Under barbarous governments the most atrocious practices are still in use. It was reported in India that when Hyder Aly was suffering with a malignant bile on his back common in that country, and which occasioned his death, an infant's liver was applied to it every day. An Englishman in the service of Phizal Beg Cawn was on an embassy at Madras when this story was current; the Governor asked him whether he thought it likely to be true, and he acknowledged his belief in it, giving this sufficient reason, that his master Phizal Beg had tried the same remedy, but then he begged leave to affirm in behalf of his master, that the infants killed for his use, were slaves, and his own property. * * * * * Of odd notions concerning virginity I do not remember a more curious one than that virgin mummy was preferred in medicine. INTERCHAPTER XXV. A WISHING INTERCHAPTER WHICH IS SHORTLY TERMINATED, ON SUDDENLY RECOLLECTING THE WORDS OF CLEOPATRA,—“WISHERS WERE EVER FOOLS.” Begin betimes, occasion's bald behind, Stop not thine opportunity, for fear too late Thou seek'st for much, but canst not compass it. MARLOWE. “_Plust a Dieu que j'eusse presentement cent soixante et dixhuit millions d'or!_” says a personage in Rabelais: “_ho, comment je triumpherois!_” It was a good, honest, large, capacious wish; and in wishing, it is as well to wish for enough. By enough in the way of riches, a man is said to mean always something more than he has. Without exposing myself to any such censorious remark, I will like the person above quoted, limit my desires to a positive sum, and wish for just one million a year. And what would you do with it? says Mr. Sobersides. “_Attendez encores un peu, avec demie once de patience._” I now esteem my venerable self As brave a fellow, as if all that pelf Were sure mine own; and I have thought a way Already how to spend. And first for my private expenditure, I would either buy a house to my mind, or build one; and it should be such as a house ought to be, which I once heard a glorious agriculturist define “a house that should have in it every thing that is voluptuous, and necessary and right.” In my acceptation of that felicitous definition, I request the reader to understand that every thing which is right is intended, and nothing but what is perfectly so: that is to say I mean every possible accommodation conducive to health and comfort. It should be large enough for my friends, and not so large as to serve as an hotel for my acquaintance, and I would live in it at the rate of five thousand a year, beyond which no real and reasonable enjoyment is to be obtained by money. I would neither keep hounds, nor hunters, nor running horses.