Henry gave him the paper and fome warm liquid, in which he mixed the life-restoring dofe and swallowed it, giving order for fome barley-water to be made, and other fit preparations for its operation.

No fooner had his attendant left the chamber than Zachary, now alone and at leifure for meditation, began to entertain serious apprehenfions for the confequences of this fudden attack. The rapid progrefs of a fever in better conftitutions than his own he had frequently been a witnefs to: it was an enemy whose strength he had fully experienced, having baffled him over and over; death was a confummation, which in his own cafe was devoutly to be dreaded, though he could contemplate it with all due ferenity in the case of others; the flippant and contemptuous stile, in which he had juft then been talking of the duties of religion, recoiled upon his thoughts fo ftrongly, that his prefent fudden and unexpected attack struck his confcience as a judgment, and most heartily did he wish he could recall what he had been faying to Henry: in the mean time the cold fit fhook him worse and worse, whilft the active medicine ran through his veins with awful omens of a crifis

coming on he knew too well that the battlebetween Death and him must be a clofe one and a short one, for, alas! he was too fat for flight, and too fair a butt for fuch a markfinan not to hit. Vanity might have held him up in the presence of a fecond perfon, but he could not impose upon himself; and after a deep figh he broke forth into the following melancholy foliloquy :-"What poor miserable: mortals are we, who cannot foresee what may befall us for a moment to come! Here am I shivering and shaking, and perhaps upon the bed of death, whereas but a few minutes ago I thought no more of death than I did of the pope of Rome. But, to be fure, when a man is in perfect health, it is naturals for him to keep fuch dull thoughts out of his head: it cannot be expected that one should be mufing and pondering upon the other world,, when one fees no present chance of going thither;, whilst things are at a diftance, it is not necef-fary to think about them.. Ah! poor Zachary, thou haft enjoyed a brave state of health and kept a merry heart till this fad moment; but art thou not an afs and a blockhead, not to recollect that all flesh is mortal? Haft thou not had dealings enough with Death to be

aware of his flippery tricks? How many hundred times has he made a fool and a falfe prophet of thee, by fnapping up thy patients in a twinkling, when thou, filly Doctor, waft hugging thyself in the credit of a cure, and hadst pronounc'd them out of danger? And why, above all things, fhou'd I be vapouring with this poor lad, and fhewing off my courage at the expence of religion, which is about as wife a thing to do, as it wou'd be to pluck a fleeping bear by the beard. I know my wife to be flut and a fot, and no more of a faint than Judas Iscariot, but what then? Because fhe profeffes more faith than she has, why should I make a boast of believing less than I do? Lord have mercy upon us! nobody knows how foon he may be call'd away; and what a misfortune would it be to be taken off juft in the flush and flower of my business! If it would please God to take my wife firft, it would be fome comfort: I might then lead a quiet life, leave off practice, and begin to think feriously of my latter end; but, alas-a-day! I have now fo many customers dying upon my hands, that I cannot in confcience neglect their affairs to look after my own. Of a certain, death is a ferious

thing at the beft, and I have always look'd grave at the funeral of a patient; but when it comes to be one's own cafe it is interefting indeed! Zooks! what a twinge in the bowels was there! Aye, aye, I feel it at work; the powder begins to ftir; 'tis all for the beft: the enemy is fhifting his quarters. How many people might I have cur'd with this drug, if I had not had too much honour to dabble in quack medicines! If I can but shake off this fit at once and get well, I fhall have plenty of time to turn over these thoughts at my leifure."

He now applied himself luftily to the bell at his bed's head, for reasons that argued the neceffity of dispatch. Old Bridget heard the fummons, but was not in the fame neceflity to obey it: when at last fhe presented herself at the door, the Doctor, whofe anger had been up long before fhe was, greeted her with a falutation not very courtly, demanding why she would hobble up ftairs fo flowly, when she 'might well conceive what a hurry he was in"Well," faid fhe, "and now your hurry is over, what is it you want?"-" Barley-water and a bucket," cried Zachary, "as quickly as you can, for a greater turmoil than is now

in my ftomach the duck herself could not make, if I had swallow'd her alive when she flew out of the bank and fous'd me in the brook."

THE

CHAPTER IX.

Doctors differ:

"HERE was an old Scotchman, Alexander Kinloch by name, who officiated in the like capacity under Doctor Cawdle as Whackum did under Sidrophel. The care of the poorer patients in general devolved upon this deputy doctor, who, being an old limb of the faculty, was become fo ftubborn withal,. that it seemed a point with him in practice conftantly to take any road but that which he conceived his principal would purfue. No fooner had he been informed by Henry of his mafter's fituation, and the medicine he had administered to himself, than, having taken two or three hafty ftrides about the fhop,, as if to give vent to his choler, he fnatched down an old plaid night-gown, which hung upon a peg, and having girt it round his loins with a green worfted fash over a black cloth waistcoat, to