all these particulars promised
a rich fund of entertainment, which, however, I cannot enjoy.

A few days after my arrival, it began to rain with a southerly wind,
and continued without ceasing the best part of a week, leaving the air
so loaded with vapours, that there was no walking after sun-set;
without being wetted by the dew almost to the skin. I have always found
a cold and damp atmosphere the most unfavourable of any to my
constitution. My asthmatical disorder. which had not given me much
disturbance since I left Boulogne, became now very troublesome,
attended with fever, cough spitting, and lowness of spirits; and I
wasted visibly every day. I was favoured with the advice of Dr.
Fitzmaurice, a very worthy sensible physician settled in this place:
but I had the curiosity to know the opinion of the celebrated professor
F--, who is the Boerhaave of Montpellier. The account I had of his
private character and personal deportment, from some English people to
whom he was well known, left me no desire to converse with him: but I
resolved to consult with him on paper. This great lanthorn of medicine
is become very rich and very insolent; and in proportion as his wealth
increases, he is said to grow the more rapacious. He piques himself
upon being very slovenly, very blunt, and very unmannerly; and perhaps
to these qualifications be owes his reputation rather than to any
superior skill in medicine. I have known them succeed in our own
country; and seen a doctor's parts estimated by his brutality and
presumption.

F-- is in his person and address not unlike our old acquaintance Dr.
Sm--ie; he stoops much, dodges along, and affects to speak the Patois,
which is a corruption of the old Provencial tongue, spoken by the
vulgar in Languedoc and Provence. Notwithstanding his great age and
great wealth, he will still scramble up two pair of stairs for a fee of
six livres; and without a fee he will give his advice to no person
whatsoever.

He is said to have great practice in the venereal branch and to be
frequented by persons of both sexes infected with this distemper, not
only from every part of France, but also from Spain, Italy, Germany,
and England. I need say nothing of the Montpellier method of cure,
which is well known at London; but I have some reason to think the
great professor F--, has, like the famous Mrs. Mapp, the bone-setter,
cured many patients that were never diseased.

Be that as it may, I sent my valet de