Here is the date of his death, rejoined the Lawyer, copied from the plate on his coffin; and by this it appears, that he lived to complete a period of forty-three years, five months and three days. _Sufficit!_ said Llewellyn; the plate upon his coffin is evidence. Now let us understand what he employed himself upon during that period. A silence ensued for a considerable time. David referred himself to the metheglin; the other two to meditation on the past events of Philip’s life, as materials for history. He was very fond of angling, said the Lawyer.--He was so, replied the Doctor, and you may put that down in the archives, only you need not inform posterity, that he never got a bite. Pooh! rejoined Davis, that naturally happened, because he was too indolent to bait his hook.--He had an acknowledged partiality for the game of chess. Yes, and an acknowledged ignorance of it, said the Doctor. I am apt to think, that it will be perfectly safe to record, that he was six feet high-- Wanting half an inch, rejoined the Lawyer. Pshaw! exclaimed the Doctor; if you begin to reckon up all that is _wanting_, there will be no end to the account. David now unmuzzled his oracle, and began to utter--Gentlemen, give me leave to observe to you, that you wander from the points, that chiefly constituted the exemplary character of the deceased personage, whose incomparable qualities we are even now preparing to commemorate. He possessed, as I can witness, a most laudable respect for the almost miraculous powers of music: I do not say that Mr. Philip De Lancaster was skilled in the practice of that sublime art; but I do say, that he was at the pains of ascending the winding stair-case of my turret, and of entering my chamber on the top of it, for the benevolent purpose of employing me to expel the meagrims, or blue devils, as they are called, from the possession they had taken of his lady, and restoring her to health and spirits by the healing remedy of dulcet tones, elicited by me from my harp. A fiddlestick for your harp! exclaimed the man of medicine. I tell you, that its dulcet tones were the very death of his wife. You may take that from me, friend David, _in verbo medici_. I’ll not take that from you, or any one else, friend or foe, retorted the enraged musician; and now began an altercation between chemicals and galenicals _versus_ chords and crotchets, which was maintained with such heat, (both gentlemen being of the principality,) that in the confusion of tongues all memory of poor Philip’s history was done away, and to this hour no record, anecdote or account of that unfortunate gentleman is any where to be found, save only what the historic tool of the engraver has briefly inscribed upon the lacquered plate, that ornaments his coffin. CHAPTER VIII. _Our History verges to its Conclusion.--Cornet Roberts arrives at Penruth Abbey._