164 
THE PUFF BIOGRAPHICAL. 
inventions in clearing lace or bleaching starch; where the 
future head of the profession went to school ;* and how, in the 
golden age of innocence and apples, when a good little boy in 
frock and trowsers, he got a prize and was paraded through 
the streets in triumph with fife and drum ; where he lodged 
when first he began practice ; where he first put his name on 
the door of his residence ; when he moved into a larger house; 
how, when his banker failed, he let his first floor; who his 
first cousins were, and how they became first cousins by 
marrying an aunt ; what celebrated persons he numbered 
among his acquaintances ; and how he is “ animated by 
strong religious feelings, and delights in sacred literature.” 
These are the men who parade before the world copies of 
private notes sent to them, to say nothing of specimens of 
private note-books and statements of the yearly amount of 
their fees. When all this appears in connexion with a copy 
of a daguerreotype, taken but a few days before the publica- 
tion of the biography, is there not some ground for the sus- 
picion that the information was payment for the fulsome 
eulogium which follows upon the classical treatises, the cele- 
brated physiological researches, the steady and successful 
operations, the lightness of hand, the never-failing coolness, 
the fertility of resource of one — upon the “ keen glance, 
tempered by commiseration,” and the firm heart, w hich “owns 
some touch of pity, while the lady's hand performs its office 
with unerring precision” of another, — upon the refined me- 
chanical taste of a third, to w T hom nature has not been sparing 
of her favours, — upon the judgment displayed by a lover of 
the arts in “ the design and erection of his suburban re- 
sidence,” wfith full details of this bijou, its spacious hall, tesse- 
lated floor of polished marble, the grouping of the statues, 
the classic bassi rilievi, the graceful antique vases, combined 
at the “ Sabine farm, where the Maecenas of Wimbledon 
delights to pass the summer evenings in the society of an 
amiable and accomplished wife.” Disguise is absurd. The 
bargain, if not expressed, must have been understood, and the 
measure of the quackery is filled up, after a description of the 
acquirements of the sitter for the portrait, by an account of 
the line of practice he principally adopts, and the numbers of 
his patients; particulars of his mild and affable bearing, 
polite, agreeable, unaffected manners; and an advertisement 
that he may be found daily, Sundays excepted, at number 
something, Blank-street or square, from nine to one — or, that 
having c * overcome his unjust prejudice against specialists, he 
has fitted up his residence for the reception of patients.” If 
any doubt could exist for a moment as to the nature of the 
