PORTRAIT-GALLERY OF OLD BACHELORS. 565 



fate with manly dignity ; and though Shakspeare has declared 

 that 



" There was never yet philosopher 



That could endure the toothache peaceably " 



we have seen some gout- haunted Bachelors struggle nobly, and, 

 when to some extent reconciled to its pangs by habit, jest amidst 

 their suffering, and so deprive themselves of one half their agony. 



" Many various are the woes 

 That this scene of life compose. 

 Use with reconciling balm 

 Can our throbbing sorrows calm ; 

 Can our sharpest pain beguile, 

 And bid gouty wretches smile : 

 Hence, companions of my care, 

 Learn with patient hearts to bear ; 

 And expect, with souls unmoved, 

 Ills ye have already proved. 

 If severer woes invade, 

 Heaven will grant you strength and aid : 

 Who, impatient of his pain, 

 Bites and gnaws, and shakes his chain, 

 Laughter he, and scorn, shall move, 

 Such is the decree of Jove." 



We are indeed anxious that the family of gouty old Bachelors 

 should thrive : they are favourites of ours ; and as their woes are self- 

 inflicted, we think they are bound to bear them with firmness. We 

 would recommend to their notice the accounts given by ecclesiastical 

 writers of the whippings, scourgings, hair-shirts, and clanking chains, 

 cheerfully submitted to by devotees, as penances for real and ima- 

 ginary crimes. Let them " sing and be merry, and dance and re- 

 joice; " and recollect, when laid by the heels, that it is a voluntary 

 infliction : and let them cheer their hearts with the consciousness 

 that they bear their own burden, and will not transmit it to any 

 unhappy offspring a circumstance which we can assure them ought 

 to rob their sufferings of one part of their bitterness. It is a terrible 

 thing for a man to be writhing on his bed, and see in a blooming 

 family a long perspective of gout martyrdom. 



Another reason why we would exhort them to patience and resig- 

 nation is, the little help they can receive from physic : the professors 

 of the healing art will, indeed, crowd round them with pockets stuffed 

 with nostrums, and swear by the head of Galeu that they are patent 

 gout-traps : if they can devoutly believe these idle clishmaclavers, 

 well and good faith will work miracles; swallow the elixir by all 

 means, and remember animal magnetism : but if there is a shade of 

 doubt, " throw physic to the dogs" don't taste it. We do not 

 tell them this as a piece of news, for the world had made the dis- 

 covery before the time of Lucian, who wrote the ' Triumphs of the 

 Gout' somewhere about the year 140 of our era : listen to the reme- 



M.M. No. 6. 4 D 



