Jam. Sir, you are extremely obliging. But, dear sir, let me beg you'd be covered, the sun will hurt your complexion.

Har. Oh, do, good sir, be covered.

Greg. (Aside.) These should be footmen, by their dress; but courtiers, by their ceremony.

Jam. You must not think it strange, sir, that we come thus to seek after you. Men of your capacity will be sought after by the whole world.

Greg. Truly, gentlemen, though I say it, that should. not say it, I have a pretty good hand at a fagot.

Jam. O dear, sir!

Greg. You may, perhaps, buy fagots cheaper elsewhere. But, if you find such in all this country, you shall have mine for nothing. To make but one word, then, with you, you shall have mine for ten shillings a hundred. Jam. Don't talk in that manner, I desire you. Greg. I could not sell 'em a penny cheaper, if 't was to my father.

Jam. Dear sir, we know you very well; don't jest with us in this manner.

Greg. Faith, master, I am so much in earnest, that I can't bate one farthing.

Jam. O pray, sir, leave this idle discourse. Can a person like you, amuse himself in this manner? Can a learned and famous physician, like you, try to disguise himself to the world, and bury such fine talents in the woods?

Greg. The fellow's a ninny.

Jam. Let me entreat you, sir, not to dissemble with us. Har. It is in vain, sir, we know what you are.

Greg. Know what you are! what do you know of me? Jam. Why, we know you, sir, to be a very great phy

sician.

Greg. Physician in your teeth! I a physician!

Jam. The fit is on him. Sir, let me beseech you to conceal yourself no longer, and oblige us to—you know what.

Greg. Know what! No, sir; I don't know what. I know this, that I'm no physician..

NEW EC. S.-8

But

Jam. We must proceed to the usual remedy, I find. And so you are no physician ?

Greg. No.

Jam. You are no physician?

Greg. No, I tell you.

Jam. Well, if we must, we must. (Beats him.)

Greg. Oh! oh! Gentlemen! gentlemen! what are you doing? I am I'm whatever you'd please to have me! Jam. Why will you oblige us, sir, to this violence ? Har. Why will you force us to this troublesome remedy?

Jam. I assure you, sir, it gives me a great deal of pain. Greg. I assure you, sir, and so it does me. But pray, gentlemen, what is the reason that you have a mind to make a physician of me?

Jam. What do you deny your being a physician again?

Greg. To be sure I do. I am no physician.

Har. You are no physician?

(They beat him.)

Greg. May I be hanged, if I am. Oh! oh! Dear gentlemen! Oh! for mercy's sake! I am a physician, and an apothecary too, if you'll have me. I had rather be any thing, than be knocked o' the head.

Jam. Dear sir, I am rejoiced to see you come to your senses. I ask pardon (ten thousand times) for what you have forced us to.

Greg. Perhaps I am deceived myself, and am a physician without knowing it. But, dear gentlemen, are you certain I'm a physician?

Jam. Yes, the greatest physician in the world.
Greg. Indeed!

Har. A physician that has cured all sorts of distempers.
Greg. The dickens I have!

Jam. That has made a woman walk about the room after she was dead six hours.

Har. That set a child upon its legs, immediately after it had broken 'em.

Jam. That made the curate's wife, who was dumb, talk faster than her husband.

Har. Look ye, sir. You shall be satisfied. My master will give you whatever you will demand.

Greg. I shall have whatever I will demand?

Jam. You may depend upon it.

Greg. . I am a physician without doubt. I had forgot it, but I begin to recollect myself. Well, and what is the distemper I am to cure?

Jam. My young mistress, sir, has lost her tongue.

Greg. Well, what if she has; do you think I've found it? But, come, gentlemen, if I must go

(Exeunt.)

with you, I must.

FROM FIELDING.

XXXIII-THE DOCTOR.-SCENE IV.

CHARACTERS.-Sir Jasper, James, and Gregory.
(Enter Sir Jasper and James.)

Sir Jasper. WHERE is he? Where is he?

Jam. Only recruiting himself after his journey. You need not be impatient, sir, for were my young lady dead, he'd bring her to life again. He makes no more of bringing a patient to life, than other physicians do of killing him.

Sir J. Tis strange so great a man should have those unaccountable odd humors you mentioned.

Jam. 'Tis but a good blow or two, and he comes immediately to himself. Here he is.

(Enter Gregory.)

Sir, this is the doctor.

Sir J. Dear sir, you are the welcomest man in the world.

Greg. Hippocrates says, we should both be covered.
Sir J. Ha! does Hippocrates say so? In what chapter,

pray?

Greg. In his chapter of hats.

Sir J. Since Hippocrates says so, I shall obey him. Greg. Doctor, after having exceedingly traveled in the highway of letters

Sir J. Doctor! pray whom do you speak to?

Greg. To you, doctor.

Sir J. Ha! ha! I am a knight, thank the king's grace for it; but no doctor.

Greg. What! you're no doctor?

Sir J. No, upon my word.

Greg. You're no doctor?

Sir J. Doctor! no.

Greg. There; 't is done. (Beats him.)

Sir J. Done! in the name of mischief, what's done? Greg. Why, now you are made a doctor of physic. (Aside.) I am sure 't is all the degrees I ever took.

Sir J. What bedlamite of a fellow have you brought here?

Jam. I told you, sir, the doctor had strange whims with him.

Sir J. Whims! Truly! I shall bind his physicianship over to his good behavior, if he have any more of these whims.

Greg. Sir, I ask pardon for the liberty I have taken. Sir J. Oh! 't is very well; 't is very well, for once. Greg. I am sorry for these blows.

Sir J. Nothing at all, nothing at all, sir.

Greg. Which I was obliged to have the honor of laying so thick on you.

Sir J. Let's talk no more of 'em, sir. My daughter, doctor, is fallen into a very strange distemper.

Greg. Sir, I am overjoyed to hear it. I wish, with all my heart, you and your whole family, had the same occasion for me as your daughter, to show the great desire I have to serve you.

Sir J. Sir, I am obliged to you.

Greg. I assure you, sir, I speak from the very bottom of my soul.

Sir J. I do believe you, sir, from the very bottom of mine.

Greg. What is your daughter's name?

Sir J. My daughter's name is Charlotte.

Greg. Are you sure she was christened Charlotte?
Sir J. No, sir; she was christened Charlotta.

Greg. Hum! I had rather she should have been christened Charlotte. Charlotte is a very good name for a patient; and, let me tell you, the name is often of as much service to the patient, as the physician is. Pray, what's the matter with your daughter? What's her distemper?

Sir J. Why, her distemper, doctor, is, that she has become dumb, and no one can assign the cause; and this distemper, sir, has kept back her marriage.

Greg. Kept back her marriage? why so?

Sir J.

*cured.

Because her lover refuses to have her till she's

Greg. O! was ever such a fool, that would not have his wife dumb? Would to heaven my wife was dumb. I'd be far from desiring to cure her. Does this distemper oppress her very much?

Sir J. Yes, sir.

Greg. So much the better. Has she any great pains? Sir J. Very great.

Greg. That's just as I would have it. We great physicians know a distemper immediately. I know some of the college would call your daughter's distemper the Boree, or the Coupee, or the Sinkee, or twenty other distempers. But I give you my word, sir, your daughter is nothing more than dumb. So I'd have you be very easy, for there is nothing else the matter with her; if she were not dumb, she would be as well as I am.

Sir J. But I should be glad to know, doctor, from whence her dumbness proceeds.

Greg. Nothing so easily accounted for. Her dumbness proceeds from her having lost her speech.

Sir J. But whence, if you please, proceeds her having lost her speech ?

Greg. All our best authors will tell you, it is the impediment of the action of the tongue.

Sir J. But, if you please, dear sir, your sentiment upon that impediment.

Greg. Aristotle has, upon that subject, said very fine things; very fine things.

Sir J. I believe it, doctor.