at the board reaching the ears of a few poor peasants, they made bold to thank thee for thy exertions in their behalf. How didst thou receive them?--With a violent harrangue against their incorrigible laziness and dishonesty--an assurance that half their sufferings sprung from their own vices--and a vehement declaration that, far from speaking a good word for them to the guardians, thou didst counsel the sternest and cruellest of measures. A man of another mould and temper was the writer's dear friend, Felix. Gentle and ardent, tranquil as a summer evening, and unyielding as a rock, modest but brave, unobtrusive but fearless, he had a mind that poets only could rightly read. Delicate in frame, as he was refined in intellect, he could not endure rude exertion or vulgar pleasure. Active in mind, he still possessed a vein of indolence, thoroughly appreciating the pleasure of dreaming the whole day long on a sunny chair in a garden, surrounded with bright flowers and breathing a perfumed air. In the hot season the country people used to watch their doctor traversing the country in his capacious phaeton. Alone, without a servant by his side, he held the reins in his hands, but in his reveries altogether forgot to use them. Sometimes he would fall asleep, and travel for miles in a state of unconsciousness, his great phlegmatic horse pounding the dust at the rate of five miles an hour. The somni-driverous doctor never came to harm. His steed knew how to keep on the left-hand side of the road, under ordinary circumstances passing all vehicles securely, but never thinking of overtaking any; and the country people, amongst whom the doctor spent his days, made his preservation from bodily harm an object of their especial care. Often did a rustic wayfarer extricate the doctor's equipage from a perilous position, and then send it onwards without disturbing the gentleman by waking him. The same placid, equable man was Felix in society, that he was on these professional excursions--nothing alarming or exciting him. It was in his study that the livelier elements of his nature came into play. Those who, for the first time, conversed with him in private on his microscopic and chemical pursuits, his researches in history, or his labours in speculative or natural philosophy, caught fire from his fire and were inspired with his enthusiasm. Felix belonged to a class daily becoming more numerous; Miles was of a species that has already become rare--the army surgeon. The necessities of the long war caused the enrolment of numbers of young men in the ranks of the medical profession, whose learning was not their highest recommendation to respect. An old navy surgeon, of no small wit, and an infinite capacity for the consumption of strong liquors--wine, brandy, whisky, usquebaugh (anything, so long as it was strong)--gave a graphic description to this writer of his examination on things pertaining to surgery by the Navy Board.