because the liquids which he useth to prescribe to himself and his patients, on these distressing occasions, are ordinarily more conveniently to be found at these common hostelries, than in the shops and phials of the apothecaries.  His ear hath arrived to such finesse by practice, that it is reported, he can distinguish a plunge at a half furlong distance; and can tell, if it be casual or deliberate.  He weareth a medal, suspended over a suit, originally of a sad brown, but which, by time, and frequency of nightly divings, has been dinged into a true professional sable.  He passeth by the name of Doctor, and is remarkable for wanting his left eye.  His remedy—­after a sufficient application of warm blankets, friction, &c., is a simple tumbler, or more, of the purest Cognac, with water, made as hot as the convalescent can bear it.  Where he findeth, as in the case of my friend, a squeamish subject, he condescendeth to be the taster; and showeth, by his own example, the innocuous nature of the prescription.  Nothing can be more kind or encouraging than this procedure.  It addeth confidence to the patient, to see his medical adviser go hand in hand with himself in the remedy.  When the doctor swalloweth his own draught, what peevish invalid can refuse to pledge him in the potion?  In fine, MONOCULUS is a humane, sensible man, who, for a slender pittance, scarce enough to sustain life, is content to wear it out in the endeavour to save the lives of others—­his pretensions so moderate, that with difficulty I could press a crown upon him, for the price of restoring the existence of such an invaluable creature to society as G.D.

It was pleasant to observe the effect of the subsiding alarm upon the nerves of the dear absentee.  It seemed to have given a shake to memory, calling up notice after notice, of all the providential deliverances he had experienced in the course of his long and innocent life.  Sitting up in my couch—­my couch which, naked and void of furniture hitherto, for the salutary repose which it administered, shall be honoured with costly valance, at some price, and henceforth be a state-bed at Colebrooke,—­he discoursed of marvellous escapes—­by carelessness of nurses—­by pails of gelid, and kettles of the boiling element, in infancy—­by orchard pranks, and snapping twigs, in schoolboy frolics—­by descent of tiles at Trumpington, and of heavier tomes at Pembroke—­by studious watchings, inducing frightful vigilance—­by want, and the fear of want, and all the sore throbbings of the learned head.—­Anon, he would burst out into little fragments of chaunting—­of songs long ago—­ends of deliverance-hymns, not remembered before since childhood, but coming up now, when his heart was made tender as a child’s—­for the tremor cordis, in the retrospect of a recent deliverance, as in a case of impending danger, acting upon an innocent heart, will produce a self-tenderness, which we should do ill to christen cowardice; and Shakspeare, in the latter crisis, has made his good Sir Hugh to remember the sitting by Babylon, and to mutter of shallow rivers.