e
exert them than the captive enclosed within a prison-house can act as
a free agent. Alas! to see HIM, who could so well describe what this
malady was in others, a prey himself to its infirmities! I shall
never forget the solemn tone of expression with which he summed up the
incapacities of the paralytic--the deafened ear, the dimmed eye, the
crippled limbs--in the noble words of Juvenal,--

"'Omni
Membrorum damno major, dementia, quae nec
Nomina servorum, nec vultum agnoscit amici.'"

As the physician repeated these lines, a flash of intelligence seemed to
revive in the invalid's eye--sunk again--again struggled, and he spoke
more intelligibly than before, and in the tone of one eager to say
something which he felt would escape him unless said instantly. "A
question of death-bed, a question of death-bed, doctor--a reduction EX
CAPITE LECTI--Withering against Wilibus--about the MORBUS SONTICUS. I
pleaded the cause for the pursuer--I, and--and--why, I shall forget my
own name--I, and--he that was the wittiest and the best-humoured man
living--"

The description enabled the doctor to fill up the blank, and the
patient joyfully repeated the name suggested. "Ay, ay," he said, "just
he--Harry--poor Harry--" The light in his eye died away, and he sunk
back in his easy-chair.

"You have now seen more of our poor friend, Mr. Croftangry," said the
physician, "than I dared venture to promise you; and now I must take my
professional authority on me, and ask you to retire. Miss Sommerville
will, I am sure, let you know if a moment should by any chance occur
when her uncle can see you."

What could I do? I gave my card to the young lady, and taking my
offering from my bosom--"if my poor friend," I said, with accents as
broken almost as his own, "should ask where this came from, name me, and
say from the most obliged and most grateful man alive. Say, the gold of
which it is composed was saved by grains at a time, and was hoarded with
as much avarice as ever was a miser's. To bring it here I have come a
thousand miles; and now, alas, I find him thus!"

I laid the box on the table, and was retiring with a lingering step. The
eye of the invalid was caught by it, as that of a child by a glittering
toy, and with infantine impatience he faltered out inquiries of his
niece. With gentle mildness she repeated again and again who I was,
and why I came, etc. I was about to turn, and hasten