fearful situation in which I found her-that of one ARRESTED in her terror-struck flight towards the door of her chamber. But again-the thought struck me-had she received any direct injury from the lightning? Had it blinded her? It might be so —for I could make no impression on the pupils of the eyes. Nothing could startle them into action. They seemed a little more dilated than usual, and fixed.

I confess that, besides the other agitating circumstances of the moment, this extraordinary, this unprecedented case, too much distracted my self-possession to enable me promptly to Ideal with it. I had heard and read of, but never before seen such a case. No time, however, was to be lost. I determined to resort at once to strong anti-spasmodic treatment. I bled her from the arm freely, applied blisters behind the ears, immersed her feet, which, together with her hands, were cold as those of a statue, in hot water, and endeavoured to force into her mouth a little opium and ether. Whilst the servants were busied about her, undressing her, and carrying my directions into effect, I stepped for a moment into the adjoining room, where I found my wife just recovering from a violent fit of hysterics. Her loud laughter, though so near me, I had not once heard, so absorbed was I with the mournful case of Miss P. After continuing with her till she recovered sufficiently to accompany me down stairs, I returned to Miss P-'s bedroom. She continued

exactly in the condition in which I had left her. Though the water was hot enough almost to parboil her tender feet, it produced no sensible effect on the circulation, or the state of the skin; and finding a strong determination of blood towards the regions of the head and neck, I determined to have her cupped between the shoulders. I went down stairs to drop a line to the apothecary, requesting him to come immediately with his cupping instruments. As I was delivering the note into the hands of a servant, a man rushed up to the open door where I was standing, and, breathless with haste, begged my instant attendance on a patient close by, who had just met with a severe accident. Relying on the immediate arrival of Mr the apothecary, I put on my hat and great-coat, took my umbrella, and followed the man who had summoned me out. It rained in

torrents; for the storm, after about twenty minutes' intermission, burst forth again with unabated violence. The thunder and lightning-peal upon peal-blaze upon blaze, were really terrific!

THE BOXER.

THE patient who thus abruptly, and, under circumstances, inopportunely, required my services, proved to be one Bill a notorious boxer, who, in returning that evening from a great prize-fight, had been thrown out of his gig, the horse having been frightened by the lightning, and the rider, who was much the worse for liquor, had his ankle dreadfully dislocated. He had been taken up by some passengers, and conveyed with great difficulty to his own residence, a public-house, not three minutes' walk from where I lived. The moment I entered the tap-room, which I had to pass on my way to the staircase, I heard his groans, or rather howls, over-head. The excitement of intoxication, added to the agonies occasioned by his accident, had driven him, I was told, nearly mad. He was uttering the most revolting execrations as I entered his room. He damned himself, his ill luck, (for it seemed he had lost considerable sums on the fight,) the combatants, the horse that threw him, the thunder and lightning-every thing, in short, and every body about him. The sound of the thunder was sublime melody to me, and the more welcome, because it drowned the blasphemous bellowing of the monster I was visiting. Yes; there lay the burly boxer, stretched upon the bed, with none of his dress removed except the boot, which had been cut from the limb that was injured his new blue coat, with glaring yellow buttons, and drab knee-breeches, soiled with the street mud into which he had been precipitated—his huge limbs, writhing in restless agony over the bed-his fists clenched, and his flat, iron-featured face swollen and distorted with pain and fury.

"But, my good woman," said I, pausing at the door, addressing myself to the boxer's wife, who, wringing her hands, had conducted me up stairs; "I assure you I am not the person you

should have sent to. It's a surgeon's, not a physician's case; I fear I can't do much for him-quite out of my way"

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'Oh, for God's sake-for the love of God, don't say so!" gasped the poor creature with affrighted emphasis—“Oh, do something for him, or he'll drive us all out of our senses—he'll be killing us!"

"Do something!" roared my patient, who had overheard the last words of his wife, turning his bloated face towards me— "do something, indeed? ay, and be to you! Here, here look ye, doctor-look ye here!" he continued, pointing to the wounded foot, which, all crushed and displaced, and the stocking soaked with blood, presented a shocking appearance-"look here, indeed!-ah! that horse! that horse!" his teeth gnashed, and his right hand was lifted up, clenched, with fury "If I don't break every bone in his body, as soon as ever

I can stir this cursed leg again!"

I felt for a moment as though I had entered the very pit and presence of Satan, for the lightning was gleaming over his ruffianly figure incessantly, and the thunder rolling close overhead while he was speaking.

"Hush! hush! you'll drive the doctor away! For pity's sake hold your tongue, or Doctor won't come into the room to you!" gasped his wife, dropping on her knees beside him.

"Ha, ha! Let him go! Only let him stir a step, and lame as I am, me if I don't jump out of bed, and teach him civility! Here, you doctor, as you call yourself! What's to be done?" Really I was too much shocked, at the moment, to know. I was half inclined to leave the room immediately, and had a fair plea for doing so in the surgical nature of the case; but the agony of the fellow's wife induced me to check my outraged feelings, and stay. After directing a person to be sent off, in my name, for the nearest surgeon, I addressed myself to my task, and proceeded to remove the stocking. His whole body quivered with the anguish it occasioned; and I saw such fury gathering in his features, that I began to dread lest he might rise up in a sudden frenzy, and strike me.

"Oh! oh! oh! Curse your clumsy hands! You don't

know no more nor a child," he groaned, "what you're about. Leave it leave it alone! Give over with ye! Doctor, I say, be off!"

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Mercy, mercy, doctor!" sobbed his wife in a whisper, fearing, from my momentary pause, that I was going to take her husband at his word-" Don't go away!-Oh, go on-go on! It must be done, you know! Never mind what he says! He's only a little the worse for liquor now-and-and then the pain! Go on, doctor! He'll thank you the more for it to-morrow!"

"Wife! here!" shouted her husband. The woman instantly stepped up to him. He stretched out his Herculean arm, and grasped her by the shoulder.

"So, you -! I'm drunk, am I? I'm drunk, eh-you lying !” he exclaimed, and jerked her violently away, right across the room, to the door, where the poor creature fell down, but presently rose, crying bitterly.

"Get away! Get off—get down stairs—if you don't want me to serve you the same again! Say I'm drunk, you beast?" With frantic gestures she obeyed, rushed down stairs, and I was left alone with her husband. I was disposed to follow her abruptly; but the positive dread of my life (for he might leap out of the bed and kill me with a blow) kept me to my task. My flesh crept with disgust at touching his! I examined the wound, which undoubtedly must have given him torture enough to drive him mad, and bathed it in warm water; resolved to pay no attention to his abuse, and quit the instant that the surgeon, who had been sent for, made his appearance. At length he came. I breathed more freely, resigned the case into his hands, and was going to take up my hat, when he begged me to continue in the room, with such an earnest apprehensive look, that I reluctantly remained. I saw he dreaded as much being left alone with his patient as I! It need hardly be said that every step that was taken in dressing the wound, was attended with the vilest execrations of the patient. Such a foul-mouthed ruffian I never encountered any where. It seemed as though he was possessed of a devil. What a contrast to the sweet speechless sufferer whom I had left at home, and to whom my heart yearned to return!

The storm still continued raging. The rain had comparatively ceased, but the thunder and lightning made their appearance with fearful frequency and fierceness. I drew down the blind of the window, observing to the surgeon that the lightning seemed to startle our patient.

"Put it up again! Put up that blind again, I say!" he cried impatiently. "D'ye think I'm afeard of the lightning, like my

horse to-day? Put it up again—or I'll get out and do it myself!" I did as he wished. Reproof or expostulation was useless. "Ha!" he exclaimed, in a low tone of fury, rubbing his hands together-in a manner bathing them in the fiery stream, as a flash of lightning gleamed ruddily over him. “There it is! Curse it—just the sort of flash that frightened my horse -d- it!"— and the impious wretch shook his fist, and grinned horribly a ghastly smile."

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"Be silent, sir! Be silent! or we will both leave you instantly. Your behaviour is impious! it is frightful to witness! Forbear-lest the vengeance of God descend upon you!"

66 "Come, come-none o' your methodism here! Go on with your business! Stick to your trade," interrupted the

Boxer.

"Does not that rebuke your blasphemies?" I enquired, suddenly shading my eyes from the vivid stream of lightning that burst into the room, while the thunder rattled overhead-evidently in most dreadful proximity. When I removed my hands from my eyes, and opened them, the first object that they fell upon was the figure of the Boxer, sitting upright in bed, with both hands stretched out, just as those of Elymas the sorcerer in the picture of Raphael—his face the colour of a corpse—and his eyes, almost starting out of their sockets, directed with a horrid stare towards the window. His lips moved not-nor did he utter a sound. It was clear what had occurred. The wrathful fire of heaven, that had glanced harmlessly around us, had blinded the blasphemer. Yes-the sight of his eyes had perished. While we were gazing at him in silent awe, he fell back in bed speechless, and clasped his hands over his breast, seemingly in an attitude of despair. But for that motion, we should have thought him dead. Shocked beyond expression,