Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 22 (1831).djvu/198

 off with Demetrius, who was never seen or heard of afterwards. Now here comes the medulla, the very marrow, of my tale. This Doctor Doboobie had a servant, a poor snake, whom he employed in trimming his furnace, regulating it by just measure—compounding his drugs—tracing his circles—cajoling his patients, et sic de cœteris.—Well, right worshipful, the Doctor being removed thus strangely, and in a way which struck the whole country, with terror, this poor Zany thinks to himself, in the words of Maro, ‘Uno avulso, non deficit alter;’ and, even as a tradesman’s apprentice sets himself up in his master’s shop when he is dead, or hath retired from business, so doth this Wayland assume the dangerous trade of his defunct master. But although, most worshipful sir, the world is ever prone to listen to the pretensions of such unworthy men, who are, indeed, mere saltim banqui and charlatani, though usurping the style and skill of doctors of medicine, yet the pretensions of this poor Zany,—this Wayland, were too gross to pass on them, nor was there a mere rustic, a villager, who was not ready to accost him in the sense of Persius, though—in their own rugged words,—

which I have thus rendered ina poor paraphrase of mine own,—