pecuniary penalty was nothing, but the sentence of
imprisonment fell on Mirès like a thunderbolt.
A letter from Paris states that, "while it was
being read, the agony of Mirès was so great,
that even those whose feelings are hardened by
the daily task of passing severe judgments might
have thought society sufficiently avenged by the
sufferings he endured in that half-hour.
Sometimes, as if to escape from them, he clutched at
the bar with both his shrivelled hands, and
sometimes let his head fall upon his left arm,
that lay stretched along the balustrade, as if no
longer able to support its weight. When all
was over he threw his hands above his head,
and clasping them tightly together, gave utterance
to incoherent expressions of despair, and
to escape from the gaze of so many lookers-on,
rushed towards the little door of the prisoners'
waiting-room, without seeming to see that it
was shut, while guards closed round to secure
him. His paleness afterwards became so great
that he appeared as if about to faint, but
presently he recovered his self-possession, took
up his hat, and pressing it violently on his
head, he left the court guarded by some policemen."

Thus vanishes the fortune of Monsieur Mirès.
Like the gourd that sheltered Jonah, "It grew
in a night, and in a night it withered."

DRIFT.
ANCIENT QUACKS.

ATTACHED to the retinue of King Henry the
Fifth in his first voyage to France to "sustain
that claim to the crown of France which his
great-grandfather Edward the Third urged with
such confidence and success," appear the names
of Thomas Morestede and William Bradwardyn,
surgeons, "each with 9 more surgeons." By
Morestede's agreement with the King, he
received the style of " King's surgeon," and in
two petitions quoted in Rymer's Fœdera, vol. ix.
p. 252, he prays to be allowed "money to
provide necessaries for his office, and a proper
number of persons and carriages." The King
granted him twelve persons, and "1 chariot and
deuz somers." These twenty surgeons were
attached to a force of full 30,000 men, so that
it may be assumed that the number of properly
qualified chirurgeons was very limited in the
English dominions. The fact is, the art of surgery
during the fifteenth century was merely manual
dexterity helped by a few mechanical aids; the
practice of medicine still rested in the hands of
the clergy, and the only medical work which at
this time appeared in our country was Kymer's
Dietary for the Preservation of Health, in which
the familiar recommendations touching exercise,
the bath, and diet, handed down from Aristotle,
are the principles set forth to teach the readers
of a very prosy composition. Accordingly the
following contemporaneous petition, dated in
the ninth year of Henry the Fifth, is somewhat
surprising; its prayer is so simple, and it defines
so limited a grievance, that with improved
phraseology, it might serve as a protest in our
own time, against unlicensed practitioners; some
of whom figure in our law reports,
occasionally, as practitioners of the basest arts of
swindling.

"Hey and most myghty prince noble and
worthy Lordes Spirituelx and Temporelx, and
worshipfull Coes (Commons), for so moche as
a man hath thre things to governe, that is to
say, Soule, Body and Worldly Goudes, the
whiche ought and shulde ben principaly reweled
by thre Sciences, that ben Divinitie, Fisyk, and
Lawe, the Soule by Divinitie, the Body by
Fisyk, worldly Goudes by Lawe, and these
conynges (cunnings) sholde be used and
practised principaly by the most conyng men in the
same Sciences, and most approved in cases
necessaries to encrese of vertu, long lyf, and
goudes of fortune, to the worship of God, and
comyn profit. But, worthy soveraines, as hit
is known to youre hey discrecion, many unconnyng
an (and) unapproved in the forsayd
Science practiseth, and specialy in Fisyk, so that
in this Roialme is every man, be he never so
lewed, takyng upon hym practyse, y suffred to
use hit, to grete harme and slaughtre of many
men: Where if no man practised theryn but al
only connynge men and approved sufficieantly
y lerned in art, filosofye and fisyk, as hit is
kept in other londes and roialms, ther shulde
many man that dyeth, for defaute of help, lyve,
and no man perish by unconnyng. Wherefore
pleseth to youre excellent wysdomes, that
ought after youre soule, have mo entendance to
youre body, for the causes above sayd, to
ordeine and make in Statuit perpetualy to be
straytly yused and kept, that no man of no
manor estate, degre, or condicion, practyse in
Fysik, from this tyme forward, but he have
long tyme yused the Scoles of Fysik withynne
som Universitee, and be graduated in the same;
that is to say, but he be Bacheler or Doctour of
Fisyk, havinge lettres testymonalx sufficeantz
of on of those degrees of the Universite, in the
whiche he toke his degree yn; undur peyne of
long emprisonement, and paynge XL h. to the
Kyng; and that no woman use the practyse of
Fisyk undre the same payne: and that the
Sherrefe of the Shire make inquisicion in thaire
tornes, if ther be eny that forfaiteth ayens this
Statuit, under a payne resonable, and theme that
haz putt this Statuit in execucion without any
favour, under the same peyne. Also, lest that
thay the whiche ben able to practyse in Fisyk
ben excluded fro practysing, the whiche be
nought graduated, plesith to youre hey prudence,
to send warrant to all the Sherrefs of Engelond,
that every practysor in Fisyk nought gradeuated
in the same science that wile practyse forth be
withynne on of the Universitees of this lond by
a certeine day, that they that ben able and
approved, after trewe and streyte examinacion,
be receyved to theyr degree, and that they be
nought able, to cese fro the practyse in to the
tyme that they be able and approved, or never
more entremette thereof; and that therto also
be iset a peyne convenient."

In the same year the Lords of the Council