Thus happily disposed to those brilliant sallies of mirth, that almost renovate life, and set melancholy at defiance, you will be the less liable to surprise, that I shall descend to the very minutiæ of your necessary qualifications, for the support of so arduous and complicated a character as you are now going to perform upon the theatre of life. It is very natural to conclude you have, during the tedious years of initiation as an apprentice, and your more mature services as a journeyman, (politely ycleped assistant) whether in the metropolis, or the country, gone through every degree of drudgery, and feelingly experienced every indignity, that _insolent pride_ could bestow, or _patient merit_ receive. Not an inferior trust (of the inferior part of the faculty) but you have carried into execution, from the injection of an _enema_ in a garret, to the separation of an _emplastrum vesicatorium_ in a workhouse. These are offices of humanity and service to your fellow creatures, that do you immortal honour; they are retrospectives that form an epoch in the mind of every practitioner, and afford him the powerful consolation of _sacred truth_, “He that humbleth himself,” &c. by which rule, and the force of a fertile imagination, any _apothecary_ may _conceive_ himself a _physician_, even in the administration of a _glyster_. In this hospitable execution (taken metaphorically) there cannot be supposed the least indignity; for it is universally known the _greatest_ and most _prudent_ generals are in the _rear_ during the heat of battle; and we are again taught seriously to believe “the last shall be first,” &c. so that you have every way, (by both _faith_ and _services_) insured a religious and prophetic _hope_ of preferment. Having for many years encountered the _worst_, you are now prepared for the _best_; and bidding adieu to the rigid rules of austere masters, embark upon your own foundation, qualified for every medical consultation, from the bedchamber of a _duchess dowager_ to the subterraneous residence of her _chairman_. You have, at this period, not only shaken off the shackles of servitude, but the very recollection of your long standing culinary connections. In your various changes of residence, tedious peregrinations, and medical observations, it is natural to conclude, you have acquired by care, study, and attention, a competent knowledge of almost every tint in the picture of life; which, with embellishments, derived from a few courses under some of the _metropolitan lecturers_, and _hospital attendance_, to qualify you for the complication of _country_ practice, there is no doubt but you come from the forge properly formed, to make wrong appear right, and right wrong, in the face of every _old woman_ in the county where you are going to reside.