The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 288, Supplementary Number by Various
page 27 of 59 (45%)
page 27 of 59 (45%)
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remedies--manna, magnesia, and camphor julep; never put on a
blister in his life; and would sooner, from pure complaisance, let a patient die, than administer an unpalatable prescription. So qualified, to say nothing of his gifts in tea-drinking, cassino, and quadrille (whist was too many for him), his popularity could not be questioned. When he expired, all Hazelby mourned. The lamentation was general. The women of every degree (to borrow a phrase from that great phrase-monger, Horace Walpole) "cried quarts;" and the procession to the churchyard--that very churchyard to which he had himself attended so many of his patients--was now followed by all of them that remained alive. It was felt that the successor of Mr. Simon Saunders would have many difficulties to encounter. My friend, John Hallett, "came, and saw, and overcame." John was what is usually called a rough diamond. Imagine a short, clumsy, stout-built figure, almost as broad as it is long, crowned by a bullet head, covered with shaggy brown hair, sticking out in every direction; the face round and solid, with a complexion originally fair, but dyed one red by exposure to all sorts of weather; open good-humoured eyes, of a greenish cast, his admirers called them hazel; a wide mouth, full of large white teeth; a cocked-up nose, and a double chin; bearing altogether a strong resemblance to a print which I once saw hanging up in an alehouse parlour, of "the celebrated divine (to use the identical words of the legend) Dr. Martin Luther." The condition of a country apothecary being peculiarly liable to the inclemency of the season, John's dress was generally such as might bid defiance to wind, or rain, or snow, or hail. If any thing, he wrapt up most in the summer, having a theory that people were never so apt to |
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