quite right, doctor," remarked I; "and what is more, they would, like every thing artificial about you, be disgraced by the gifts of Nature. You can bite close enough with the teeth you have, whilst a fool and a sea-rusk cost you so little to reduce them to dust." He laughed, and displayed from ear to ear, the snowy white and even teeth; not of Lucy Hardcastle's sort, because one would make four of her pearls, but yet as well adapted to the mouth they reside in. So much for the doctors teeth; now for his humour. Some one asked him whether he had lately seen a certain Sir Peregrine Lofley, a gentleman of consequence somewhere in the neighbourhood. "No," replied he, with a peculiar expression of contempt. "He has not had the cholic of late; and when he has, he will not apply to the _Scotch quack_ for physic; he found mine unpalatable."--"How did that happen?" asked Mr. Greenwood; "when I last saw Sir Peregrine he told me you had saved his life, and that the London physicians were fit only to beat your pestle and mortar."--"That opinion speaks the fool," answered he; "but neither the Scotch nor English physicians can cure him of a radical want of brains. You saw him three or four days after I had accomplished the same business which they had done more than once; the only difference consisted in the mode. This fellow," continued he, turning to Sir Murdock, "had, by his gluttony, produced a malady, which, without a miracle, might have killed him in twenty hours; and having heard of '_one Douglas_,' who had saved a man from a mortification of the bowels, I was sent for. The danger of Sir Peregrine was not less imminent, but happily yielded to medicine. Perfectly knowing the cause of the malady, I became the friend of nature and of him; and for a few days longer than was absolutely necessary, kept him on a very spare diet. He had been terrified into docility, and, on enlarging his bill of fare, I honestly told him, that his health was in his own hands; that temperance would preserve it, and that excess in eating would shorten his life. From this well-meant caution he drew an inference perfectly useless. He would eat nothing that Doctor Douglas did not order; and during the course of a fortnight I received my fee, for directing his cook to boil his mutton and make his panada. I saw the machine was going on well; and, without farther concern, took his superfluous gold for advice and controul so beneficial to him. Not, however, classing him with my sick patients, I one morning omitted my visit. The following evening as I called on passing his door, I was questioned on the cause of _my neglect_. He had expected me in the morning. 'I had a great desire for a stewed carp for my dinner,' added he, with a disturbed air, 'but I did not dare to eat of it without your permission.'--'It is not my intention, my good Sir,' replied I, 'to play _le docteur Pedro Rezio_ with you: with the constitution and appetite of _le governeur