the least scruple
in ordering all her tenants and inferiors to follow and believe after her. Thus,
whether she received the Reverend Saunders M'Nitre, the Scotch divine; or the
Reverend Luke Waters, the mild Wesleyan; or the Reverend Giles Jowls, the
illuminated Cobbler, who dubbed himself Reverend as Napoleon crowned himself
Emperor - the household, children, tenantry of my Lady Southdown were expected
to go down on their knees with her Ladyship, and say Amen to the prayers of
either Doctor. During these exercises old Southdown, on account of his invalid
condition, was allowed to sit in his own room, and have negus, and the paper
read to him. Lady Jane was the old Earl's favourite daughter, and tended him and
loved him sincerely; as for Lady Emily, the authoress of the »Washerwoman of
Finchley Common,« her denunciations of future punishment (at this period, for
her opinions modified afterwards) were so awful that they used to frighten the
timid old gentleman her father, and the physicians declared his fits always
occurred after one of her Ladyship's sermons.
    »I will certainly call,« said Lady Southdown then, in reply to the
exhortation of her daughter's prétendu, Mr. Pitt Crawley. »Who is Miss Crawley's
medical man?«
    Mr. Crawley mentioned the name of Mr. Creamer.
    »A most dangerous and ignorant practitioner, my dear Pitt. I have
providentially been the means of removing him from several houses, though in one
or two instances I did not arrive in time. I could not save poor dear General
Glanders, who was dying under the hands of that ignorant man - dying. He rallied
a little under the Podgers' pills which I administered to him; but, alas, it was
too late. His death was delightful, however; and his change was only for the
better. Creamer, my dear Pitt, must leave your aunt.«
    Pitt expressed his perfect acquiescence. He, too, had been carried along by
the energy of his noble kinswoman and future mother-in-law. He had been made to
accept Saunders M'Nitre, Luke Waters, Giles Jowls, Podgers' Pills, Rodgers'
Pills, Pokey's Elixir - every one of her Ladyship's remedies, spiritual or
temporal. He never left her house without carrying respectfully away with him
piles of her quack theology and medicine. O my dear brethren and fellow--
sojourners in Vanity Fair, which among you does not know and suffer under such
benevolent despots? It is in vain you say to them,