The curious case which I am about toplace before you, is referred to, verypointedly, and more than once, in the extraordinaryEssay upon the drugs of theDark and the Middle Ages, from the penof Doctor Hesselius.
This Essay he entitles "Mortis Imago,"and he, therein, discusses the Vinum letiferum,the Beatifica, the Somnus Angelorum, theHypnus Sagarum, the Aqua Thessalliæ, andabout twenty other infusions and distillations,well known to the sages of eighthundred years ago, and two of which arestill, he alleges, known to the fraternity ofthieves, and, among them, as police-officeinquiries sometimes disclose to this day, inpractical use.
The Essay, Mortis Imago, will occupy asnearly as I can, at present, calculate, twovolumes, the ninth and tenth, of the collectedpapers of Doctor Martin Hesselius.
This Essay, I may remark, in conclusion,is very curiously enriched by citations, ingreat abundance, from mediæval verse andprose romance, some of the most valuableof which, strange to say, are Egyptian.
I have selected this particular statementfrom among many cases equally striking,but hardly, I think, so effective as merenarratives, in this irregular form of publication,it is simply as a story that I presentit.
In the eventful year, 1815, I was exactlythree-and-twenty, and had just succeededto a very large sum in consols, andother securities. The first fall of Napoleonhad thrown the continent open to Englishexcursionists, anxious, let us suppose, toimprove their minds by foreign travel; andI—the slight check of the 'hundred days'removed, by the genius of Wellington, onthe field of Waterloo—was now added to thephilosophic throng.
I was posting up to Paris from Bruxelles,following, I presume, the route that the alliedarmy had pursued but a few weeks before—morecarriages than you could believe werepursuing the same line. You could not lookback or forward, without seeing into far perspectivethe clouds of dust which marked theline of the long series of vehicles. We were,perpetually, passing relays of return-horses,on their way, jaded and dusty, to the innsfrom which they had been taken. They werearduous times for those patient public servants.The whole world seemed posting upto Paris.
I ought to have noted it more particularly,but my head was so full of Paris and the future,that I passed the intervening scenery with littlepatience and less attention; I think, however,that it was about four miles to the frontierside of a rather picturesque little town, thename of which, as of many more importantplaces through which I posted in my hurriedjourney, I forget, and about two hours beforesunset, that we came up with a carriage indistress.
It was not quite an upset. But the twoleaders were lying flat. The booted postillionshad got down, and two servants whoseemed very much at sea in such matters,were by way of assisting them. A prettylittle bonnet and head were popped out ofthe window of the carriage in distress. Itstournure, and that of the shoulders that alsoappeared for a moment, was captivating: Iresolved to play the part of a good Samaritan;stopped my chaise, jumped out, and withmy servant lent a very willi