shaken.

Is it not possible that this gifted young man had indeed found out those
remedies which Nature has provided and laid away for the cure of every
ill?

The disastrous termination of the most brilliant epoch that ever came to
the Brazen Serpent must be told in a few words. One night, Edward
Dolliver's young wife awoke, and, seeing the gray dawn creeping into the
chamber, while her husband, it should seem, was still engaged in his
laboratory, arose in her night-dress, and went to the door of the room
to put in her gentle remonstrance against such labor. There she found
him dead,--sunk down out of his chair upon the hearth, where were some
ashes, apparently of burnt manuscripts, which appeared to comprise most
of those included in Doctor Swinnerton's legacy, though one or two had
fallen near the heap, and lay merely scorched beside it. It seemed as if
he had thrown them into the fire, under a sudden impulse, in a great
hurry and passion. It may be that he had come to the perception of
something fatally false and deceptive in the successes which he had
appeared to win, and was too proud and too conscientious to survive it.
Doctors were called in, but had no power to revive him. An inquest was
held, at which the jury, under the instruction, perhaps, of those same
revengeful doctors, expressed the opinion that the poor young man, being
given to strange contrivances with poisonous drugs, had died by
incautiously tasting them himself. This verdict, and the terrible event
itself, at once deprived the medicines of all their popularity; and the
poor old apothecary was no longer under any necessity of disturbing his
conscience by selling them. They at once lost their repute, and ceased
to be in any demand. In the few instances in which they were tried the
experiment was followed by no good results; and even those individuals
who had fancied themselves cured, and had been loudest in spreading the
praises of these beneficent compounds, now, as if for the utter
demolition of the poor youth's credit, suffered under a recurrence of
the worst symptoms, and, in more than one case, perished miserably:
insomuch (for the days of witchcraft were still within the memory of
living men and women) it was the general opinion that Satan had been
personally concerned in this affliction, and that the Brazen Serpent, so
long honored among them, was really the type of his subtle malevolence
and perfect iniquity. It was rumored even that all pre