And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three or more languages at once; words derived from two languages having become so common that there was no more hope of rooting out them than of rooting out peth-winds.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a man of sense, jumped at the notion; for he saw in it the one and only plan for abolishing Schedule D: but when he brought in his bill, most of the Irish members, and (I am sorry to say) some of the Scotch likewise, opposed it most strongly, on the ground that in a free country no man was bound either to understand himself or to let others understand him. So the bill fell through on the first reading; and the Chancellor, being a philosopher, comforted himself with the thought that it was not the first time that a woman had hit off a grand idea and the men turned up their stupid noses thereat.
Now the doctors had it all their own way; and to work they went in earnest, and they gave the poor professor diverse and sundry medicines, as prescribed by the ancients and moderns, from Hippocrates to Feuchtersleben, as below, viz.—
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Hellebore, to wit—
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Hellebore of Aeta.
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Hellebore of Galatia.
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Hellebore of Sicily.
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And all other Hellebores, after the method of the Helleborising Helleborists of the Helleboric era. But that would not do. Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles would not stir an inch out of his encephalo digital region.
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Trying to find out what was the matter with him, after the method of
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Hippocrates,
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Aretaeus,
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Celsus,
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Caelius Aurelianus,
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And Galen.
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But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as most people have since; and so had recourse to—
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Borage.
Cauteries.
Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says Gordonius) “will, without doubt, do much good.” But it didn’t.
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Bezoar stone.
Diamargaritum.
A ram’s brain boiled in spice.
Oil of wormwood.
Water of Nile.
Capers.
Good wine (but there was none to be got).
The water of a smith’s forge.
Hops.
Ambergris.
Mandrake pillows.
Dormouse fat.
Hares’ ears.
Starvation.
Camphor.
Salts and senna.
Musk.
Opium.
Strait-waistcoats.
Bullyings.
Bumpings.
Blisterings.
Bleedings.
Bucketings with cold water.
Knockings down.
Kneeling on his chest till they broke it in, etc. etc.; after the medieval or monkish method: but that would not do. Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles stuck there still.
Then—
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Coaxing.
Kissing.
Champagne and turtle.
Red herrings and soda water.
Good advice.
Gardening.
Croquet.
Musical soirées.
Aunt Sally.
Mild tobacco.
The Saturday Review.
A carriage with outriders, etc. etc.
After the modern method. But that would not do.
And if he had but been a convict lunatic, and had shot at the Queen, killed all his creditors to avoid paying them, or indulged in any other little amiable eccentricity of that kind, they would have given him in addition—
The healthiest situation in England, on Easthampstead Plain.
Free run of Windsor Forest.
The Times every morning.
A double-barrelled gun and pointers, and leave to shoot three Wellington College boys a week (not more) in case black game was scarce.
But as he was neither mad enough nor bad enough to be allowed such luxuries, they grew desperate, and fell into bad ways, viz.—
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Suffumigations of sulphur.
Herrwiggius his “Incomparable drink for madmen”:
Only they could not find out what it was.
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Suffumigation of the liver of the fish …
Only they had forgotten its name, so Dr. Gray could not well procure them a specimen.
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Metallic tractors.
Holloway’s Ointment.
Electro-biology.
Valentine Greatrakes his Stroking Cure.
Spirit-rapping.
Holloway’s Pills.
Table-turning.
Morison’s Pills.
Homoeopathy.
Parr’s Life Pills.
Mesmerism.
Pure Bosh.
Exorcisms, for which they read Maleus Maleficarum, Nideri Formicarium, Delrio, Wierus, etc.
But could not get one that mentioned water-babies.
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Hydropathy.
Madame Rachel’s Elixir of Youth.
The Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies.
The distilled liquor of addle eggs.
Pyropathy.
As successfully employed by the old inquisitors to cure the malady of thought, and now by the Persian Mullahs to cure that of rheumatism.
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Geopathy, or burying him.
Atmopathy, or steaming him.
Sympathy, after the method of Basil Valentine his Triumph of Antimony, and Kenelm Digby his Weapon-salve, which some call a hair of the dog that bit him.
Hermopathy, or pouring mercury down his throat to move the animal spirits.
Meteoropathy, or going up to the moon to look for his lost wits, as Ruggiero did for Orlando Furioso’s: only, having no hippogriff, they were forced to use a balloon; and, falling into the North Sea, were picked up by a Yarmouth herring-boat, and came home much the wiser, and all over scales.
Antipathy, or using him like “a man and a brother.”
Apathy, or doing nothing at all.
With all other ipathies and opathies which Noodle has invented, and Foodle tried, since black-fellows chipped flints at Abbeville—which is a considerable time ago, to judge by the Great Exhibition.
But nothing would do; for he screamed and cried all day for a water-baby, to come and drive away the monsters; and of course they did not try to find one, because they did not believe in them, and were thinking of nothing but Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles; having, as usual, set the cart before the horse, and taken the effect for the cause.
So they were forced at last to let the poor professor ease his mind by writing a great book, exactly contrary to all his old opinions; in which he proved that the moon was made of green cheese, and that all the mites in it (which you may see sometimes quite plain through a telescope, if you will only keep the lens dirty enough, as Mr. Weekes kept his voltaic battery) are nothing in the world but little babies, who are hatching and swarming up there in millions, ready to come down into this world whenever children want a new little brother or sister.
Which must be a mistake, for this one reason: that, there being no atmosphere round the moon (though someone or other says there is, at least on the other side, and that he has been round at the back of it to see, and found that the moon was just the shape of a Bath bun, and so wet that the man in the moon went about on Midsummer-day in Macintoshes and Cording’s boots, spearing eels and sneezing); that, therefore, I say, there being no atmosphere, there can be
