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BY

HEBERDEN MILFORD.

"Maids as well as youths have perished
From fruitless love too fondly cherished."

Coleridge's "Sibylline Leaves."

"We wither from our youth-we gasp away-

Sick-sick; unfound the boon-unslaked the thirst,
Though to the last, in verge of our decay,

Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first-
But all too late,-so we are doubly curst.
Love, fame, ambition, avarice-'tis the same-
Each idle-and all ill-and none the worst-

For all are meteors with a different name,

And Death the sable smoke, where vanishes the flame.
"Childe Harold," Canto rv., Stan. cxxif

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

ECA

LONDON:

HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,

13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

1854.

249. W.254.

·BO

M. 8. MYERS, PRINTER,

22, TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

A PHYSICIAN'S TALE.

CHAPTER I.

"We'll wake the still echos of slumb'ring morn."

-Our Curate, one whom all believe

OLD SONG

Pious and just, and for whose fate they grieve;
All see him poor, but even the vulgar know,
His merits, love, and their respect bestow.

A man so learned you shall seldom see,
Nor one so honoured."

CRABBE.

POOR Moreton, when he had returned from school and purposed a day upon Jumper, he

VOL. II.

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would leap out of bed and impatiently tear open the shutters of his dormitory, ere it was thoroughly light, to see the state of the weather. Even in his boyish eagerness, and actuated by all that impetuosity so characteristic, as we have seen, of his nature, he was not more excitable and anxious on hunting mornings than the churchman.

Behold the rector, he peeringly thrusts his head out of the window to discern the face of the sky, whilst his own forsooth, bears all the unequivocal impress of that somnus profundus in which his corporeal and spiritual being has been obliviously locked not two minutes ago. He has awoke by instinct, and yawns, and rubs his dully orbs as if he were not quite conscious whether dreaming or waking. "They'll run like fury today, and Bonny and I will get off in good time to go leisurely to the meet, as it suits not either of our digestive organs to go at a brisk trot so soon after breakfast." With the enunciation of this soliloquy he takes hold of the apex of his night cap, exultingly throws it on the bed, and at once commences

his toilette. His hunting vestments are all laid out and ready to put on, so that he may have the least possible trouble, and the greatest possible comfort. There is the Oxford grey, which has seen as many field-days as the grey coat of Napoleon, and which he values in a precise ratio, with the advance of its seasons-there are the tight-fitting buckskins which have been scoured and pipe-clayed, and made so clean that you cannot behold a speck or a stain disfiguring them-there also the turn-down boots reflecting the morning light like mirrors, and the Brimigem persuaders, all ready, and in apple-pie order.

The clock is just striking eight as he descends into the parlour, and squares down to partake of a very substantial repast all piping hot, and which was just brought from the kitchen fire, when the cook heard his creaking boots nimbly count the front stairs. He does not sit slowly masticating those hot rolls and those slices of fried ham, as if he could afford to stay stuffing himself an hour; precisely as the long hand of the hall clock denotes twenty minutes past eight,

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