CHAPTER XXXIV

With two strokes, the one at _Hippocrates_, the other at Lord _Verulam_, did my father achieve it.

The stroke at the prince of physicians, with which he began, was no more than a short insult upon his sorrowful complaint of the _Ars longa_, --and _Vita brevis_. ----Life short, cried my father, --and the art of healing tedious! And who are we to thank for both the one and the other, but the ignorance of quacks themselves, --and the stage-loads of chymical nostrums, and peripatetic lumber, with which, in all ages, they have first flatter’d the world, and at last deceived it?

----O my lord _Verulam!_ cried my father, turning from _Hippocrates_, and making his second stroke at him, as the principal of nostrum-mongers, and the fittest to be made an example of to the rest, ----What shall I say to thee, my great lord _Verulam?_ What shall I say to thy internal spirit, --thy opium, --thy salt-petre, ----thy greasy unctions, --thy daily purges, --thy nightly clysters, and succedaneums?

----My father was never at a loss what to say to any man, upon any subject; and had the least occasion for the exordium of any man breathing: how he dealt with his lordship’s opinion, ----you shall see; ----but when --I know not; ----we must first see what his lordship’s opinion was.

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