ng upon him her widowed hand and heart, together with
the Sow and its appurtenances. 'English fiend!' resumed Mr.
Schnackenberger, 'most _e_dacious and _au_dacious of quadrupeds! can
nothing be done for thee? Is it impossible to save thy life?' And again
he stopped to ruminate. For her _meta_physics it was hopeless to cure;
but could nothing be done for her _physics_? At the university of X----
she had lived two years next door neighbour to the Professor of Moral
Philosophy, and had besides attended many of his lectures without any
sort of benefit to her morals, which still continued of the very worst
description. 'But could no course of medical treatment,' thought her
master, 'correct her inextinguishable voracity? Could not her pulse be
lowered? Might not her appetite, or her courage, be tamed? Would a
course of tonics be of service to her? Suppose I were to take her to
England to try the effect of her native air; would any of the great
English surgeons or physicians be able to prescribe for her effectually?
Would opium cure her? Yet there was a case of bulimy at Toulouse, where
the French surgeons caught the patient and saturated him with opium; but
it was of no use; for he ate[26] as many children after it as before.
Would Mr. Abernethy, with his blue pill and his Rufus pill, be of any
service to her? Or the acid bath--or the sulphate of zinc--or the white
oxide of bismuth?--or soda-water? For, perhaps, her liver may be
affected. But, lord! what talk I of her liver? Her liver's as sound as
mine. It's her disposition that's in fault; it's her moral principles
that are relaxed; and something must be done to brace them. Let me
consider.'

[26] This man, whose case I have read in some French Medical Memoirs,
was a desperate fellow: he cared no more for an ounce of opium, than for
a stone of beef, or half a bushel of potatoes: all three would not have
made him a breakfast. As to children, he denied in the most tranquil
manner that he ate them. ''Pon my honour,' he sometimes said, 'between
ourselves, I never _do_ eat children.' However, it was generally agreed,
that he was paedophagous, or infantivorous. Some said that he first
drowned them; whence I sometimes called him the paedobaptist. Certain it
is, that wherever he appeared, a sudden scarcity of children
prevailed.--_Note of the Translator._

At this moment a cry of 'murder, murder!' drew the student's eyes to
the street below him; and there, to afflict his heart, s