WITH two strokes, the one at _Hippocrates_, the other at Lord
_Verulam_, did my father achieve it.
The stroke at the prince of physicians, with which he began, was no
more than a short insult upon his sorrowful complaint of the _Ars
longa_,—and _Vita brevis._——Life short, cried my father,—and the art of
healing tedious! And who are we to thank for both the one and the
other, but the ignorance of quacks themselves,—and the stage-loads of
chymical nostrums, and peripatetic lumber, with which, in all ages,
they have first flatter’d the world, and at last deceived it?
——O my lord _Verulam!_ cried my father, turning from _Hippocrates_, and
making his second stroke at him, as the principal of nostrum-mongers,
and the fittest to be made an example of to the rest,—What shall I say
to thee, my great lord _Verulam?_ What shall I say to thy internal
spirit,—thy opium, thy salt-petre,——thy greasy unctions,—thy daily
purges,—thy nightly clysters, and succedaneums?
——My father was never at a loss what to say to any man, upon any
subject; and had the least occasion for the exordium of any man
breathing: how he dealt with his lordship’s opinion,——you shall
see;——but when—I know not:——we must first see what his lordship’s
opinion was.