Again those massive chairs, strong enough to bear a century of future guests, as they had borne a century of past ones, were ranged about the table. The great brass andirons, sparkling with recent rubbing, nearly made up for the spiritual life of the wood-fire that the day was too warm to admit. Mr. Clifton, the clergyman, a gentleman whose liberal and generous disposition could at times catch in the antiquarian ruts of his chief parishioners, was, as usual, the representative guest from the town. Kate and I, being expected to talk only just enough to pay for our admission, listened with much profit while the political question pending the next day, and many matters relevant and irrelevant thereto, underwent discussion. "They say Howke's pills are growing in esteem of late; the names of many reverend brothers of yours are to be read in his advertisements as certifying the cure of some New-England ailment," observed our host. "So I see," said Mr. Clifton; "and I regret to think that a class of men, unjustly accused of dogmatizing in those spiritual things they assuredly know, should lay themselves open to the suspicion, by testifying in those material matters whereof they are mostly ignorant. Not that I disallow that hackneyed tenth of Juvenal, "_Orandum est ut sit mens sana_," and the rest of it. But rather would I follow the Apostle, who, to the end that every man might possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, was content to prescribe temperance and chastity,--leaving the recommendation of plasters and sirups to those who had made them their special study. "Yet in ancient times," remarked Professor Owlsdarck, "the offices of priest and physician were most happily combined. Among those lost children of Asia whom our fathers met in New England, the Powwows were the doctors of the body as well as the soul." "For all that, I cannot believe that Shakspeare meant to indorse Indian medicine, as Strype says he did," said the Colonel. We all looked surprise and incredulity at this unexpected assertion. "You can't have read the last 'Regulator,' then," said Prowley, in explanation. "You know that Howke and Strype have long been endeavoring to find some motto from the great dramatist to print upon the boxes containing the Wigwam Pills; but, somehow, they never could discover one which seemed quite appropriate." "'Familiar in their mouths as household words,'" suggested Mr. Clifton. "Well, that might have done, to be sure; but they happened to miss it. So for the last month Strype has been studying the works of numerous ingenious commentators to see whether some of their happy emendations to the text might not meet the difficulty." "But it must require the insertion of some entire speech or paragraph to make Shakspeare give his testimony in favor of savage pharmacy," said I, innocently.