1544-54. CURTAIN LECTURES. 391 



void, but an aching plenum, i.e., I am full of aches. I might 

 quote, as suitable to my case, the words of the beautiful Scotch 

 song, ' I leaned my back against an aik/ only modernizing the 

 last word into ache, as of course it should be." Being unable 

 to join a proposed excursion, he explains the reason : " To tell 

 you the truth, I have been for some time tired of lecturing 

 behind a table (like a shopman selling goods over a counter), 

 and I thought I should like to try Curtain Lectures for a 

 change. Accordingly, I took care to catch a cold, and fell to 

 coffin, and finally betook myself to bed the night before last, 

 and as the curtain course is not yet finished, I remain there 

 still, lecturing to a very attentive, sympathizing, and appreciat- 

 ing audience, consisting of my bedfellow Grim, who looks upon 

 coughing as a kind of barking, and thinks it quite in his way." 

 In allusion to what he had suffered at the hands of surgeons, 

 he sometimes spoke of himself as " copiously illustrated with 

 cuts." 



His sister Jeanie is told, " Give a rap on the table when you 

 get this (that's the way spirits take to communicate thought), 

 and venerate the postman who gave two (was it ?) raps when he 

 handed it in. 



" I have been vexed with the cares that belong to a landlord. 

 Into an apartment in my possession, which I intended to shut 

 up, indeed to fill up, a rogue found his way, bent on making, 

 not paying a rent. He would not pay the taxes ; on the other 

 hand, he taxed me. He would not rest even at night, but com- 

 pelled me to get up at any hour to look after him. I besought 

 him at least not to disturb me during lecture, but the rogue 

 declared that he hated fumes, and would interrupt me in the 

 midst of the most angelic eloquence. His Christian name I 

 don't know (indeed he is not a Christian). His surname is 

 Brorikeetis. He comes of an old family, and cheats people into 

 the notion that cough is a simple word, which will get simpler 

 by use, as at last it does by changing its spelling, and ending 

 in coffin. People don't like to spell it that way, but all the 

 folks who begin with coughing as the right fashion, end with 

 the other version of it. The Homceopathists, for example, 

 advise the administration to sick people of cocoa, because they 



