Cervantes according to the Doctor clearly perceived this great truth, and went farther than Sir W. Temple, for he perceived also the practical application, though it was one of those truths which because it might have been dangerous for him to propound them seriously, he was fain to bring forward in a comic guise, leaving it for the wise to discover his meaning, and for posterity to profit by it. He knew—(_Daniel loquitur_) what did not Cervantes know?—that if Philip II. had committed himself to the superintendence of a Physician instead of a Father Confessor, many of the crimes and miseries by which his reign is so infamously distinguished, might have been prevented. A man of his sad spirit and melancholy complection to be dieted upon fish the whole forty days of Lent, two days in the week during the rest of the year, and on the eve of every holiday besides,—what could be expected but atrabilious thoughts, and cold-blooded resolutions? Therefore Cervantes appointed a Physician over Sancho in his Baratarian government: the humour of the scene was for all readers, the application for those who could penetrate beyond the veil, the benefit for happier ages when the art of Government should be better understood, and the science of medicine be raised to its proper station in the state. Shakespere intended to convey the same political lesson, when he said “take physic pomp!” He used the word pomp instead of power, cautiously, for in those days it was a perilous thing to meddle with matters of state. When the Philosopher Carneades undertook to confute Zeno the Stoic in public argument, (still reader _Daniel loquitur_) how did he prepare himself for the arduous disputation? by purging his head with hellebore, to the intent that the corrupt humours which ascended thither from the stomach should not disturb the seat of memory and judgment, and obscure his intellectual perception. The theory, Sir, was erroneous, but the principle is good. When we require best music from the instrument, ought we not first to be careful that all its parts are in good order, and if we find a string that jars, use our endeavours for tuning it?