Do you know whom we send you, Hidalgos of Spain? Do you know your old friends when you see them again? Hosea was Sancho! you Dons of Madrid, But Sancho that wielded the lance of the Cid! And the wood-thrush of Essex--you know whom I mean, Whose song echoes round us when he sits unseen, Whose heart-throbs of verse through our memories thrill Like a breath from the wood, like a breeze from the hill. So fervid, so simple, so loving, so pure, We hear but one strain and our verdict is sure-- Thee cannot elude us--no further we search-- 'Tis Holy George Herbert cut loose from his church! We think it the voice of a cherub that sings-- Alas! we remember that angels have wings-- What story is this of the day of his birth? Let him live to a hundred! we want him on earth! One life has been paid him (in gold) by the sun; One account has been squared and another begun; But he never will die if he lingers below Till we've paid him in love half the balance we owe! CHAPTER XIII. THE MAN OF SCIENCE. "What decided me," says Doctor Holmes, "to give up Law and apply myself to Medicine, I can hardly say, but I had from the first looked upon my law studies as an experiment. At any rate, I made the change, and soon found myself introduced to new scenes and new companionships. "I can scarcely credit my memory when I recall the first impressions produced upon me by sights afterwards become so familiar that they could no more disturb a pulse-beat than the commonest of every-day experiences. The skeleton, hung aloft like a gibbeted criminal, looked grimly at me as I entered the room devoted to the students of the school I had joined, just as the fleshless figure of Time, with the hour-glass and scythe, used to glare upon me in my childhood from the _New England Primer_. The white faces in the beds at the Hospital found their reflection in my own cheeks which lost their color as I looked upon them. All this had to pass away in a little time; I had chosen my profession, and must meet all its aspects until they lost their power over my sensibility.... "After attending two courses of lectures in the School of the University, I went to Europe to continue my studies. I can hardly believe my own memory when I recall the old practitioners and professors who were still going round the hospitals when I mingled with the train of students in the École de Médicine."