane to withdraw with her female friends from the influence of the rosy god.

CHAP. IX.

The first physicians by debauch were made;
Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade.
From files a random recipe they take,
And many deaths of one prescription make.
Garth, generous as his muse, prescribes and gives,
The shopman sells, and by destruction lives.
Ungrateful tribe! who, like the viper brood,
From medicine issuing suck their mother's blood!

DRYDEN.

One should no more trust the skill of most apothecaries, than one would ask an opinion of their pestle and mortar; yet both are useful in their way. SHENSTONE.

Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio celeris, experimentum periculosum; judicium difficile.

HIPPOCRATES.

O thou sweet king killer, and dear divorce
'Twixt natural son and sire! thou valiant Mars,
Thou ever young, fresh, loved, and delicate wooer
That lies on Dian's lap.

Swearing and supperless the hero sate,

SHAKSPEARE.

Blasphemed his goas, the dice, and damned his fate.

POPE.

DRYDEN was certainly no friend to the profession of physic, or he might, with more justice, have said with Martial, what may, indeed, be applied to almost every other profession : "Sunt_bona, sunt quædam mediocria; sunt mala plura."

Lord Montague was dining with the celebrated Sir; some disciples of Esculapius were amongst the guests. Certainly the softer feelings are, or seem to be, deadened in these men ; perhaps it is not wonderful, that their continual intercourse with disease, misery, and death, should render their hearts callous to any ordinary misfortune.

The contemplation of such characters is not agreeable; but they form a page in the book of MAN and if we would derive from that extensive volume all the instruction it is capable of affording us, we must read attentively every thing it contains.

The guests were scarcely seated round the "festive board," when a servant entered, whispered a few words to a heavy-looking fellow, who sat opposite to Lord Montague. His countenance soon expressed very legibly, that he had received a summons to attend some pa tient. 66 Aye SO yes well, tell them I am coming," said he.

aye

"Some accident, Doctor ?" inquired the host.

"Why yes, yes, Sir; a little niece of mine has fallen from a three pair of stairs window, I think he said," replied the feeling uncle, commencing his dinner with great sang froid.

The information excited no sensation in the company assembled; the banquet proceeded, and the doctor fed voluptuously, took his wine with infinite coolness, and having honoured the favourite toast, "a green christmas," he rose reluctantly to attend the sufferer.

His departure seemed to excite no other idea than that. the chair in which he had sat was unoccupied. Lord Montague soon became amused and interested by the history which a very singular-looking gentleman, whom wine had rendered thus communicative, was giving of himself.

"And then," said he, after detailing, with

troublesome minuteness, the debates of his parents on the important point, 'what they should make him," "and then I was apprenticed to an apothecary toward the conclusion of my engagement I had become a dashing, swaggering sort of fellow; could face a corpse without shrinking; talked of Galen and Hippocrates, though I could read neither and, in short, with as much knowledge of the world as a residence in a provincial town affords ;as much of manners as was to be acquired at my master's table ;-and as much Latin as I had gathered from the shelves in the shop, I went to London to walk the hospitals, styling myself a man of letters and a gentleman!

"In a very short time I returned, armed eap-a-pié for the service. I had testimonials, from the different lecturers I had attended, of the profundity of my erudition, and the unremitting vigilance with which during six weeks I had pursued my profession. Lest these should not be sufficiently observed, I had them placed aloft in a conspicuous part of my shop; then I petrified my friends with most marvellous stories of the horrors I had witnessed in the London slaughter-houses, and repeated them until my auditors shuddered,

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all I knew!

"Thus, with a skeleton to terrify the ladies, a few coloured liquids in my window, and a vast variety of poison in my shop, I began my career. But, alas! although, I call Heaven