“Having settled the question of diet, we now come to medicine.  It is, or ought to be, the province of a medical man to soothe and assist Nature, not to force her.  Now, the only medicine I should advise you to take, is a dose of a slight aperient medicine every morning the first thing.  I won’t stipulate for the dose, as that must be regulated by circumstances, but you must take some; for without it, by Gad; your stomach will never be right.  People go to Harrowgate, and Buxton, and Bath, and the devil knows where, to drink the waters, and they return full of admiration at their surpassing efficacy.  Now these waters contain next to nothing of purgative medicine; but they are taken readily, regularly, and in such quantities, as to produce the desired effect.  You must persevere in this plan, sir, until you experience relief, which you certainly will do.  I am often asked—­’Well, but Mr. Abernethy, why don’t you practise what you preach?’ I answer, by reminding the inquirer of the parson and the signpost:  both point the way, but neither follow its course.”—­And thus ended a colloquy, wherein is mingled much good sense, useful advice, and whimsicality.—­New Monthly Magazine.

* * * * *

GIPSIES.

  Whether from India’s burning plains,
  Or wild Bohemia’s domains
    Your steps were first directed:—­
  Or whether ye be Egypt’s sons,
  Whose stream, like Nile’s for ever runs
    With sources undetected,—­

  Arab’s of Europe!  Gipsy race! 
  Your Eastern manners, garb, and face
    Appear a strange chimera;
  None, none but you can now be styled
  Romantic, picturesque, and wild,
    In this prosaic era.

  Ye sole freebooters of the wood
  Since Adam Bell and Robin Hood—­
    Kept every where asunder
  From other tribes—­King, Church, and State
  Spurning, and only dedicate
    To freedom, sloth, and plunder. 
  Your forest-camp—­the forms one sees
  Banditti like amid the trees,
    The ragged donkies grazing,
  The Sibyl’s eye prophetic, bright
  With flashes of the fitful light,
    Beneath the caldron blazing,—­

  O’er my young mind strange terrors threw: 
  Thy history gave me Moore Carew! 
    A more exalted notion
  Of Gipsy life, nor can I yet
  Gaze on your tents, and quite forget
    My former deep emotion.

  For “auld lang syne” I’ll not maltreat
  Yon pseudo-Tinker, though the Cheat,
    Ay sly as thievish Reynard,
  Instead of mending kettles, prowls
  To make foul havock of my fowls,
    And decimate my hen-yard.

  Come thou, too, black-eyed lass, and try
  That potent skill in palmistry. 
    Which sixpences can wheedle;
  Mine is a friendly cottage—­here
  No snarling mastiff need you fear,
    No Constable or Beadle.