92 THE FEMALE SMUGGLER. smuggler who would not go ashore at Dover, because there was 'a searching wind' blowing, which might expose the lace-swathings of her person: 'In spite of rope and barrow, knot, and tuck, Of plank and ladder, there she stuck! 'But, Ma'am,' the steward interfered, "The wessel must be cleared. You mus' n't stay aboard, Ma'am, no one do n't! And all the passengers has gone but you.' Says she, 'I cannot go ashore and won't!' 'But I can't!' "You must!' 'I sha' n't!'' NUMBER FOUR. THE QUACK-DOCTOR: NAPOLEON AND HIS BATTLES : MAL-ADROIT COMPLI MENT: THE LIVING-DEAD: PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES: A TEMPERANCE STORY: COMFORT OF COMMON THINGS: A HOG IN ARMOR: POETRY OF THE ALPHABET: AUTHENTIC ANECDOTE OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON: PERILS OF A JACKASS : A MAN'S OWN HOME: INSIGNIA OF 'HENPECKERY' THE HELPLESS HELP-MATE': SONNETEERING, WITH A SPECIMEN: REMINISCENCES: DEATH OF A GOOD MAN. STUMBLED on a character the other evening,' writes a friend, on board a steam-boat, which presented some traits that I thought rather original and unique. I daguerreotyped him on the spot. I had just finished supper, and was quietly enjoying my cigar on the deck, when I heard an individual declaiming in a loud tone of voice to some two or three attentive listeners, (but evidently intended for the benefit of whomsoever it might concern,) on pathology. Being as it were thus invited, I also became a listener to something like the following: There it is now! Well, some people talk about seated fevers. I don't know any thing about seated fevers; there aint no such thing as seated fever. A musquitoe-bite is a fever; cure the bite, and the fever leaves you. So with a bile-just the same thing; their aint no such thing, I tell you, as seated fever. 94 THE QUACK DOCTOR. The fact is, your regular doctor practizes according to books. I practize according to common sense. Now there was Dr. RUGG, of our village, the Sampson of the Materier-Medicker. Well, he treats fevers according to the books; consequence is I get all the patients: and he says to me one day, says he, 'why,' said he, 'how is it, you get all the fever cases?' And I told him exactly how it was; and it is so. 'Well, Doctor, interrupted one of the listeners, 'How do you treat fevers?' 'Well, there it is, you see; you ask me how I treat fevers! If you had asked me when I first commenced practizing I could ha' told you; cant tell you now. I treat cases just as I find 'em, according to common sense. And there it is: now there was Mrs. SCUTTLE; she was taken sick; all the folks said. she had the consumption; had two doctors to her; did n't do her a single mossel o' good. They sent for me. Well, as I went into the house, I see a lot o' tanzy and a flock of chickens by the door: felt her pulse: says I, 'Mrs. SCUTTLE, you aint no more got the consumption than I've got it. Two weeks, an' I cured her!' 'Well, doctor, how did you cure her?' How did I cure her? There it is ag'in! I told you I see a lot of tanzy and a flock of chickens growing at the door. I gi'n her some of the tanzy and a fresh-laid egg- brought her right up. It's kill or cure with me! In fact, I call myself an officer. My saddle-bags is my soldiers, and my disease my inimy. NAPOLEON AND HIS BATTLES. 95 I rush at him; and 'ither he or me has got to conquer. I never give in !' My cigar was out; and while lighting another, the doctor vanished: possibly hastened by the influence of one of his own prescriptions.' WE always associate, and at once, with NAPOLEON'S name, the dreadful scenes presented by his deserted battlefields; such for an example as marked the sanguinary contests of his Russian campaign. Here is a sketch of one, from the pen of an eye witness: 'The battle-field presented a terrible picture of ruin and carnage, especially on the left and centre, where the greatest efforts had been made to take, maintain, and retake the redoubts. Corpses of the slain, broken arms, dead and dying horses, covered every elevation and filled every hollow, and plainly indicated the progress of the action. In the front of the redoubts lay the bodies of the French; behind the works, showing that they had been carried, lay the Russians. On many points the heaps of corpses told where squares of infantry had stood, and plainly pointed out the size of the closely formed masses. From the relative number of the slain, it was easy to perceive that the Russians had suffered more than the French!' And this is but one of hundreds of similar scenes! Yet, 'had these Yet, 'had these poor fellows any quar 96 MAL-ADROIT COMPLIMENT. rel? Busy as the Devil is, not the smallest! Their Governors had fallen out!' If one could indulge a 'grim smile' at any thing in relation to BONAPARTE, it would be at the potential military standard to which he reduced every thing. Do you remember his order on the appearance of the Mamelukes in Egypt? Form square; artillery to the angles; asses and savants to the centre !' Characteristic; but complimentary that, to the 'learned savants!' ' Asses and savants to the centre !' 'READER, did you never encounter a person who was always striving, in the presence of ladies, to lug in 'a compliment' (as that is called which compliment is none) to the 'fair sex?' Is there a greater bore in the infinite region of Boredom? Somebody has lately 'illuminated' a specimen of this class, in a pleasant anecdote. A lady, whose attention he had been trying to force all the evening, observed, in the words of an old saying, and with a slight shudder as from cold, 'I feel as if a goose were walking over my grave;' the origin, we may suppose, of the term 'cold-goose-pimple.' Sir Compliment Hunter thought of ROMEO's aspiration, 'Oh! that I were a glove upon that hand!' and replied: "Oh! would I were that goose! Goose truly he was; but the bright, clear idea of hoping he might be the interesting bird which should walk over |