Fashionable Physician, it commonly appears in the shape of a penny trumpet. He wears long black trousers and short gaiters, and his shoes are generally too large for his feet, in order to admit of extra flannel socks, to keep his toes warm in his carriage during winter. His hair is short and rather straight, but very smooth, so that the peculiar shape of his scientific skull is clearly defined in the outline. After he has been knighted, he is liable to brush his hair up in front, in a high and copious manner, as if the hair was hurraing! This is, however, a rare instance of his imprudent display of feeling, and in almost all cases his head has a sleek appearance. His chariot is of laudanum colour, faintly streaked with cinnamon; or of a profound green mixture, which has a bitter look. His harness is all black, with an occasional stud of silver or bronze; and his liveries are brown drab, or Oxford-grey. His coachman is very thin, and holds a thin black stick of a whip in a highly-precise and formally-useless manner. His horses are disagreeably dark, and in a somewhat jaded condition. They are, however, among the most intelligent of their species; and, as they turn a corner and advance down a long and handsome street, you see their ears work to and fro with evident anxiety whenever there are any houses within sight, the shutters of which are at all closed. On arriving opposite a house where the shutters are closed from top to bottom, their ears fall back with an uncomfortable look of self-consciousness, and they quicken their pace; but where only one floor has the shutters partially closed, their ears shoot out and point to the house, while they slacken their trot, in anticipation of a check from the coachman. The footman of this equipage is also very thin: speaks in an under-tone, and has the same expression of face, in answering a question, that you see in an undertaker's clerk or foreman when engaged with a customer. A Fashionable Physician has his portrait painted at full length every third year, by the most fashionable painters among the Royal Academicians, and is represented in a sitting position, at a splendid table, covered with the works of Galen and Hippocrates, upon the top of which are piled several inscribed with his own name in a larger gold letter, while a bust of Esculapius, with an expression of great humility, stands pale before him. The royal artist seldom conveys the characteristic look of a Fashionable Physician, and few pencils are there which could ever succeed in delineating a face so softly advising, so acquiescingly gossiping and prescribing, so fee-thinking and insinuating, and so saturated with legacy-hunting tenderness. How much of this has been represented by the artist of our "Heads," we leave the reader to determine. We venture to observe, however, that a more charac

teristically insincere face we never beheld: while the general action and expression denote the most tender solicitude about his patient's welfare, his half-closed eye seems to be prying into a purse.

Sir Courtney Palmoile was not always the great man above described. His origin was extremely humble. We feel considerable delicacy and hesitation in mentioning the fact that his real name was Grub. We can fancy the recollection might be very humiliating to any creature of the grub genus, after it had become a visiting butterfly, and was habituated to bask in the gold of the noon-tide sun; and pass, on simmering wings, from patient flower to flower. The fact, however, must be recorded. Mr. Grub was originally an inhabitant of a small country town, where he followed no particular calling. But finding, in due course, that a certain official "calling" was likely to follow him, if he continued to indulge his philosophical indolence any longer, he made up his mind to be a chemist and druggist, and to practise as an apothecary at the same time, in order to assist the sale of his wares. To avoid the loss of time in apprenticeship, as well as the law on the subject, he hired the services. of a starving apothecary who had "passed the Hall," and placed his name over the door instead of his own.

It has been ascertained by philanthropic legislators, that the highest degree of the healing art should be exclusively devoted to those who can pay highest for the idea of obtaining relief. Various degrees of rank are, therefore, established. The highest rank in medical practice is a Fellow of the College of Physicians. To be eligible to this rank, all the usual gradations of knowledge and experience required in other professions are not only considered unnecessary, but detrimental and damnatory. It is requisite that a man should not have been an apothecary, on pain, we believe, of a heavy fine; nor a surgeon, on pain of a heavier. All that is required is this, -the candidate for medical aristocracy must have been "educated" at Oxford or Cambridge. Now, at neither of these erudite cities is there any public hospital, infirmary, or any institution for clinical practice, which will bear the designation of a medical school;—but they read the Axioms of Hippocrates, which have been long since universally exploded by practitioners. Being rendered competent to take charge of human life by these equivocal studies, the candidates are examined before the Great Authorities, probably without ever having seen a single dissection, nor, possibly, a single case of smallpox, measles, or common fever! The Licentiates of the College of Physicians may have had regular and elaborate education and practice in Scotland, Dublin, or London; but it is only the Oxford and

Cambridge gentlemen who can become Fellows-prescribe in letters of gold, and be considered as "pure" physicians. No base initiatory studies retarded the progress of Sir Courtney's fortune. He managed to take a good shop; he hired the services of one who had gone through such studies; he bought a new hat with a broadish brim, and went about advising.

Mr. Grub, always polite, simpering, and obsequious, was naturally a rising man. Being also a lucky man, success attended all his movements and designs; and eventually, the wealthy old widow of a methodistical chiropodist left him a handsome legacy in token of her lasting esteem.

Now rose the night-cap of Mr. William Grub, in midnight reverie! Perish for ever the dark memories of early years, the baseborn herbs, the nauseous drugs! The spirit of the Grub burst its narrow confines; he sold his business and went to Oxford.

"The discipline of the English Universities," said Dr. Macmichael, “is such as to be, in every sense, a security of the moral character of the candidate (!): by giving him right feelings (!), and enlarging his mind, it is the best security you can possibly have. The circumstance of having completed the residence required by the English Universities, and been subject to the discipline (!) observed there, as attested by the degree (!), is the most obvious and the highest testimonial of character and general education that can be procured. I can conceive of no one better!"

Excellent man! most "pure physician." Mr. William Grub, after that period of residence, which is, "in every sense, the best security for moral character," and has the best security of receiving the divine gift of "right feelings," left College as the humble follower of a dashing young blade of rank and fortune, to whom he had rendered himself agreeable by his subserviency. This young gentleman, wishing to make some trifling change in his not very domestic arrangements, shortly after his arrival in London, informed his follower, without any waste of time in delicate preamble, that he intended to make him take up his abode elsewhere; and accordingly Mr. William Grub installed himself in a new house, and changing his name to Palmoile, had it engraved on a brass plate above his knocker. His generous patron next introduced him to a very handsome lady, attired in green velvet, and a hat and feather, who was persuaded to listen to his addresses, and shortly afterwards married him. On the conclusion of the ceremony, the young nobleman slapped the bridegroom on the shoulder, ejaculating, "Grub, my boy, you're really a very useful, talented sort of fellow- and I'll take care of you."

His lordship was as good as his word. William Grub, alias Palmoile, became a Fashionable Physician. Assisted by this powerful influence, he was soon elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, that "royal road" to "learning" the science of building a carriage out of tombstones, and filling coffers from the rich mine of human weakness.

Dr. Palmoile now took up his pen; he saw that it was good to be literary, and scribbled away. He saw that Scotchmen always advanced in the world whenever they had a chance. Regretting he was only a Yorkshireman, he did what he could to remedy the deficiency by hiring a Scotchman as a servant. This man was a

wit, in his way, and “ ower fond o' the toddy: so Dr. Palmoile used now and then to make him excessively drunk, and, taking down what he said, the Doctor was enabled by these means to concoct an article exactly in the high-vaulting and voluminously verbose style of a notorious professor of Moral Philosophy. These truly astonishing productions found a ready admission into the mimetic pages of a certain London Magazine, where they were much praised by his friends and patients for the redundant fancy and unexceptionable morality they displayed.

Dr. Palmoile now presented to the public his "great work." It certainly contained some very valuable matter. This he had discovered in one of the manuscripts of the library of the Royal College of Physicians, and having copied out all he wanted, he watched his opportunity, and burned the original.* This elegant work, in nine volumes royal, was entitled, "On the Diseases and Disarrangements peculiar to Fashionable Life." It was dedicated to the Higher Circle, by their most humble, affectionate, and obedient servant, the author.

"Doctor, my buck!"—said his young patron-" Come under my arm to the Drawing Room, and I'll take care of you!" The Doctor was accordingly presented at Court. He laid his fulsome volumes, bound in crimson and gold, at His Majesty's feet, and was commanded to "rise Sir Courtney Palmoile!"

Shortly after attaining this military order, so appropriate to a professor of the "healing art," Sir Courtney received the shocking intelligence, while seated at breakfast with his lady, that their friend and patron had been shot in a duel. "Now," said

This was a trifle. Sir Everard Home, after publishing his own works, in which he made what use he pleased of the unpublished manuscripts of John Hunter, deposited in the College of Surgeons, thought proper to burn them all. The act betrayed itself, for he set fire to his house in doing it, the quantity being so great. See a masterly and comprehensive article on "Medical Reform," in No. VII. of "The London and Westminster Review."

the medical knight, replacing his uplifted muffin on the plate, “I must take care of myself." The young nobleman lived just long enough to make his will, in which he left the Doctor and his wife, each, an annuity of five hundred pounds per annum. A very pleasant and prosperous time they had. While he turned gossip into gold, she turned day into night.

A profession, the humane purposes of which-in the alleviation of sickness and pain, the eradication of disease, and the endeavour to prolong the duration of human life—are of a character so extensive and so important to the health and happiness of the world; a profession, in the right and qualified exercise of which, the lives of his fellow creatures are placed with humble reliance in the practitioner's hands, ought to be guarded by all the means possible to be devised, against both the uneducated and ill-educated, whatever degree of rank and assumption they may claim and possess in the dazzling glare of fashion and notoriety. But guarded it is not: on the contrary, great facilities are given to the ingress of imposters, and these facilities are guarded and preserved with the most watchful solicitude. We have only space to give a few memoranda of certain highly patronised proceedings, which may not, however, be altogether without instruction.

A Fashionable Physician has a favourite disease, and a favourite remedy-each of which changes like any other fashion. Sometimes it is the liver-then the lungs-then the head-then the stomachsometimes even the heart. The stomach, however, is the favourite that "comes round" the oftenest. This is a corps de reserve for all failures, and a prescription for it must generally do good; because, while poor people are ill from a deficiency of food, and frequently from taking ardent spirits instead, the rich people are mostly ill from intemperance in all things.

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A Fashionable Physician always leaves town directly after the season," and his patients keep till his return. Those, however, who do not remain behind, are advised to betake themselves to the very place where he is going. But, among those who stay in town, there is seldom a cessation of fees, because a physician of this class employs several less fortunate physicians to call for him, he allowing them a "certain something" upon the fees handed over to him. Under their inferior skill, the patients are sometimes actually getting quite well; but, at this dangerous crisis, the " great man" suddenly returns to town, and, strange to say, the whole of them are again taken ill, as if seized by an epidemic.

We once heard of a physician who, being on his promotion, and very anxious to elevate himself into fashionable practice, always called