INTERCHAPTER XI.

ADVICE TO CERTAIN READERS INTENDED TO ASSIST THEIR DIGESTION OF THESE VOLUMES.

Take this in good part, whatsoever thou be,
And wish me no worse than I wish unto thee.
                                                                    TUSSER.

The wisest of men hath told us that there is a time for every thing. I have been considering what time is fittest for studying this elaborate opus, so as best to profit by its recondite stores of instruction, as the great chronicler of Garagantua says, avec espoir certain d'acquerrir moult prudence et preud 'hommie à la ditte lecture, la quelle vous relevera de tres-hauts sacrements et mysteres horrifiques.

The judicious reader must ere this have perceived that this work, to use the happy expression of the Demoiselle de Gournay, is, edifié de telle sort que les mots et la matière sont consubstantiels. In one sense indeed it is,

Meet for all hours and every mood of man;1

but all hours are not equally meet for it. For it is not like Sir Walter Scott's novels, fit for men, women and children, at morning, noon, or night, summer and winter, and every day, among all sorts of people,—Sundays excepted with the religious public. Equally sweet in the mouth it may be to some; but it will not be found equally light of digestion.

1 DR. BUTT.

Whether it should be taken upon an empty stomach, must depend upon the constitution of the reader. If he is of that happy complexion that he awakes in the morning with his spirits elastic as the air, fresh as the dawn, and joyous as the sky-lark, let him by all means read a chapter before breakfast. It will be a carminative, a cordial for the day. If on the contrary his faculties continue to feel the influence of the leaden sceptre till breakfast has resuscitated them, I advise him not to open the book before the stomach has been propitiated by a morning offering.

Breakfast will be the best time for batchelors, and especially for lawyers. They will find it excellent to prime with.

I do not recommend it at night. Rather, indeed, I caution the reader against indulging in it at that time. Its effect might be injurious, for it would counteract the genial tendency to repose which ought then to be encouraged. Therefore when the hour of sleep approaches, lay this book aside, and read four pages upon political economy,—it matters not in what author, though the Scotch are to be preferred.

Except at night, it may be perused at any time by those who have the mens sana in corpore sano; those who fear God, honor the King, love their country and their kind, do their duty to their neighbours, and live in the performance and enjoyment of the domestic charities.

It will be an excellent Saturday book for Rowland Hill; his sermon will be pleasanter for it next day.

The book is good for valetudinarians, and may even be recommended in aid of Abernethy's blue-pill. But I do not advise it with water-gruel nor sago; hardly with chicken-broth, calf's-foot-jelly or beef-tea. It accords well with a course of tonics. But a convalescent will find it best with his first beef-steak and glass of wine.

The case is different for those who have either a twist in the head or a morbid affection about the pericardium.

If Grey Bennet will read it,—(from which I dehort him) he should prepare by taking the following medicine to purge choler:

Rx. Extract: Colocynth: Comp: gr. x.
       Calomel: gr. v.
       Syr: q. s. f. Massa in pilulas iij. dividenda.
—Sumat pilulas iij horâ somni.

It will do Lord Holland no harm.

Lord John Russel is recommended to use sage tea with it. If this operate as an alterative, it may save him from taking oil of rue hereafter in powerful doses.

For Mr. Brougham, a strong decoction of the herb lunaria, will be needful,—a plant “elegantly so named by the elder botanists, and by all succeeding ones, from luna, the moon, on account of the silvery semi-transparent aspect, and broad circular shape of its seed-vessels.” Honesty, or satin-flower, are its trivial names. It is recommended in this case not so much for the cephalic properties which its Linnean appellation might seem to denote, as for its emollient and purifying virtue.

The Lord Chancellor must never read it in his wig. Dr. Parr, never without it.

Mr. Wilberforce may dip into it when he will. At all times it will find him in good humour, and in charity with all men. Nay, if I whisper to him that it will be no sin to allow himself a few pages on a Sunday, and that if the preacher under whom he has been sitting, should have given his discourse a strong spice of Calvinism, it may then be useful to have recourse to it;—though he should be shocked at the wholesome hint, the worst thing he will say of the incognizable incognito from whom it comes, will be Poo-oo-oo-r cree-ee-eature! shaking his head, and lowering it at the same time till his forehead almost touches the table, and his voice, gradually quickening in speed and sinking in tone, dies away to a whisper, in a manner which may thus be represented in types:

Pooo-oo-oo-oo-r Crēēēature
Poo-oo-oo-oo-r Crēēature
Poo oo ŏŏ r Crēature
Pōō ŏŏ r Crĕature
Pōōŏŏr Crĕature
Pōŏŏr Crĕature
Pŏŏr Crĕature
Pŏŏr Crĕture
Poor Cretur
Poor Crtur
Poo Crtr
PooCrt