which Puysegur was, I believe, at least in modern times, the first
audacious asserter), Dr. Lloyd had been afflicted with the loss of a wife
many years younger than himself, and to whom he had been tenderly
attached. And this bereavement, in directing the hopes that consoled him
to a world beyond the grave, had served perhaps to render him more
credulous of the phenomena in which he greeted additional proofs of
purely spiritual existence. Certainly, if, in controverting the
notions of another physiologist, I had restricted myself to that
fair antagonism which belongs to scientific disputants anxious only for
the truth, I should need no apology for sincere conviction and honest
argument; but when, with condescending good-nature, as if to a man
much younger than himself, who was ignorant of the phenomena which he
nevertheless denied, Dr. Lloyd invited me to attend his seances and
witness his cures, my amour propre became aroused and nettled, and it
seemed to me necessary to put down what I asserted to be too gross an
outrage on common-sense to justify the ceremony of examination. I wrote,
therefore, a small pamphlet on the subject, in which I exhausted all the
weapons that irony can lend to contempt. Dr. Lloyd replied; and as he was
no very skilful arguer, his reply injured him perhaps more than my
assault. Meanwhile, I had made some inquiries as to the moral character
of his favourite clairvoyants. I imagined that I had learned enough to
justify me in treating them as flagrant cheats, and himself as their
egregious dupe.

Low Town soon ranged itself, with very few exceptions, on my side.
The Hill at first seemed disposed to rally round its insulted physician,
and to make the dispute a party question, in which the Hill would have
been signally worsted, when suddenly the same lady paramount, who had
secured to Dr. Lloyd the smile of the Eminence, spoke forth against him,
and the Eminence frowned.