THE CASUAL READER.
[To Ma EDITOR Or TH. ..ErtOTSTOR...] SIE,—In reference to Mr. Houston's letter last week on anticipations of Carlyle's famous dictum, may I quote an English one? There was in London during the seventeenth century a notorious quack doctor and astrologist, John Case, who hailed from Doreetsbire, and of whom it was said that the couplet affixed to his door secured him a larger income than all Dryden's poetry brought to its author:— " Within this place
Lives Doctor Case."
He put a rhyming label on his pill-boxes. too :- " Here's fourteen pills for thirteen pence
Enough for any man's con-sci-ence."
Dr. John Radcliffe met Case in a tavern one day, and raised his glass to the sentiment, " Here, brother Case, I drink to all the fools—your patients." The quack took it kindly. " Thank ye," he replied," let me hare all the fools, and you are welcome to the rest." (Radcliffe was the physician called in to attend King William III. when he was suffering from inflamed ankles. " What do you think of them ?" asked the King. "Why, truly," said Radcliffe, "I would not bare your Majesty's legs for your three kingdoms !") As for the Carlylean dictum and its anticipations, it may be remarked that they are scarcely instances of great minds thinking alike, at moments of Ligb-pressure inspiration, but evidences that thoughtful observers of human life are inevitably led to one conclusion. " This is what is called cynicism, you know," as
Thackeray said.—I am, Sir, &c., R.
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