Peacock did not feel obliged
to accept a new man merely in the character of his successor,
objecting that he was "not likely to be equal to Peacock."
But Lydgate had not been long in the town before there were
particulars enough reported of him to breed much more specific
expectations and to intensify differences into partisanship;
some of the particulars being of that impressive order of which the
significance is entirely hidden, like a statistical amount without
a standard of comparison, but with a note of exclamation at the end.
The cubic feet of oxygen yearly swallowed by a full-grown man--
what a shudder they might have created in some Middlemarch circles!
"Oxygen! nobody knows what that may be--is it any wonder the cholera
has got to Dantzic? And yet there are people who say quarantine is
no good!"
One of the facts quickly rumored was that Lydgate did not dispense drugs.
This was offensive both to the physicians whose exclusive distinction
seemed infringed on, and to the surgeon-apothecaries with whom he
ranged himself; and only a little while before, they might have counted
on having the law on their side against a man who without calling
himself a London-made M.D. dared to ask for pay except as a charge
on drugs. But Lydgate had not been experienced enough to foresee
that his new course would be even more offensive to the laity;
and to Mr.
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