according to Voltaire, sat down on the king's bed
and said: "The boy is very ill, but he won't
die." To this personage, indeed, is ascribed by
some the honour of curing the king, by
administering an emetic; but the fact seems to be
that it was the result of a long consultation,
under the presidency of Cardinal Mazarin, who,
singular enough, was the first to vote for giving
antimony. The king swallowed an ounce of
antimony—its effects were terrific, but the royal
patient recovered, and the fortune of antimony
was made. It was not, however, the cardinal,
but Guénaut, who had the credit of the cure;
Scarron celebrated his skill in a sonnet; and
Nicolas Gervaise in a Latin poem, called The
Purgation, extolled antimony to the skies. The
subject, in fact, gave birth to an epic poem
bearing this title: Le Stimmimachie, ou le
grand combat des médecins modernes, touchant
I'usage de l'antimoine. Pöeme histori-comique
dédié à Messieurs les Médicins de la Faculté de
Paris. Par le Sieur C. C. The author was
Father Carneau, of the order of the Célestins.
It was execrable trash. The dispute between
the antimonians and the anti-antimonians lasted
for some time, but at length it ceased: not,
however, in the lifetime of Valot, who, when
the war in the Low Countries broke out, could
not be dissuaded, though he was past service,
from following the king into Flanders. He died
of fatigue on the road.

So much for the personages whom Molière
made the subject of his ridicule. The way in
which he treated the general clique of quack
pedants and pretenders appears throughout his
comedies. It is a tempting theme for illustration,
but far too wide for our limits.

THE FATAL WATCH.

AT a pretty spot in the north of Ireland,
some three or four miles out of Flaxopolis, the
grand manufacturing heart beating with mills
and wheels—a romantic river called the Lagan
takes a specially graceful bend. This stream is
to be found in the peerage of rivers, having
been sung by respectable bards; and at this
place it winds very harmoniously between its
banks. One of these banks, a sort of plateau,
spreads out in undulations, and forms part of a
gentleman's demesne; the other, lies quite flat.
To the left it is crossed by a white bridge, which
forms part of the high road, while to the right
it turns the corner with a gentle sweep. This
high road leads up a little hill to where a few
white cottages are seen dotted here and there,
mixed with some clumps of trees; the place
bears the name of the village of Miltown; while
the plateau side of the river forms part of a
gentleman's demesne, whose family house, perched
high about a quarter of a mile off, has a pretty
view from its drawing-room windows, of the river
and its graceful eccentricities. Outside this
gentleman's grounds, runs the high road which
joins the other high road that crosses the white
bridge, and takes the voyager on to Belfast or
Lisburn. This little bird's-eye view of the locality
and their relations is necessary to understand
this curious history of the Fatal Watches.

In one of the few white cottages dotted
so picturesquely on the hill at Miltown, lived
a respectable family of the sturdy yeomen
order—one of that Saxon race wholly distinct
in habits and physique, which, in the Irish
north, are found side by side by the original
population. Nothing is so surprising as
this sharp violent contrast: reaching to speech,
make, manner, bearing, thought, temper,
religion. These are the men that have made
Flaxopolis, and conjured up an Irish Manchester.
To this race belonged the Wilgar family, the
yeomen before mentioned; and one of the sons,
bearing the name of Charles, was in the habit
of coming down every Monday morning from
the white cottages on the hill, crossing the
bridge, and working the whole week at a place
of business a couple of miles away. To save
time and trouble, he stayed with his uncle's
family during the week, and came home every
Saturday night to his white cottage.

Up at Miltown, also, in another of the
white cottages, dwelt a rude low-browed
shock-headed fellow, and his wife, bearing the
name of Ward. In every district there is the
titular mauvais sujet of the place—a man over
whose movements there is mystery, and who
appears to acquire the decent subsistence for
which honester men are struggling hard, by
some easy but secret means. This Ward was,
in fact, the Thomas Idle, or Idle apprentice
of the district; Charles Wilgar, the steady
Industrious apprentice, was, curious to say, his
friend and companion, exactly as set out in
Hogarth's famous series. It had been well
indeed for the Irish Thomas Idle, could he have
been sent away to sea like his prototype.

It is well known to profound students of our
nature, what a symbol of respectability is to be
found in so simple a thing as a silver watch. To
the person of humble means, struggling
forward from small beginnings, it is the first earnest
of material prosperity, and is accepted by the
public as the sure and satisfactory testimony of
progress. A local watchmaker, sensible of this
secret spring in humanity, determined to use it
to his own profit, and set on foot the project of
a watch club. Every one was to be glorified
with a watch—the Thomas Idles as well as
the Goodchilds—and the happy ambition of
being able to know the height of the sun at
any special moment, and, better still, of
communicating their observations to more destitute
neighbours, was implanted in every local breast.
The terms were five shillings a week for twenty
weeks, with a lottery every Saturday night, when
a watch would be drawn for. The Industrious
apprentice had very soon paid all his instalments,
and was presently complete owner in fee of
a silver watch; the Idle apprentice paid a few
instalments fitfully and irregularly, and was
lucky enough to draw a watch early. With
possession, he thought no more of payments—
became a defaulter—and on the earliest
opportunity conveyed his prize to the pawnbroker's