THE MEN OP PHYSIC.

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lately desolated by war, visited by pestilence, norreduced by famine, it becomes possible—justpossible I mean—that the notion which thisprince had conceived of the blundering ways andmeans exercised by the men of physic, might nothave proved so fallacious or unjust, as, on firsthearing, it should seem to threaten: the less so,because the class of these physicians, or leeches,was the only one which had escaped the late ex-amples of extraordinary fatality; a phenomenonwhich was referred, for its solution, to the com-monly believed fact, that the physician exercisethnot his art upon himself.—But, let that pass.

And now, whether sanctioned by a rational pro-bability of a successful result, or not—whetherright or wrong—he determined to put the matterat issue to one grand and decisive experiment. Hepublished an edict, ordering every practitioner ofthe medical craft, of whatever degree, to quit theprovince in the course of ten days. Remon-strance had been vain : it was the mandate ofdespotic authority: no appeal remained; obe-dience was prompt and universal; not one pro-