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THE WATER BABIES
As successfully employed by the old inquisitors to cure the malady of thought, and now by the Persian Mollahs to cure that of rheumatism.
- Geopathy, or burying him.
- Atmopathy, or steaming him.
- Sympathy, after the method of Basil Valentine his Triumph of Antimony, and Kenelm Digby his Weapon-salve, which some call a hair of the dog that bit him.
- Hermopathy, or pouring mercury down his throat to move the animal spirits.
- Meteorapathy, or going up to the moon to look for his lost wits, as Ruggiero did for Orlando Furioso's: only, having no hippogriff, they were forced to use a balloon; and, falling into the North Sea, were picked up by a Yarmouth herring-boat, and came home much the wiser, and all over scales.
- Antipathy, or using him like "a man and a brother."
- Apathy, or doing nothing at all.
- With all other ipathies and opathies which Noodle has invented, and Foodle tried, since black-fellows chipped flints at Abbéville—which is a considerable time ago, to judge by the Great Exhibition.
But nothing would do, for he screamed and cried all day for a water-baby, to come and drive away the monsters; and, of course, they did not try to find one, because they did not believe in them, and were thinking of nothing
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