up with bookshelves, and various machines and contrivances, electrical,
chemical, and distillatory, wherewith he might pursue such researches
as were wont to engage his attention. The great result of the grim
Doctor's labors, so far as known to the public, was a certain
preparation or extract of cobwebs, which, out of a great abundance of
material, he was able to produce in any desirable quantity, and by the
administration of which he professed to cure diseases of the
inflammatory class, and to work very wonderful effects upon the human
system. It is a great pity, for the good of mankind and the advantage
of his own fortunes, that he did not put forth this medicine in pill-
boxes or bottles, and then, as it were, by some captivating title,
inveigle the public into his spider's web, and suck out its gold
substance, and himself wax fat as he sat in the central intricacy.

But grim Doctor Grimshawe, though his aim in life might be no very
exalted one, seemed singularly destitute of the impulse to better his
fortunes by the exercise of his wits: it might even have been supposed,
indeed, that he had a conscientious principle or religious scruple--
only, he was by no means a religious man--against reaping profit from
this particular nostrum which he was said to have invented. He never
sold it; never prescribed it, unless in cases selected on some
principle that nobody could detect or explain. The grim Doctor, it must
be observed, was not generally acknowledged by the profession, with
whom, in truth, he had never claimed a fellowship; nor had he ever
assumed, of his own accord the medical title by which the public chose
to know him. His professional practice seemed, in a sort, forced upon
him; it grew pretty extensive, partly because it was understood to be a
matter of favor and difficulty, dependent on a capricious will, to
obtain his services at all. There was unquestionably an odor of
quackery about him; but by no means of an ordinary kind. A sort of