Page:The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, Volume 1 - Smollett (1772).djvu/60

 shrewd remarks; at other times he talks like the greatest simpleton in nature—He has read a great deal; but without method or judgment, and digested nothing. He believes every thing he has read; especially if it has any thing of the marvellous it it; and his conversation is a surprizing hotch-potch of erudition and extravagance.—He told me t'other day, with great confidence, that my case was dropsical; or, as he called it, leucophlegmatic: A sure sign, that his want of experience is equal to his presumption; for, you know, there is nothing analogous to the dropsy in my disorder—I with those impertinent fellows, with their ricketty understandings, would keep their advice for those that ask it—Dropsy, indeed! Sure I have not lived to the age of fifty-five, and had such experience of my own disorder, and consulted you and other eminent physicians, so often, and so long, to be undeceived by such a—But, without all doubt, the man is mad; and, therefore, what he says is of no consequence. I had, yesterday, a visit from Higgins, who came hither under the terror of your threats, and brought me in a present a brace of hares, which he owned he took in my ground; and I