perform. " Gout's observations are much to
the purpose," you confess at last. " An
affectionate wife, good and dutiful children, and
excellent servants are things not to be despised."

Gout, therefore, sweetens the temper. Gouty
people may be made hasty or passionate, but
never wicked and malignant, by their morbific
friend. They become spicy, or, as it were,
gunpowdery and gun-cottonish, but never the
workers out of any evil intention; they are
much too impulsive for that. They are peppermint
bull's-eyes, gingered barley-stick, hot but
sugary. Amongst all the gouty uncles in
bygone farces, whose like we shall never see again,
is there one who concludes his scenic career by
disinheriting his niece, and sending off his
scapegrace ward, her lover, to superintend
his vast estates in Jamaica. Never would
O'Keefe or Michael Kelly have dared to hold so
distorted a mirror up to nature. There is scolding
and melting into kiss and be friends, with a
handsome provision for the lady's-maid and her
facetious lover, Colin Carrots.

Gout also brightens the intellect, and sets
light to the spirit-lamp of the imagination. It
will not be believed by the uninitiated, but a
man never finds himself in better trim, more up
to the mark, bodily and mentally, than when he
is just on the eve of being laid up in dry dock.
The list of celebrities whom Gout has favoured
with his attentions is too long to recapitulate
here; we may find room for Lord Chatham's
name. Of another nobleman, not very low
in the world, it has often been asked whence he
derived his splendid oratorical gifts, whether
from study, practice, or hereditary talent. All
those circumstances may have had something to
do with it, but I say it is Gout who gives the
inspiration.

People are apt to laugh when they hear that
So-and-so of their acquaintance has got the
gout. Why do they laugh? Where is the
funny circumstance? Oh! the gout is a man's
own fault; it is the result of his gross indulgences,
his intemperance, his sensuality, etcetera,
etcetera; and when he is caught, and deservedly
made to smart for it, people of course cannot
help laughing.

Softly! I do not say that a man may
not bring on gout, or something in its stead,
by trying hard. Your worthy cousin, Doublemeel
Fish, who besides his breakfast at nine,
A.M., and his supper at ten, P.M., eats one
dinner at one, and another dinner at six, and
who never takes a morning drive in his gig
without a bottle of champagne per head in the
box to prevent fainting oy the way—Doublemeel
has gout, certainly, with himself probably
to thank for it. He ought to be thankful, if it
does not end in apoplexy. But men who have
lived soberly and temperately all their lives
have nevertheless had gout, from their goutage
till the close of their allotted term. Two causes
are nearly sure to bring on gout in persons
constitutionally disposed to it; violent mental
emotion, and abrupt exposure to low temperature
There is nothing very ridiculous in either of
those accidents. One of our most esteemed
medical classics has written, that when once
gout has hold of your system or your family,
take all the precautionary measures you may,
you will have gout now and then, especially
towards the close of winter.

Gout has never enjoyed a high reputation for
putting money into the pockets of medical men.
Patent medicine vendors have made a better
thing by it than regular practitioners. People
who have once done business with gout, soon
discover that (except in the case of unusually
violent crises which must be met by unusual
expedients) it is a mere matter of routine and
long-suffering. A little domestic medicine, a
little regimen, a good deal of patience, hot
baths topical and general, hot diluent drinks,
encouragements to action of the skin—that is all
you can do, except going to bed and abiding
your time. Order to be civilly shown to the door
any counsellors who would advise you to put a
sudden check on gout. It is far more dangerous
than bridling or saddling the wildest horse of
the steppes. " Tell your papa, my dear," said a
sage adviser to a listening child, " the next time
he feels an attack coming on, to walk down to
the seaside before breakfast, to pull off his shoes
and stockings there, and to wade at the water's
edge for half an hour." If the counsellor wished
to see his patient thunderstricken with gout in
the head, he could not have given more likely
advice. "My dear sir," said a Lady Benevolent,
"I know a lotion that will cure you directly. I
will undertake to set you on your legs by
tomorrow morning." The foolish man consented
to the experiment. He was on his legs the
next day morning. And all the rest of his life
he was a martyr to the sufferings of latent,
suppressed, and smouldering gout, which never
could break out into one good honest blaze.

There are bearable fits of the gout, and there
are unbearable ones; there are visits, and there
are visitations; just as there are supportable
and insupportable boon companions. We tolerate
the former, protesting a little at the liberties
they take, and hoping they will behave better
next time; we cut with the others forthwith, at
any price and at all hazards. We call in
villanous Colchicum, who betrays us to our ruin
with his smooth appearances; or we throw
ourselves into the arms of Opium, who dries up and
troubles our brain. But even when the torments
of gout are insupportable, still bear them if you
possibly can; the very act of bearing will
alleviate them; the faintness and perspiration of
extreme suffering will end in a salutary calm.
If you really can bear no more and no longer,
and are beginning to cry out for somebody to
come and knock you on the head and put you
out of your misery, call rather for your family
physician and ask him to give you a discreet
dose of some anodyne, such as Batley's sedative,
which he judges less noxious than the rest of its
class; for they are all noxious more or less.

Be persuaded, then, of one invaluable truth;
even if you begin to weary of Gout's society, the
only safe way of dismissing him is by allowing him