visit! had evinced much discomposure on hearing that I had been summoned!
dwelt much on my injurious treatment of Dr. Lloyd, whom, as distantly
related to himself, and he (Mr. Vigors) being distantly connected with the
late Gilbert Ashleigh, he endeavoured to fasten upon his listener as one
of her husband's family, whose quarrel she was bound in honour to take up.
He spoke of me as an infidel "tainted with French doctrines," and as a
practitioner rash and presumptuous; proving his own freedom from
presumption and rashness by flatly deciding that my opinion must be
wrong. Previously to Mrs. Ashleigh's migration to L----, Mr. Vigors had
interested her in the pretended phenomena of mesmerism. He had consulted
a clairvoyante, much esteemed by poor Dr. Lloyd, as to Lilian's health,
and the clairvoyante had declared her to be constitutionally predisposed
to consumption. Mr. Vigors persuaded Mrs. Ashleigh to come at once with
him and see this clairvoyante herself, armed with a lock of Lilian's hair
and a glove she had worn, as the media of mesmerical rapport.

The clairvoyante, one of those I had publicly denounced as an impostor,
naturally enough denounced me in return. On being asked solemnly by Mr.
Vigors "to look at Dr. Fenwick and see if his influence would be
beneficial to the subject," the sibyl had become violently agitated, and
said that, "when she looked at us together, we were enveloped in a black
cloud; that this portended affliction and sinister consequences; that our
rapport was antagonistic." Mr. Vigors then told her to dismiss my image,
and conjure up that of Dr. Jones. Therewith the somnambule became more
tranquil, and said: "Dr. Jones would do well if he would be guided by
higher lights than his own skill, and consult herself daily as to the
proper remedies. The best remedy of all would be mesmerism. But since
Dr. Lloyd's death, she did not know of a mesmerist, sufficiently gifted,
in affinity with the patient." In fine, she impressed and awed Mrs.
Ashleigh, who returned in haste, summoned Dr. Jones, and dismissed