A Physician's Tale

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A PHYSICIAN'S TALE 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 ; unsound the boon— unslaked the thirst, Though to the last, in verge cf our decay. Some phantom lures, 6uch 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 tbe sable smoke, where vanishes the flame." "Childe Harold," Canto rv., Stan, cxxiv. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARYBOROUGH STREET. 1854. M. S. MYERS, PRINTER, 22, TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT QARDEN.

SAMUEL EDWARDS, Esq., M.D., lljm Mnmis art Mirairir, AS THE TRIFLING MEMORIAL, OF A MUTUAL AND LONG FORMED FRIENDSHIP. London, August, 1854. CHAPTEE I. " It was a vast and venerable pile, So old it seemed only not to fall, Yet strength was pillar'd in each massy aisle." Byron. " Oh ! ill-judging sire of an innocent son." Wordsworth. In one of the southern counties, in a remote and unfrequented district, is the pretty Uttle village of Elleringay. Situated on a gentle acclivity, and commanding an ex tensive prospect over a broad expanse of country, screened in on the north and east by dark woods of sturdy oak, towering elms, and spreading beech, with a crystal stream VOL. I. B meandering below, its site forms a spot happily selected for human habitations. They who peopled it at the time of which we speak were a simple, unsophisticated set, many of Avhom tilled the sod whicli several progenitors had successively cultivated.

The tenure of the lands had remained un altered for many generations, and so sure were the occupants that their successors would hold them on the same terms, that it was not uncommon for the father to avUI the lease to his clhldren. Dwelling in this quiet seclusion, and pursuing a kind of patriarchal existence, far from the Aranities and tempta tions of politer life and a more advanced world, this Httle community, if it lacked the advantages of refinement and fashion, escaped many erils and moral corrap tions. If then pleasures were not intense and exalted, their happiness was of a more even tenor and more lasting. But it must be con fessed, that even the denizens of Elleringay did not enjoy an immunity from human trials and human afflictions. They had their cares and their grievances — a share of those ills which man is born to inherit.