Would you ask, Who is the greatest tyrant of modern days? Mr. O'Connell will tell you—Nicholas, or Es-partero. An Irish Whig member will reply, Dan himself. An attachÉ at an embassy would say, Lord Palmerston,—“'Tis Cupid ever makes us slaves!” A French deputÉ of the Thiers party will swear it is Louis Philippe. Count D'Orsay will say, his tailor. But I will tell you it is none of these: the most pitiless autocrat of the nineteenth century is—the President of the College of Physicians.

Of all the unlimited powers possessed by irresponsible man, I know of nothing at all equal to his, who, mero motu, of his own free will and caprice, can at any moment call a meeting of the dread body at whose head he stands, assemble the highest dignitaries of the land—archbishops and bishops, chancellors, chief barons, and chief remembrancers—to listen to the minute anatomy of a periwinkle's mustachios, or some singular provision in the physiology of a crab's breeches-pocket: all of whom, luto non obstante, must leave their peaceful homes and warm hearths to “assist” at a meeting in which, nine cases out of ten, they take as much interest as a Laplander does in the health of the Grand Lama, or Mehemet Ali in the proceedings of Father Mathew.

By nine o'clock the curtain rises, displaying a goodly mob of medical celebrities: the old ones characterised by the astute look and searching glance, long and shrewd practice in the world's little failings ever confers; the young ones, anxious, wide awake, and fidgetty, not quite satisfied with what services they may be called on to render in candle-snuffing and crucible work; while between both is your transition M. D.—your medical tadpole, with some practice and more pretension, his game being to separate from the great unfeed, and rub his shoulders among the “dons” of the art, from whose rich board certain crumbs are ever falling, in the shape of country jaunts, small operations, and smaller consultings. Through these promiscuously walk the “gros bonnets” of the church and the bar, with now and then—if the scene be Ireland—a humane Viceroy, and a sleepy commander of the forces. Round the room are glass cases filled with what at first blush you might be tempted to believe were the ci-devant professors of the college, embalmed, or in spirits; but on nearer inspection you detect to be a legion of apes, monkeys, and ourangoutangs, standing or sitting in grotesque attitudes. Among them, pleasingly diversified, you discover murderers' heads, parricides' busts in plaster, bicephalous babies, and shapeless monsters with two rows of teeth. Here you are regaled with refreshments “with what appetite you may,” and chat away the time, until the tinkle of a small bell announces the approach of the lecture.

For the most part, this is a good, drowsy, sleep-disposing affair of an hour long, written to show, that from some peculiarity lately discovered in the cerebral vessels, man's natural attitude was to stand on his head; or that, from chemical analysis just invented, it was clear, if we live to the age of four hundred years and upwards, part of our duodenum will be coated with a delicate aponeurosis of sheet iron.

Now, with propositions of this kind I never find fault. I am satisfied to play my part as a biped in this breathing world, and to go out of it too, without any rivalry with Methuselah. But I'll tell you with what I am by no means satisfied,—nor shall I ever feel satisfied—nor do I entertain any sentiment within a thousand miles of gratitude to the man who tells me, that food—beef and mutton, veal, lamb, &c.—are nothing but gas and glue. The wretch who found out the animiculas in clean water was bad enough. There are simple-minded people who actually take this as a beverage: what must be their feelings now, if they reflect on the myriads of small things like lobsters, with claws and tails, all fighting and swallowing each other, that are disporting in their stomachs? But only think of him who converts your cutlet into charcoal, and your steak into starch! It may stick to your ribs after that, to be sure; but will it not stick harder to your conscience? With what pleasure do you help yourself to your haunch, when the conviction is staring you in the face, that what seems venison is but adipose matter and azote? That you are only making a great Nassau balloon of yourself when you are dreaming of hard condition, and preparing yourself for the fossil state when blowing the froth off your porter.

Of latter years the great object of science would appear to be an earnest desire to disenchant us from all the agreeable and pleasant dreams we have formed of life, and to make man insignificant without making him humble. Thus, one class of philosophers labour hard to prove that manhood is but monkeyhood—that a slight adaptation of the tail to the customs of civilized life has enabled us to be seated; while the invention of looking-glasses, bear's grease, cold cream, and macassar, have cultivated our looks into the present fashion.

Another, having felt over our skulls, gravely asserts, “There is a vis À tergo of wickedness implanted in us, that must find vent in murder and bloodshed.” While the magnetic folk would make us believe that we are merely a kind of ambulating electric-machine, to be charged at will by the first M. Lafontaine we meet with, and mayhap explode from over-pressure.

While such liberties are taken with us without, the case is worse within. Our circulation is a hydraulic problem; our stomach is a mill—a brewing vat—a tanner's yard—a crucible, or a retort. You yourself, in all the resplendent glory of your braided frock, and your decoration of the Guelph, are nothing but an aggregate of mechanical and chemical inventions, as often going wrong as right; and your wife, in the pride of her Parisian bonnet, and robe À la Victorine, is only gelatine and adipose substance, phosphate of lime, and a little arsenic.

Now, let me ask, what remains to us of life, if we are to be robbed of every fascination and charm of existence in this fashion? And again—has medical science so exhausted all the details of practical benefit to mankind, that it is justified in these far-west explorations into the realms of soaring fancy, or the gloomy depths of chemical analysis? Hydrophobia, consumption, and tetanus are not so curable that we can afford to waste our sympathies on chimpanzees: nor is this world so pleasant that we must deny ourselves the advantage of all its illusions, and throw away the garment in which Nature has clothed her nakedness. No, no. There was sound philosophy in Peter, in the “Tale of a Tub,” who assured his guests that whatever their frail senses might think to the contrary, the hard crusts were excellent and tender mutton; but I see neither rhyme nor reason in convincing us, that amid all the triumphs of turtle and white bait, Ardennes ham and pÂtÉ de Strasbourg, our food is merely coke and glue, roach, lime, starch, and magnesia.