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PRESENT STATE OF MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE IN
ENGLAND.

In our paper in No. XXII., upon Quacks and Quack Medicines, we stated sufficient to account for the predilection of the English people in favour of drugs and nostrums. There are, however, further causes which maintain the ascendancy of quackery, and which also may be traced to the general defects of our medical system, as well as to professional example. We shall, therefore, devote the present article to a rapid examination of the whole body of medical practitioners, in their several divisions of graduated physicians, operative surgeons, and apothecaries under the act of parliament.

The fee of the graduated physician is so enormous, in England, as to exceed the means not only of the lower but of the middle classes: his aid is therefore not demanded until the failure of the surgeon-apothecary, or, more correctly speaking, the physicianapothecary—for this practitioner perpetrates but little operative surgery beyond bleeding, drawing teeth, and puncturing purulent tumours when not dangerously situated. The physician, therefore, more commonly "comes in at the death ;" but when he does not, his guinea visit of half-an-hour can give him no possible knowledge of the patient's idiosyncrasies. He is therefore obliged, in addition to what he can discover at a glance, to rely upon the report of his general-practising predecessor, who will naturally make out a case to justify the nature and quantity of medicine he has inflicted. The physician, even though he should lie to his conscience, will approve of the previous treatment; because to the general practitioner he stands precisely in the same light as the barrister stands to the attorney. By such a cursory glance he can do but little good; he however lauds the skill of the apothecary, writes a prescription, receives his fee, and makes his bow. He perhaps calls a second time unasked, to see the effect of his prescription, and declines taking a fee, if offered. Such are the professional doings of the medical graduate among the most numerous classes of English society.

But supposing the fee of the physician to come within the range of everybody's purse, his qualifications form the next subject for examination. We beg here generally to disavow all personalities: it is with the system only that we find fault. We undervalue no man's attainments; and we repeat, with pride, that England can put forth names of living physicians who may vie with the most skilful and celebrated.

The first obstacle to an improved state of medical science has resided in the London College of Physicians itself. No practitioners have hitherto been allowed to participate in its honours except those graduated at Oxford or Cambridge. Neither of these universities has a school of medicine, or affords any facilities for acquiring medical knowledge. The university lectures on any part of this branch of science, are mere idle ceremonies. They who take degrees there have no means, therefore, whilst in college, of qualifying themselves for practice. They are obliged to learn elsewhere healthy and morbid anatomy,-to acquire elsewhere all but very crude and general notions of the physiology of man and the signs of the diseases of which it is their avowed vocation to cure him, and which it is their duty to prevent as well as cure. To receive clinical or bed-side instruction, they are compelled to resort to other places where there are large hospitals. To study hygiène, and medical jurisprudence, they must leave the seat of learning which professes to teach them and does not do so, but grants them a degree founded upon the acquisition of classical learning or mathematical knowledge. These graduates constitute the president and fellows of the Royal College of Physicians in

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London, whose doors remain closed against the most distinguished and most gifted doctors in medicine belonging to other schools though assuredly, with some few exceptions, those on the outside of the temple are the most worthy of seats of honour within. With the exception of the two infant schools of the London Universities, there is no real medical school in England. These are of such recent formation that there has not yet been time for any result, though we have no doubt that the good seed which has been sown in them, will, in due time, produce good fruit.

Unfortunately it is no test of sterling talent that brings a physician into the lucrative practice existing among the high-born and the wealthy. This may depend upon the mere caprice of fashion, aided by the sharpness and personal tact necessary to seize an opportunity. The patronage of an influential lady cured of an imaginary complaint, or whose weaknesses have been flattered, may create such an opportunity in favour of a man wholly inefficient, who will retain his post by the exercise of other good qualities, and by becoming the depository of family secrets. There are two kinds of the fashionable physician: one possessing the utmost blandness and fascination of manner, great facility of speech, and the most exquisite polish; the other pedantic, rude, and illmannered. Both maintain their ground by the same means; and both are positive quacks in their practice. It is therefore very usual for such as can afford and pay the price of the best advice, to obtain the most questionable.

Among our graduated practitioners generally, there is considerable deficiency in chemical as well as in pathological knowledge, to say nothing of real and comprehensive physiological philosophy. It follows, therefore, that besides the mistakes made in the nature of diseases, complicated compounds in the human body are provoked to the most dangerous exercise of the chemical affinities. We have now before us five prescriptions, written for as many patients, by a physician who resides at a fashionable place of summer resort. We know not to what diseases these remedies were opposed, but each contains, with a slight variation in the quantities, the same precise constituents. These are hydrocyanic acid, strychnia, sulphate of quinine, acetate of morphia, tartarized antimony, calomel, iodide of iron and camphor, with gum arabic, syrup, and water, as vehicles. Let any chemist fancy these substances, in frightfully large doses, obeying their chemical instincts in the human stomach. The quackery of this learned M.D., beyond the imposing appearance of so many items, is of the speculative kind, no doubt he most probably fancies that if one article fail, another may succeed in relieving the patient. But he overlooks the exercise of chemical attraction between the substances, and especially the energetic action upon each other of the liberated arch-elements oxygen, chlorine, and iodine, each of which is to be found in these prescriptions. If it be difficult, as every sound philosopher will admit, to ascertain the effect upon the human system of even two compound chemical bodies combined to form a medicine, the union of the several substances we have enumerated, upon a mere speculation of benefit, is an act of the absolute and reckless insanity of ignorance.

An absurd piece of quackery general to the medical profession is the custom of continuing to write their prescriptions in a most execrable kind of Latin, instead of using the vernacular tongue. One of the reasons alleged in favour of this practice is, that could the uninformed read the prescription, they would have no confidence in the remedy. This is very probable, if they knew anything of medicine or chemistry,-not else; and all who have such knowledge could read the Latin prescription. To the uninformed, the chemical names of the drugs expressed in English would be quite as unintelligible as if written in Latin. Another reason

urged is, that foreign apothecaries and chemists would not under-covered with pink or blue paper. We are acquainted with several stand an English prescription. No!-but they all understand general practitioners, who heartily condemn this disgraceful French,—a language universal in Europe; so ought every English system, which they have too much honesty to pursue, and therefore practitioner, if he would keep up his medical reading. Besides, do not realise fortunes. There is another abuse, which is a crying injustice to the we defy foreign apothecaries and druggists even to make out the chemists and druggists, who are not allowed to prescribe for words, much less to comprehend the intended meaning of the pre-diseases and send out medicines to patients. The apothecaries scriptions written by many of our physicians, whose barbarous Latin words are tacked to an English idiom, as the strip of muslin for an embroidered trimming is tacked to its paper pattern.

The English school of surgery is excellent, thanks to the exertions of Cline, and Cooper, and Abernethy, and Lawrence, and Mayo, and Liston, and a long line of illustrious men. Still we have no very high opinion of the pathological, chemical, and medical knowledge, possessed by the general body of our operative surgeons. We very much regret to see that so many members of the "Royal College of Surgeons" are advertising quacks, or rather that so many advertising quacks are members of the "Royal College of Surgeons."

Though many country surgeons, educated for operative chirurgery, are obliged, in order to compete with the physician-apothecaries, to become members of the Apothecaries' Company, by serving a fictitious apprenticeship to an apothecary, and thereby eluding the act of parliament, we never yet conversed with such a practitioner who did not reprobate the practice of a medical man selling his own drugs, as inconsistent with the feelings of a gentleman exercising a liberal and scientific profession. Many surgeons in large towns practise as physicians without a diploma; and we know of no law to prevent any man, qualified or not, from calling himself a surgeon, and practising as such, and from acting, in this capacity, as a prescribing physician. So cheap is the title of doctor held by the country people in many counties, that it is given not only to the apothecary, but to the most ignorant farrier and cow-leech; whilst the same rustics invariably call the graduated physician, "Mister," without his title.

One of the greatest evils attached to the practice of medicine, in England, because it makes quackery legal, is that precious piece of legislation called "The Apothecaries' Act." Men whose trade is the mere compounding or putting together of the medicines ordered by the physician, are hereby authorised to practise in reality as physicians, and to supply to their patients the medicines which they themselves prescribe, or rather judge necessary, for they do not write prescriptions except for their own shopmen or apprentices. This drug practice originated, in less enlightened times, in an abuse common to apothecaries and druggists,-that of giving medical advice, across the shop-counter, to those who came to purchase drugs, but could not afford to fee a physician. No restraint is now placed by law upon the doings of the apothecary-physician; on the contrary, he is supported in the impunity of abuse, and that which, in former times, was only tolerated, is now a matter of right. Can it be expected that, under such temptation, men will act conscientiously when in opposition to their private interest? Hence arises the pretension to obtain from drugs that which they can never yield; hence proceeds the temptation, which few practitioners can resist, to exhibit (we dearly love this word) medicines when the prescribing apothecary knows they are not needed, and is often aware that they are not taken. No matter! the only thing that interests him is that they should be paid for. Though at present allowed to claim a remuneration for their visits, apothecaries in London, and in other great cities, prefer the profits on their drugs, which some among them continue to send to a wealthy patient for many days, sometimes weeks, after he is well. Each day arrives a packet containing, with or without a box of pills, two or three elegantly labelled and delicate phials filled with a coloured liquid, and the corks

are permitted to keep open shops, and retail drugs in competition with the retailing druggists. These licensed practitioners also set the example of secret remedies; they have their nostrums in the form of their "antibilious pills," their "cough lozenges," their "gout pills," their "antiscorbutic drops," their "plasters," and their "ointments." When taxed with quackery, their reply is, the public will be gulled; and that quackery is the parent of medical success. If this be true, whose fault is it? If then the example of compounding nostrums is set by professional men, who practise quackery only as amateurs, have we reason for surprise when we find professed quacks doing the same, especially as they can bribe the stamp office to affix its imprimatur * upon each bottle, or packet, or pill-box, and thereby secure an exclusive privilege of sale to the inventor?

We must now cast a glance at the medical qualifications of the physician-apothecaries under the act of parliament. By this statute every candidate for a licence to practise must be twentyone years of age, and have served an apprenticeship of not less than five years to a licensed apothecary. He must likewise produce testimonials of a sufficient medical education, and of good moral conduct. He is then examined by twelve persons appointed by the society of apothecaries to ascertain his skill and ability "in the science and practice of medicine," and his fitness to practise as an apothecary. Now what is his sufficient medical education? During the period of his apprenticeship he is occupied in a shop pounding drugs, making up medicines, and selling pennyworths of rhubarb and jalap, and ounces of Epsom salts. Here he learns neither anatomy, nor physiology, nor pathology, nor chemistry; here he has no clinical instruction, no hygiène, no medical jurisprudence, no useful information; nothing, in short, except what he picks up accidentally, and by his own industry in reading when the regular shop hours are past. Yet this is termed a sufficient medical education! Towards the close of his servitude he sometimes, during his master's absence, sees patients in uuimAt this time, he is also permitted to absent himportant cases. self to attend the necessary lectures, a certificate of such attendance being necessary to enable him to go up for examination. If he succeed in this ordeal, he is let loose to practise his skill upon her Majesty's lieges as a physician-apothecary, which signifies that he is to cure, or attempt to cure, their ailments with his own drugs, on which he realises a profit of a thousand per cent. The examination takes place at Apothecaries' Hall; and any young man of ordinary capacity and industry may prepare himself for it in a month, provided he has made any reasonable use of his leisure hours during his apprenticeship. The examiners are themselves apothecaries, with the same feelings, prejudices, and interests, and eager to uphold their particular branch of the medical profession. Proud of the little brief authority in which they are dressed, a profusion of courtesy to the trembling candidate is not always among their official failings. In most points they bear no slight resemblance to the old examiners at Surgeons' Hall, so wittily described by Smollett. We have seen dunces totally unfit to practise medicine pass scathless through the running fire of their examination; and we have seen clever youths rejected, though fully as competent as their examiners, because, perhaps, they lost their presence of mind, and failed in construing Celsus, or in deciphering an illegible prescription, or in some point of equally trifling importance.

The word imprimatur, in good old arbitrary times, was placed at the beginning of every printed book. It was the king's license to print the work. Its literal signification is, "Let it be printed." We need not, of course, inform the intelligent reader that we have used it figuratively in the text.

CURIOUS CONSTRUCTION OF MALAY HOUSES. A MALAY has a great affection for a house built upon the water, so that we often see the shallower parts of a bay covered with buildings, with only one here and there upon the land. The convenience of a natural sewer may have induced them to make such a choice, as they seem to confine themselves to places where the tide sweeps away the recrements of the inhabitants without any care or labour on their part. Situations of this kind are sometimes very pleasant, but not always; for the buildings sometimes cover a salt marsh, as on one side of Singapore, where the scenery is not enticing, nor the breezes sweet and wooing; for at low water they fan and agitate various masses of matter in a state of decomposition. The houses at Borneo stand upon the water in the usual way, and though the tide runs at the rate of three or four miles an hour, the nauseous smells that visited us while at the palace of the sultan, told tales about the state of affairs at the bottom of the river. We know from experiment, that the water in a river runs with its greatest velocity at the surface and near the middle of the stream, and its power of removing obstructions, according to a fundamental principle of hydro-dynamics, depends upon the depth; it will not, therefore, appear strange that many impurities are lodged in the sides of the river, though the flood at mid-channel may run at the rate of four miles an hour; especially when we remember that this power is farther modified by the inequality of the bottom. These observations are neither unnecessary nor far-fetched, but help us to account for what at first sight appears paradoxical; for we say, "how can anything unwholesome remain in a medium of purity spread out in such a noble expanse as the river of Borneo ?"

The houses extend on both sides of the river about a mile and a half, in a triple, and often in a multiple row; so that it is not easy to guess at their number, with a hope of coming near to the truth. On the south side there are, perhaps, seven hundred and fifty buildings, which, by assigning ten individuals to each, will make the number of persons there to be seven thousand five hundred. This allowance is not too great for each building, as it is often divided into several apartments, and augmented by appendages for the accommodation of as many families. On the north side there is a row which runs in a corresponding manner, about half a mile to the eastward, to which I reckon three hundred houses and three thousand inhabitants. But here there is a large divarication of the river, which, after a little distance, branches into several beautiful courses, or ulus, as the natives call them. Here there is a large compitum, filled in various places with houses, wherein the people live in dense crowds, and certainly do not amount to less than five thousand. In the western continuation of the houses on the north side, we have at least five thousand more: these several sums, being added together, give twenty-two thousand five hundred, which is under the true number. There are a few scattered about the surrounding country, which, when added to the foregoing number, make it more than thirty thousand as the entire population of this ancient colony of Malays. If they are correct in the account they gave us of their migration, it took place about four hundred years ago, and was from Johore, on the eastern side of the Malacca peninsula. Their remoter ancestors had, perhaps, in like manner, removed from Sumatra to the main-land, in quest of room and adventures. The houses rest upon piles formed out of the straight stem of the nibong palm, which is neat-looking and elastic at first, but the water soon reduces its outer portions; and the inner, being naturally soft and cellular, give way at once; so that a building soon needs repair in one or more of its supports. It is the nature of palms to be hard only in a dried woody crust, as the growth takes place near the centre, and not at the circumference. They are also destitute of a proper bark, or any gummy secretion, to answer the purpose of a natural varnish: hence the work of decay commences almost immediately after they are set in the water. The necessary repairs are seldom done in time; so that a house generally resembles a quadruped standing on three legs; though the reader must not understand me as meaning to say that an edifice has only four piers, for they are numerous, not only for present security, but as something laid up for the future. A Malay, however, takes all things easy, except an insult offered to his honour; and the work of decay is allowed to go on till the whole fabric is ready to tumble upon the head of its owner. We had an example of this while staying there; for the harem, or astana, was so near falling down, that, when the workmen went about removing some beams and rafters, the rest began to anticipate their labours. The doctor was soon called for with great vehemence: a spar, in its descent, had ploughed a deep furrow in

the pericranium of a chief man; and I had scarcely replaced my instruments, when another was brought to me with one of a similar kind in the side of his face. These occurring so closely together, put them upon some contrivances to prevent similar disasters, or I should have had a fair day's work in dressing wounds and bruises. The walls and roof are generally formed of palm. leaves, which agrees very well with the nature of this foundation, being light and of easy construction. A platform of palm split into pieces surrounds one or two sides of the building, for the convenience of passing to the nearest dwelling, and leads down to the water by a ladder not remarkable for the facility and comfort with which it may be ascended. Use, however, reconciles a man to many strange things. The thatch and walls of these dwellings are generally old and dishevelled, which gives them a very shabby appearance; a defect by no means obvious to the natives, as they commended some of them as very excellent in show and accommodation. There was not that regularity in the situation and relative size of the apartments which we observe among the Chinese; but in general we shall be pretty near the truth, if we say that the front was occupied by the master and his male dependants, while the back and more retired parts were filled by a train of females. The former were busily employed in carpentry, boat-building, and in the making of various utensils for the use of their master's establishment. The latter endeavoured to cheat their prisonhours by setting their hands to different kinds of needle-work, or, gathered together in numerous clusters, were fain to steal a glance through a favouring loop-hole at the mien and costume of the stranger, of whom they had heard little and seen less. I was sent for on one occasion to see a little child, affected with one of the cutaneous disorders so common among this people, and was received with much attention by a middle-aged chief, whose person and manly countenance pleased me exceedingly. He was sitting in the centre of a large room, with a small Chinese tea-tray by his side, and looking to some of his followers, who were pursuing their mechanic labours under his directions. In the next apartment were heard the movements of a swarm of females, who, in my imagination, seemed to run upon the side of the wall, like so many mice, to look through a few crevices which the joiner had left near the roof. By what means they ascended I do not pretend to guess, but the impression on my mind was exactly as I have described it. As often as the chief lifted up his eyes towards the wall, those on the other side, thinking that we could see them because they could see us, instantly began to run down in order to escape recognition. Here we had a crowd of delinquents condemned to perpetual durance, whose only offence was that they had some personal comeliness, or more attractions than the rest of their companions.-Voyage of the Himmaleh.

THE LAST DAYS OF MURAT, KING OF NAPLES *. A WEARIED and exhausted stranger presented himself at the door of a lonely cottage, a few miles distant from a bay which opened upon the Mediterranean, a few leagues from the harbour of Toulon. He was a man apparently of middle age; and, though misery was stamped upon his aspect, his air was noble and his form majestic. His garments were torn and drenched with rain, his features haggard, and a dark beard of three days' growth, contrasting with the pallor of his complexion, added not a little to the ghastliness of his appearance. His dress was the blue cloth cap and long grey surtout usually worn by French soldiers on the march. He seemed as one worn down with watching, and fatigue, and hunger, and his enfeebled limbs could scarcely bear him to the door of the humble mansion. Yet there was resolution in his eye, and wretched as was his present plight, no one could look on him and doubt that he had moved in scenes both of splendour and of high achievement, as one to whom they were familiar. He hesitated for a moment ere he sought entrance, but it seemed that he had prepared himself for whatever fortune might befal him, for, without pausing even to listen or to look around, he raised the latch and boldly entered.

An old woman was the occupant of the single room that constituted the interior of the cabin, the furniture of which sufficiently attested the poverty of its inhabitant. But, though poor, she was charitable. The appearance of the stranger declared his wants, and she made haste to set before him such humble food as she possessed, to heap fuel on the coals that lay smouldering on the hearth, and to prepare for him a rude couch of straw, covered with blankets, in one corner of the room, before which she hung

From the Gift of 1839,

the counterpane of her own bed, to serve as a partition. The wanderer framed a ready tale, to which she listened with unsuspecting sympathy. He was an inferior officer belonging to the garrison of Toulon-had lost his way while endeavouring to reach a neighbouring village by a shorter route through the wood--and had wandered all night in the storm of rain which had been pouring for the last two days. A few hours of repose would restore his exhausted strength, and enable his hostess to dry his dripping garments, after which he would take his leave with thanks and a lively remembrance of her goodness.

While he was yet sleeping, the husband of the old woman returned. The noise of his entrance disturbed not the profound slumber of the wearied stranger, and it was late in the afternoon when he awoke. The thoughtful kindness of the old woman had provided for him a change of apparel in the best suit of her husband, and when he emerged from his extemporaneous resting place, refreshed in mind and body, there was a striking contrast between his rustic garb and the stately bearing which no attire, however humble, could essentially diminish or conceal. The owner of the cabin was seated upon a bench before the door, enjoying the freshness of the evening breeze, and, as the stranger advanced to greet him, a searching glance of his dark but sparkling eye rested for a moment upon the old man's furrowed countenance, while a shade of anxiety, or it might be of suspicion, flitted across his own; but the result of his quick scrutiny appeared to be satisfactory, and the transient cloud gave place, almost at the instant of its rising, to the bold and frank expression which his features habitually wore. With many a cheerful jest upon his unaccustomed garb, he repeated the simple narrative with which he had already accounted to the old woman for his disastrous plight, and laughingly declared that he would almost be willing to undergo another night of abstinence and watching, to enjoy the comforts of such a meal as his hostess had set before him, and of the luxurious slumber from which he had just awaked.

While he was speaking, the listener was intently scrutinising his features, and the more he gazed, the more his wonder seemed to grow, his doubts to be dispelled. At length he started up, and flinging himself upon his knees before the stranger, caught his hand, and in a voice quivering with emotion, exclaimed, "It must be, it is my General-le beau sabreur whom I have so often followed to the charge. Alas, alas! that I should see your majesty in this condition of distress and danger!" The man to whom he knelt, the wretched worn-out fugitive, now reduced so low as to be dependent not only for succour, but for his very life, upon the charity of an aged peasant, was indeed the celebrated Murat, the splendid king of Naples.

The history of his fall is too well known to require explanation. It is enough for our present purpose to say that, dazzled by the lustre of Napoleon's triumphant return to the capital of France, after his escape from Elba, Murat had abruptly broken off the negotiations in which he was engaged with the allies, and marched with an army of fifty thousand men upon Tuscany, then in possession of the Austrians. But his troops were Neapolitans, and a succession of defeats, caused more by their cowardice and disaffection, than by the superior force of the enemy, soon compelled him to flight; and having reached his capital with a few adherents, his reception there was so discouraging, and even alarming, that, as a last resort, he determined to join the emperor, at that time preparing for his last desperate struggle on the plains of Belgium. Scarcely had he landed, however, near Toulon, when tidings reached him of the fatal overthrow at Waterloo, and the second abdication of the emperor. The situation of the unhappy king had now become extremely critical; his army had capitulated without making a single stipulation in his favour; the emperor, his last hope, was ruined and a captive, and a price was set upon his own head by the Bourbons. He applied for permission to reside in Austria, which was granted by the Emperor Francis, on condition of laying aside his royal title; and having gladly accepted the terms, he was quietly waiting his passports at Toulon, when sure intelligence was brought him that a band of soldiers had set out from Marseilles, with the resolution of taking him, alive or dead, and thus gaining the fifty thousand francs offered by Ferdinand for his apprehension. He instantly fled to a lonely retreat in the vicinity of Toulon, leaving behind him a confidential agent to make arrangements for his conveyance by sea to Havre, whence he intended to set out for Paris, and there surrender himself to the mercy of the allies, then in possession of the capital. The place at which he was to embark was the solitary bay where he had now arrived, and where a schooner was to wait for him. But he arrived too late. The storm had compelled

the captain of the schooner to seek for safety in the open sea, and after remaining to the last moment compatible with the preservation of his vessel, he had put off soon after midnight. The disappointment and alarm of the fugitive, on arriving at the bay and finding no trace of the bark to which he trusted for escape, may be imagined. He was suffering the extremes of cold, weariness, and exhaustion, for he had been the whole night a-foot and without shelter, exposed to the wind and heavy rain; but mere bodily suffering was forgotten or disregarded in the keener inflic tions of his mental anguish. Death was behind him, and the refuge to which he trusted was suddenly withdrawn ; his pursuers were already perhaps upon his traces-he was perhaps surrounded, watched, it might be betrayed, and his only hope had failed him. He had not even the means of knowing whether an effort had been made in his behalf—whether he was not deceived and aban doned by those in whom he had placed his trust.

As the day advanced, he became aware of the necessity that existed for concealment. Solitary as was the bay on whose expanse of waters he gazed in vain to catch a glimpse of the desired sail on which his hopes depended, it might be visited by those whose encounter would be destruction. Yet a lingering hope forbade removal to a distance; and, as his only means of safety, he was compelled to climb into the thick clustering branches of a chestnut-tree, whence he could overlook the bay, and in which he remained until night, shivering with cold, tormented with the pangs of thirst and hunger, and more wretched still in mind, yet not daring to leave his place of concealment until darkness should avert the peril of discovery. Wearied and worn out as he was, anxiety-the horrors of despair which but a single slender hope alleviated-kept his eyes from closing all the second night, which he passed in wandering to and fro upon the beach, like a caged lion, straining his eyes to catch the gleam of the yet expected sail. But it came not, and hunger drove him on the following day to seek relief and shelter, even at the hazard of his life. It was a happy thing for the fallen monarch that the cabin to which chance had led his steps, was inhabited by a veteran who had served in the armies of Napoleon, and in whose bosom still glowed, undimmed by time or change of fortune, that enthusiastic devotion with which, for so many years, the soldiery of France had pealed forth alike in victory and defeat, in wassail and in death, their cheering battle-cry of Vive l'Empereur !

As might be expected, the old soldier and his wife, whose attachment to the person, and reverence for the character of Napoleon were equal to his own, dedicated themselves, body and soul, to the service of the unhappy Murat. A large portion of the night was employed in devising means for his escape, and providing for his safety until those means should become practicable; and, in the meantime, there was no limit to the exertions and contrivances of the old woman for the comfort of her honoured guest. In the palmiest condition of his fortunes, he had never been waited on with more respectful and affectionate solicitude, than now when he was an outcast and a fugitive.

It was agreed that the old man should set out for Toulon the next morning, furnished by the king with directions to the secret friends who had already made arrangements for his escape, only to be baffled, as we have seen, by the accident of the storm. But a change of plan was soon occasioned, by the appearance of another character upon the scene.

As the old couple and their guest were seated round the table at their frugal meal, on the morning of the ensuing day, they were startled by a knock at the cottage-door. Murat sprang to his feet, for to him the approach of any visitor portended danger, but before he could leave the room the door was opened, and a single individual joined the party. This person appeared to be a man of perhaps thirty-five, whose singularly delicate features scarcely accorded even with his slender figure, and whose countenance bore a strangely mingled expression of sadness and resolution. As he entered the apartment, an eager and apparently joyful look flashed from his eyes, seeming to indicate an unexpected, but most welcome discovery.

His object in visiting the cottage was promptly declared, as an apology for his intrusion; it was simply to inquire the nearest route to the port of Toulon, whither he was charged to convey a message to a person residing there; “perhaps," he said, “one of the individuals he now addressed," and his eye rested for a moment on the countenance of Murat, “would undertake to accompany him as guide, receiving a reasonable compensation for the service." The old man expressed his willingness to bear him company, and the stranger, having returned thanks for the proffer, added, that perhaps he might even be able to conduct him at once

to the person whom he sought; the name, he said, with another glance at Murat, was Louis Debac.

"Debac!" the fugitive king repeated; "did you say Louis Debac Perhaps if I knew the person by whom the message was sent, I could promote the object of your journey!"

The stranger slightly smiled as he replied that in the hope of such a result, he would communicate not only the name of his employer, but his own. "I am called," he continued, "Hypolite Bastide, and the message which I bear is-"

"And you are Bastide," interrupted Murat, hastily advancing and grasping the hand of the stranger with a warm pressure: "You are Bastide, the faithful and untiring, to whom I already owe so much. The end of your journey is reached, for I am Louis Debac-or rather, for there is no need of concealment here, I am the king of Naples."

Many hours were passed after this avowal in consultation between the dethroned monarch and the trusty agent of his friends in Toulon, whom he had not before seen, but in whose fidelity, sagacity, and prudence, he had been instructed to place the utmost confidence; and as soon as their conference was ended, Bastide, accompanied by the old man, set out for Toulon, there to make arrangements for another and more successful effort at escape.

They had been gone scarcely an hour, and Murat, with a characteristic forgetfulness of the perils which surrounded him, was amusing himself and his hostess by narrating some of the most brilliant passages in his adventurous career, and repeating anecdotes of his imperial brother-in-law, when they were alarmed by a distant sound, like that of horsemen rapidly approaching; and the fugitive had barely time to escape through the back-door, and conceal himself in a small pit that had been dug in the garden, where the old woman covered him with brushwood and vinebranches collected for fuel, when a party of some fifty or sixty dragoons rode up to the door, and dismounting, proceeded to ransack the house, and the grounds adjoining it. A number of them searched the garden, spreading themselves among the vines, and passing, more than once, within stabbing distance of their prey; while others endeavoured, but in vain, by alternate threats and tempting offers, to extract from the old woman the information she could so easily have given. At one time the suspicions which had led them to the cottage were almost converted to certainty, by the presence of the great-coat and cap which the king had worn when he reached the cottage; and Murat, who could hear all that passed, was on the point of starting from his lair to save his hostess from the cruelties with which she was menaced, when his generous purpose was prevented by the evident success of her plausible and well-sustained assurances, that it was her husband's pardonable fancy still to wear the military garb, although long since discharged, in which he had so often marched to victory with the eagles of the emperor. The dragoons had also fought beneath those eagles, although now they served the Bourbon, and the whim of the" vieux moustache" found an echo in their rude bosoms; they desisted from their threats, and soon after mounted and rode off, perhaps not altogether regretting the failure of their purpose.

The security of the dethroned monarch was not again disturbed, and, before morning of the next day, his host returned with Bastide, and announced the successful issue of their mission. A skiff was engaged to convey the unfortunate Murat to Corsica, and the following night-the twenty-second of August-was the time appointed for his embarkation.

But little more than a month had elapsed, and Joachim Murat was a captive at Pizzo, on the coast of Calabria-in the power of his enemies, and doomed to die, although as yet he knew it not, upon the morrow. The events which led to this disastrous termination of his career are chronicled in history, and need not there fore be repeated here. It is enough to say that the fervour with which he was received at Corsica inspiring him with brilliant but fallacious hopes of a like success in Naples, he there embarked on the twenty-eighth of September, with six small vessels for his fleet, some two hundred and fifty adventurous followers for his army, and a treasury containing eleven thousand francs, and jewels worth, perhaps, a hundred and fifty thousand more-madly believing that, with this small force, aided by the affection of his quondam subjects, he could replace himself upon the throne; that treachery and cowardice had reduced his armament to a single vessel and thirty followers, when he reached Pizzo, where his reception was a shower of bullets from the muskets of the Austrian garrison; and that, abandoned by the traitor Barbaro, the commander of the little squadron with which he had embarked at

Corsica, who hoisted sail and bore away the moment he had landed, after a brief but desperate struggle, in which he displayed most signally the daring bravery that had always distinguished him in battle, Murat was taken prisoner, stripped of his purse, his jewels, and his passports, and hurried like a thief to the common prison, with the few of his devoted adherents who survived, and whom he laboured to console as if he had no sorrows of his own.

The idle formality of a trial by military commission was yet to be gone through, but his doom was pronounced at Naples, before the members of the commission were appointed, and the night of October 12th, to which the progress of our tale now carries us, was the last through which he was to live, though his trial was to take place on the morrow. His demeanour, during the four days of his imprisonment, had been worthy of his fame, and of the gallant part he had played among the great spirits of an age so prolific in mighty deeds; and now, having thrown himself, without undressing, upon the rude couch provided for a fallen king, he slept as tranquilly and well as though he had neither care nor grief to drive slumber from his pillow. But his sleep was not without its dream.

The tide of time was rolled back forty years, and he was again a child in the humble dwelling of his father; again sporting with the playmates of his boyhood in the village where he was born, and displaying, even as a boy, in the pastimes and occupations of his age, the dawning of that fearless spirit which in after days had borne him to a throne. In every trial of courage, agility, and strength, he was again outstripping all his youthful competitors; foremost in the race, the conqueror in every battle, already noted for his bold and skilful horsemanship, and at school the most turbulent, idle, and mischievous, of his fellows, yet winning affection from the school-mates over whom he tyrannised, and even from the teacher, whom he worried and defied, by the generosity, the frankness, and the gay good-humour, of his spirit. Scenes and incidents that had long been effaced from his waking memory by the dazzling succession of bold and successful achievements which had been the history of his manhood, were now presented to his imagination with all the freshness of reality; the chivalrous warrior, the marshal of France, the sovereign duke of Berg and Cleves, the husband of the beautiful Caroline, and the king of Naples, all were merged and lost in the son of the village innkeeper; the splendid leader of the cavalry charges at Aboukir, Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, and Leipsic, was dimly shadowed forth in the reckless boy, whose chief delight it was to scour through the lanes and across the open fields of Frontoniere, upon one of his father's horses, scorning alike the admonitions of prudence and of parental fear.

Anon the scene was changed, and the boy was approaching manhood, still wild, passionate, reckless, and daring, as before, but displaying those faults of his nature in other and more censurable modes: Intended for the church, he was now a student at Toulouse, in name, but in reality a youthful libertine; vain of his handsome person, eager in pursuit of pleasure, in love with every pretty face he met, ardent and enterprising in the licentious prosecution of his fickle attachments, and ever ready to engage in the quarrels for which such a life gave frequent cause. The ecclesiastical profession had never been his own free choice, and now the martial spirit, which was to shine so gloriously forth in after years, was already contending for the mastery with his habits of idleness and dissipation. An escapade surpassing all his past exploits of folly, was now to bring his studies to a close, and decide the as yet uncertain current of his destiny. The turning incident of his youthful life was again enacted in the captive monarch's dream.

The prettiest maiden of his native village was Mariette Majastre, the only daughter of a peasant, who tilled a little farm of some half-dozen acres, lying about a mile from his father's house, on the road to Perigord. About five years younger than himself, she had been his favourite playmate when a boy, and as he advanced in years, the only one who could control the violence of his temper, or persuade him from his headlong impulses of mischief, either to others or himself. When, at the age of fifteen, he was sent to the academy at Toulouse, Mariette, a blooming, bright-eyed child of ten, wept sorely at parting, and Joachim did not altogether escape the infection of her sorrow: but Mariette was almost forgotten, or remembered only as a child, when, six years afterward, the Abbé Murat, as he was now called, met her again at Toulouse, whither she had gone to pass a few weeks with a relative, and met her as a charming country girl, with eyes like diamonds, teeth like pearls, a graceful shape, and manners by no

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