usually short.'"


Zimmerman, who was very eminent as a physician, went from Hanover to attend
Frederick the Great in his last illness. One day the king said to him, "You
have, I presume, sir, helped many a man into another world?" This was
rather a bitter pill for the doctor; but the dose he gave the king in
return was a judicious mixture of truth and flattery: "Not so many as your
majesty, nor with so much honour to myself."


Montaigne, who is great upon doctors, used to beseech his friends that if
he felt ill they would let him get a little stronger before sending for the
doctor.


Molière, when once travelling through Auvergne, was taken very ill at a
distance from any place where he could procure respectable medical aid. It
was proposed to him to send for a celebrated physician at Clermont. "No,
no," said he, "he is too great a man for me: go and bring me the village
surgeon; he will not, perhaps, have the hardihood to kill me so soon."


Louis XIV., who was a slave to his physicians, asked Molière one day what
he did with his doctor. "Oh, sire," said he, "when I am ill I send for him.
He comes; we have a chat, and enjoy ourselves. He prescribes;--I don't take
it, and I am cured."


General Guise going over one campaign to Flanders, observed a raw young