The practitioner who thus took me by the hand was a Mr Phineas Cophagus,
whose house was most conveniently situated for business, one side of
the shop looking upon Smithfield Market, the other presenting a surface
of glass to the principal street leading out of the same market. It was
a _corner_ house, but not in a _corner_. On each side of the shop were
two gin establishments, and next to them were two public-houses and then
two eating-houses, frequented by graziers, butchers, and drovers. Did
the men drink so much as to quarrel in their cups, who was so handy to
plaister up the broken heads as Mr Cophagus? Did a fat grazier eat
himself into an apoplexy, how very convenient was the ready lancet of Mr
Cophagus. Did a bull gore a man, Mr Cophagus appeared with his diachylon
and lint. Did an ox frighten a lady, it was in the back parlour of Mr
Cophagus that she was recovered from her syncope. Market days were a
sure market to my master; and if an overdriven beast knocked down
others, it only helped to set him on his legs. Our windows suffered
occasionally; but whether it were broken heads, or broken limbs, or
broken windows, they were well paid for. Every one suffered but Mr
Phineas Cophagus, who never suffered a patient to escape him. The shop
had the usual allowance of green, yellow, and blue bottles; and in hot
weather, from our vicinity, we were visited by no small proportion of
bluebottle flies. We had a white horse in one window, and a brown horse
in the other, to announce to the drovers that we supplied
horse-medicines. And we had all the patent medicines in the known world,
even to the "all-sufficient medicine for mankind" of Mr Enouy; having
which, I wondered, on my first arrival, why we troubled ourselves about
any others. The shop was large, and at the back part there was a most
capacious iron mortar, with a pestle to correspond. The first floor was
tenanted by Mr Cophagus, who was a bachelor; the second floor was let;
the others were appropriated to the housekeeper, and to those who formed
the establishment. In this well-situated tenement, Mr Cophagus got on