\ D = ^JCJ XWEUNIVtRi//^ r-Mjy rr^ ommw^ umiM MEDNIVERi// NclOSANGEL£ HHINIVHVA/A .VlU.VAM.tLA vLOSANGELfj 713')NVS01'^ ^^■AyvMn# .»^^^^ ^lOS7\NGELfXy> ^^^^^^^^' /• ^ i^ r-n — 1 1 '-/Aa3AlNll-3WV audi vjdv ^/sa^AiNnmv :5r t? OAavaaii-iv ■MlLIBRARYO^ WAEUNIVERiyA .-^ ^OJIWDJO"^ %1]0WS01^ ST IPtLOPCSOM^ MeiTQS D THE UNDERTAKERS ARMS A BOOK ABOUT DOCTOES. J. CORDY JEAFFRESON, AUTHOR OF NOVELS AND NOVELISTS," "CREWE RISE," ETC., ETC. IN TWO VOLUIVIES. VOL. I. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENTIY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1860. Th€ right of Translation is reserved. LONDON : PRINTED BY R. BORN, GLOUCESTER STREET, regent's TAUK. PREFACE. The writer of these volumes has endeavoured to collect, in a readable and attractive form, the best of those medical Ana that have been preserved by tradition or literature. In doing so, he has not only done his best to combine and classify old stories, but also cautiously to select his materials, so that his work, while affording amusement to the leisure hours of Doctors learned in their craft, might contain no line that should render it unfit for the drawing-room table. To efi^ect this, it has been found necessary to reject many valuable and characteristic anecdotes — some of them entering too minutely into the mysteries and technica- 2151 71 IV PREFACE. lities of medicine and surgery, and some being spiced with a humour ill calculated to please the delicacy of the nineteenth century. Much of the contents of both volumes has never before been published, but, after being drawn from a variety of manuscript sources, is now for the first time submitted to the world. It would be difficult to enumerate all the persons to whom the writer is indebted for access to documents, suggestions, critical notes, or memoranda. He cannot, however, let the present occasion go by without expressing his gratitude to the College of Physicians, for the prompt urbanity with which they allowed him to inspect the treasures of their library. To Dr. Munk, the learned librarian of the College — who for many years, in the scant leisure allowed him by the urgent demands of an extensive practice, has found a dignified pastime in antiquarian and biographic research — the writer's best thanks are due. With a liberality by no means always found in a stu- dent possessed of "special information," the Doctor surrendered his precious stores to the PREFACE. V use of a comparative stranger, apparently with- out even thinking of the value of his gift. But even more than to the librarian of the College of Physicians the writer is indebted for assistance to his very kind friend Dr. Diamond, of Twickenham House — a gentleman who to all the best qualities of a complete physician, unites the graces of a scholarly mind, an enthusiasm for art, and the fascina- tions of a generous nature. Rolls Chambers, Chan'Cery Lane. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER I. Something about Sticks, and rather less about Wigs . 1 CHAPTER IL Early Enghsh Physicians . . . . .18 CHAPTER 111. Sir Thomas Browne and Sir Kenelm Digby . .43 CHAPTER IV. Sir Hans Sloane ........ 59 CHAPTER V. The Apothecaries and Sir Samuel Garth . . .74 Vlil CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. Quacks 98 CHAPTER Vn. John Radcliffe 134 CHAPTER Vm. The Doctor as a bon-vivant 175 CHAPTER IX. Fees 199 CHAPTER X. Pedagogues turned Doctors 224 CHAPTER XI. The Generosity and Parsimony of Physicians . . 248 CHAPTER XII. Bleeding 275 CHAPTER XIII. Richard Mead 292 A BOOK ABOUT DOCTORS. CHAPTER I. SOMETHING ABOUT STICKS, AND RATHER LESS ABOUT WIGS. Properly treated and fully expanded, this sub- ject of " the stick " would cover all the races of man in all regions and all ages ; indeed, it would hide every member of the human family. Attention could be drawn to the respect accorded in every chapter of the world's history, sacred and profane, to the rahdos — to the fasces of the Roman lictors, which every school-boy honours (often uncon- sciously) with an allusion when he says he will lick, or vows he won't be licked, — to the herald's staff of Hermes, the caduceus of Mercury, the wand of ^sculapius, and the rods of Moses and the contending sorcerers — to the mystic VOL. I. B 2 STICKS. bundles of nine twigs, in honour of the nine muses that Dr. Busby loved to wield, and which many a simple English parent believes Solomon, in all his glory, recommended as an element in domestic jurisdiction — to the sacred wands of savage tribes, the staffs of our constables and sheriffs, and the highly-polished gold sticks and black rods that hover about the ante-rooms of courts at St. James's or Portsoken. The rule of thumb has been said to be the government of this world. And what is this thumb but a short stick, a sceptre, emblematic of a sovereign authority which none dares to dispute ? " The stick," says the Egyptian proverb, " came down from heaven." The only sticks, however, that we here care to speak about are physicians' canes, barbers' poles, and the twigs of rue which are still strewn on a ledge before the prisoner in the dock of a criminal court. Why should they be thus strung together ? The physician's cane is a very ancient part of his insignia. It is now disused, but up to very recent times no doctor of medicine would have presumed to pay a professional visit, or even to be seen in public, without this mystic wand. Long as a footman's stick, smooth and varnished, with a heavy gold knob or cross-bar at the top, it was an instrument with which, down to the present century, every prudent aspirant to medical practice was provided. The celebrated " gold- THE GOLD-HEADED CANE. 3 headed cane " which Eadcliffe, Mead, Askew, Pit- cairn, and Baillie successively bore, is preserved in the College of Physicians, bearing the arras which those gentlemen assumed, or were entitled to. In one respect it deviated from the physi- cian's cane proper. It has a cross-bar, almost like a crook ; whereas a physician's wand ought to have a knob at the top. This knob in olden times was hollow, and contained a vinaigrette, w^hich the man of science always held to his nose when he approached a sick person, so that its fumes might protect him from the noxious exhalations of his patient. We know timid people who, on the same plan, have their handkerchiefs washed in camphor-water, and bury their faces in them whenever they pass the corner of a dingy street, or cross an open drain, or come in contact with an ill-looking man. When Howard, the philan- thropist, visited Exeter, he found that the medical officer of the county gaol had a clause inserted in his agreement with the mao;istrates, exonerating him from attendance and services during any outbreak of the gaol fever. Most likely this gentleman, by the science of books or experience, had been enlightened as to the inefficacy of the vinaigrette. But though the doctor, like a soldier skulking from the field of battle, might with impunity decline visiting the wretched captives, the judge b2 4 TWIGS OF RUE. was forced to do his part of the social duty to them — to sit in their presence during their trial in a close, fetid court; to browbeat them when they presumed to make any declaration of their innocence beyond a brief " not guilty ; " to read them an energetic homily on the consequences of giving way to corrupt passions and evil manners ; and, finally, to order them their proper apportion- ments of whipping, or incarceration, or banish- ment, or death. Such was the abominable con- dition of our prisons, that the poor creatures dragged from them and placed in the dock were frequently in such an offensive condition that the noxious effluvia of their bodies made even seasoned criminal lawyers turn pale — partly, per- haps, through fear, but chiefly through physical causes. Then arose the custom of sprinkling aromatic herbs before the prisoners — so that if the health of his lordship and the gentlemen of the long robe suffered from the tainted atmo- sphere, at least their senses of smell might be shocked as little as possible. Then, also, came the chaplain's bouquet, with which that reverend officer was always provided when accompanying a criminal to Tyburn. Coke used to go circuit carrying in his hand an enormous fan furnished with a handle, in the shape of a goodly stick — the whole forming a weapon of offence and defence. It is not improbable that the shrewd THE barber's pole. 5 lawyer caused the end of this offensive and defensive weapon to be furnished with a vin- aigrette. So much for the head of the physician's cane. The stick itself was doubtless a relic of the con- juring paraphernalia with which the healer, in ignorant and superstitious times, always worked upon the imagination of the credulous. Just as the R which the doctor still affixes to his pre- scription is the old astrological sign (ill-drawn) of Jupiter, so his cane descended to him from Hermes and Mercurius. It was a relic of old jugglery, and of yet older religion — one of those baubles which we know well where to find, but which our conservative tendencies disincline us to sweep away without some grave necessity. The charming-stick, the magic ^sculapian wand of the medicine-man, differed in shape and signifi- cance from the pole of the barber-surgeon. In the "British Apollo," 1703, No. 3, we read :— " I'd know why lie that selleth ale Hangs out a chequer'd part per pale : And why a barber at port -hole Puts forth a parti-coloured pole ? ANSWER. " In ancient Rome, when men lov'd fighting, And wounds and scars took much dehght iu, Man -menders then had noble pay — Which we call surgeons to this day. 6 LORD THURLOW'S SPEECH. 'Twas order'd that a huge long pole, With basin decked, should grace the hole, To guide the wounded, who unlopt Could walk, on stumps the other hopt ; But, when they ended all their wars, And men grew out of love with scars. Their trade decaying, to keep swimming, They joined the other trade of trimming ; And to their poles, to publish either. Thus twisted both their trades together." The principal objection that can be made to this answer is that it leaves the question unan- swered, after making only a very lame attempt to answer it. Lord Thurlow, in a speech delivered in the House of Peers on 1 7th of July, 1797, opposing the surgeons' incorporation bill, said that, " By a statute still in force, the barbers and surgeons were each to use a pole. The barbers were to have theirs blue and white, striped with no other appendage; but the surgeons', which was the same in other respects, was likewise to have a gallipot and a red rag, to denote the particular nature of their vocation." But the reason why the surgeon's pole was adorned with both blue and red seems to have escaped the Chancellor. The fact is, the chirur- gical pole, properly tricked, ought to have a line of blue paint, another of red, and a third of white, winding round its length, in a regular serpentine progression — the blue representing the venous MEDICAL DISCIPLINE. 7 blood, the more brilliant colour the arterial, and the white thread being symbolic of the bandage used in tying up the arm after withdrawing the ligature. The stick itself is a sign that the ope- rator possesses a stout staff for his patients to hold, continually tightening and relaxing their grasp during the operation — accelerating the flow of the blood by the muscular action of the arm. The phlebotomist's staff is of great antiquity. It is to be found amongst his properties, in an illu- minated missal of the time of Edward the First, and in an engraving of the " Comenii Orbis Pictus." Possibly in ancient times the physician's cane and the surgeon's club were used more actively. For many centuries fustigation was believed in as a sovereign remedy for bodily ailments as well as moral failings, and a beating was prescribed for an ague as frequently as for picking and stealing. This process Antonius Musa employed to cure Octavius Augustus of sciatica. Thomas Cam- panella believed that it had the same effect as Colocynth administered internally. Galen recom- mended it as a means of fattening people. Gor- donius prescribed it in certain cases of nervous irritability — " Si sit juvenis, et non vult obedire, flagelletur frequenter et fortiter." In some rural districts ignorant mothers still flog the feet of their children to cure them of chilblains. And 8 CLUB-TINCTUKE. there remains on record a case in whicli club- tincture produced excellent results on a young patient, to whom Desault gave a liberal dose of it. In 1792, when Sir Astley Cooper was in Paris, he attended the lectures of Desault and Chopart in the Hotel Dieu. On one occasion, during this part of his student-course. Cooper saw a young fellow, of some sixteen years of age, brought before Desault, complaining of paralysis in his right arm. Suspecting that the boy was only shamming "Abraham Newland," Desault observed, unconcernedly, " Otez votre chapeau." Forgetting his paralytic story, the boy instantly obeyed, and uncovered his head. "Donnez moi un baton!" screamed Desault; and he beat the boy unmercifully. "D'ou venez vous?" inquired the operator, when the castigation was brought to a close. " Faubourg de St. Antoine," was the answer. " Oui, je le crois," replied Desault, with a shrug — speaking a truth experience had taught him — "tous les coquins viennent de ce quartier la." But enough for the present of the barber-sur- geon and his pole. " Tollite barberum," as Bonnel Thornton suggested, when, in 1745 (a year bar- barous in more ways than one), the surgeons, on being disjoined from the barbers, were asking what ought to be their motto. WIGS. 9 Next to his cane, the physician's wig was the most important of his accoutrements. It gave profound learning and wise thought to lads just out of their teens. As the horse-hair skull-cap, with a grotesque effort of hypocrisy, gives idle Mr. Briefless all the acuteness and gravity of as- pect which one looks for in an attorney-general, so the doctor's artificial locks were to him a crown of honour. One of the Dukes of Holstein, in the eighteenthcentury, just missed destruction through being warned not to put on his head a poisoned wig which a traitorous peruke-maker offered him. To test the value of the advice given him, the Duke had the wig put upon the head of its fabri- cator. Within twelve minutes the man had ex- pired ! We have never heard of a physician finding death in a wig ; but a doctor who found the means of life in one is no rare bird in history. " Each son of Sol, to make him look more big, Had on a large, grave, decent, three-tailed wig ; His clothes full- trimmed, with Mtton-holes behind, Stijff were the skirts, with buckram stoutly lined ; The cloth-cut velvet, or more reverend black. Full-made, and powder'd haK-way down his back ; Large decent cuffs, which near the ground did reach, With half-a-dozen buttons fixed on each. Grave were their faces — fixed in solemn state, These men struck awe ; their children carried weight. In rev'rend wigs old heads young shoulders bore, And twenty-five or thirty seemed threescore." 10 WILL ATKINS. The three-tailed wig was the one worn by Will Atkins, the gout-doctor in Charles the Second's time (a good specialty then !). He lived in the Old Bailey, and had a vast practice. His nos- trums, some of which were composed of thirty different ingredients, were wonderful — but far less so than his wig, which was combed and frizzled over each cheek. When Will walked about the town, visiting his patients, he sometimes carried a cane, but never wore a hat. Such an article of costume would have disarranged the beautiful locks, or, at least, have obscured their glory. " Physic, of old, her entry made Beneath th' immense full-bottom's shade ; While the gilt cane, with solemn pride, To each sagacious nose applied, Seem'd but a necessary prop To bear the weight of wig at top." One of the most magnificent wigs on record was that of Colonel Dalmahoy, which was cele- brated in a song beginning : — " If you would see a noble wig, And in that wig a man look big, To Ludgate Hill repair, my joy. And gaze on Col'nel Dalmahoy." On Ludgate Hill, in close proximity to the Hall of the Apothecaries in Water Lane, the Colonel vended drugs and nostrums of all sorts — COLONEL DALMAHOY. 1 1 sweetmeats, washes for the complexion, scented oil for the hair, pomades, love-drops, and charms, Wadd, the humorous collector of anecdotes re- lating to his profession, wrote of him : — *' Dalmahoy sold infusions and lotions, Decoctions, and gargles, and pills ; Electuaries, powders, and potions. Spermaceti, salts, scammony, squills. "Horse-aloes, burnt-alum, agaric, Balm, benzo'ine, blood-stone, and diU ; Castor, camphor, and acid tartaric, "With specifics for every ill. " But with all his specifics in store. Death on Dalmahoy one day did pop ; And although he had doctors a score, Made poor Dalmahoy shut up his shop." Dalmahoy's wig, apart from its magnificence, is of interest, for it was one of the last doctor's wigs to be worn off the stage, by a man in the sober transaction of his professional avocations. The last silk-coated physician was Henry Revell Rey- nolds, M.D., one of the physicians who attended George III. during his long and melancholy afflic- tion. Though this gentleman came quite down to living times, he persisted to the end in wearing the costume — of a well -powdered wig, silk coat, breeches, stockings, buckled shoes, gold- headed cane, and lace ruffles — with which he commenced his career. He was the Brummel of 12 DR. BROCKLESBY. the Faculty, and retained his fondness for delicate apparel to the last. Even in his grave-clothes the coxcombical tastes of the man exhibited them- selves. His very cerements were of "a good make." " Here well-dressed Reynolds lies, As great a beau as ever ; We may perhaps see one as wise, But sure a smarter never." Whilst Brocklesby's wig is still bobbing about in the distance, we may as well tell a good story of him. He was an eccentric man, with many good points, one of which was his friendship for Dr. Johnson. The Duchess of Richmond re- quested Brocklesby to visit her maid, who was so ill that she could not leave her bed. The phy- sician proceeded forthwith to Richmond House, in obedience to the command. On arriving there he was shown upstairs by the invalid's husband, who held the post of valet to the Duke. The man was a very intelligent fellow, a character with whom all visitors to Richmond House con- versed freely, and a vehement politician. In this last characteristic the Doctor resembled him. Slowly the physician and the valet ascended the staircase, discussing the fate of parties, and the merits of ministers. They became excited, and declaiming at the top of their voices entered the sick-room. The valet — forgetful of his marital DOCTORS ON HORSEBACK. 13 duties in the delights of an intellectual contest — poured in a broadside of sarcasms, ironical in- quiries, and red-hot declamation; the doctor — with true English pluck — returned fire, volley for volley. The battle lasted for upwards of an hour, when the two combatants walked downstairs, and the man of medicine took his departure. When the doctor arrived at his door, and was stepping from his carriagCj it flashed across his mind that he had not applied his finger to his patient's pulse, or even asked her how she felt herself ! Previous to Charles II.'s reign, physicians were in the habit of visiting their patients on horse- back, sitting sideways on footcloths like women. Simeon Fox and Dr. Argent were the last Pre- sidents of the College of Physicians to go their rounds in this undignified manner. With " the Restoration" came the carriage of the London '-^ physician, who either was, or wished to be, suc- cessful. The Lex Talionis says, " For there must now be a little coach and two horses ; and, being thus attended, half-a-piece, their usual fee, is but ill-taken, and popped into their left pocket, and possibly may cause the patient to send for his worship twice before he will come again to the hazard of another angel." The fashion, once coinmenced, soon prevailed. In Queen Anne's reign, no physician with the slightest pretensions to practice could manage 14 CARRIAGE DOCTORS. without his chariot and four, sometimes even six, horses. In our own day an equipage of some sort is considered so neceseary an appendage to a medical practitioner, that a physician without a carriage (or a fly that can pass muster for one) is looked on with suspicion. He is marked down mauvais sujet in the same list with clergymen without duty, barristers without chambers, and gentlemen whose Irish tenantry obstinately refuse to keep them supplied with money. On the whole the carriage system is a good one. It protects stair carpets from being soiled with muddy boots (a great thing!) and bears cruelly on needy aspirants after professional employ- ment (a yet greater thing! and one that mani- festly ought to be the object of all professional eti- quette !). If the early struggles of many fashion- able physicians were fully and courageously written, we should have some fine stories of the screwing and scraping and shifts by which their first equipages were maintained. Heartrending stories — and yet so funny ! Who hasn't heard of the darling doctor who taught singing under the moustachioed and bearded guise of an Italian Count, at a young ladies' school at Clapham, in order that he might make his daily west-end calls between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. in a well-built brougham drawn by a fiery steed from a livery stables ? There was one noted case of a young YOUTHFUL AMBITION. 15 physician who provided himself with the means of figuring in a brougham during the May-fair morning, by occupying the box and condescend- ing to the garb and duties of a flyman during the hours of darkness. It was the same carriage at both periods of the four-and- twenty hours. He lolled in it by day-light, and sat on it by gas- light. The poor fellow's secret was discovered, by forgetting himself on one occasion, and jump- ing in when he ought to have jumped on, or jumping on when he ought to have jumped in. It is a rash thing for a young man to start his carriage, unless he can make sure to sustain it for a dozen years. To drop it is sure destruction. We remember an ambitious Phaeton of Hospitals who astonished the world — not only of his pro- fession, but of all London — with an equipage fit for an ambassador — the vehicle and the steeds being obtained, like the arms blazoned on his panels, upon credit. But he came to grief. Six years afterwards he was met by a friend crush- ing the mud on the Marylebone pavements, and with a characteristic assurance, that even adver- sity was unable to deprive him of, said "that his health was so much deranged that his dear friend Sir James Clarke had prescribed con- tinual walking exercise for him as the only means of recovering his powers of digestion." 16 A DOCTOR CARTED. His friends — good-natured people, as friends always are — observed that "it was a pity Sir James hadn't given him the advice a few years sooner — prevention being better than cure." Though physicians began generally to take to carriages in Charles II.'s reign, it may not be supposed that no doctor of medicine before that time experienced the motion of a wheeled car- riage. In " Stowe's Survey of London " one may read : — "In the year 1563, Dr. Langton, a physician, rid in a car, with a gown of damask, lined with velvet, and a coat of velvet, and a cap of the same (such, it seems, doctors then wore), but having a blue hood pinned over his cap ; which was (as it seems) a customary mark of guilt. And so came through Cheapside on a market- day." The doctor's offence was one against public morals. He had loved not wisely — but too well. The same generous weakness has brought learned doctors, since Langton's day, into extremely ridiculous positions. Are there any so placed now? The cane, wig, silk coat, stockings, side- saddle, and carriage of the old physician have been mentioned. We may not pass over his muff in silence. That he might have his hands warm and delicate of touch, and so be able to THE FUR MUFF. 17 discriminate to a nicety the qualities of his patient's arterial pulsations, he made his rounds, in cold weather, holding before him a large fur muff, in which his fingers and fore-arms were con- cealed. VOL. I. 18 CHAPTER II. EARLY ENGLISH PHYSICIANS. The British doctor, however, does not make his first appearance in sable dress and full-bottomed wig. Chaucer's physician, who was "groundit in Astronomy and Magyk Naturel,"and whose "study was but lytyl in the Bible," had a far smarter and more attractive dress. " In sanguyn and in perse he clad was al, Lined with taffata and with sendal." Taffata and silk, of crimson and sky-blue colour, must have given an imposing appearance to this worthy gentleman, who, resembling many later doctors in his disuse of the Bible, resembled them also in his love of fees. " And yit he was but esy of dispence, He kepte that he won in pestelenee ; For gold in physik is a cordial ; Therefore he lovede gold in special." PHREAS AND LINACRE. 19 Amongst our more celebrated and learned English physicians was John Phreas, born about the commencement of the fifteenth century, and educated at Oxford, where he obtained a fellow- ship on the foundation of Balliol college. His M.D. degree he obtained in Padua, and the large fortune he made by the practice of physic was also acquired in Italy. He was a poet, and an accom- plished scholar. Some of his epistles in MS. are still preserved in the Balliol Library and at the Bodleian. His translation of Diodorus Siculus, dedicated to Paul II., procured for him from that pontiff the fatal gift of an English bishopric. A disappointed candidate for the same preferment is said to have poisoned him before the day appointed for his consecration. Of Thomas Linacre, successively physician to Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Princess Mary, the memory is still green amongst men. At his request, in conjunction with the re- presentations of John Chambre, Fernandus de Victoria, Nicholas Halswell, John Fraunces, Robert Yaxley (physicians), and Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII. granted letters patent, establish- ing the College of Physicians, and conferring on its members the sole privilege of practising, and admitting persons to practice, within the city, and a circuit of seven miles. The college also was empowered to license practitioners throughout c 2 20 KNIGHT-RIDER STREET. the kingdom, save such as were graduates of Ox- ford and Cambridge — who were to be exempt from the jurisdiction of the new college, save within London and its precincts. Linacre was the first President of the College of Physicians. The meetings of the learned corporation were held at Linacre's private house. No. 5, Knight-Rider Street, Doctors' Commons. This house (on which the Physician's arms, granted by Christopher Barker, Garter King-at-Arms, Sept. 20, 1546, may still be seen,) was bequeathed to the college by Linacre, and long remained their property and abode. The original charter of the brotherhood states : " Before this period a great multitude of ignorant persons, of whom the greater part had no insight into physic, nor into any other kind of learning — some could not even read the letters and the book — so far forth, that common artificers, ns smiths, weavers, and women, boldly and accustomably took upon them great cures, to the high displeasure of God, great infamy of the Faculty, and the grievous hurt, damage, and destruction of many of the king's liege people." Linacre died in the October of 1524. Caius, writing his epitaph, concludes, " Fraudes dolosque mire perosus, fidus amicis, omnibus juxta charus ; aliquot annos antequam obierat Presbyter fac- tus ; plenus annis, ex hac vita migravit, multum desideratus." His motive for taking holy orders CHRISTI AX DOCTRINE. 21 five years before lils death is unknown. Pos- sibly he imagined the sacerdotal garb would be a secure and comfortable clothing in the grave. Certainly he was not a profound theologian. A short while before his death he read the New Testa- ment for the first time, when so great was his as- tonishment at finding the rules of Christians widely at variance with their practice, that he threw the sacred volume from him in a passion, and exclaimed, ^^ Either this is not the gospel, or we are not Christians." Of the generation next succeeding Linacre's was John Kaye, or Key (or Caius, as it has been long pedantically spelt). Like Linacre (the elegant writer and intimate friend of Erasmus), Caius is associated with letters not less than medicine. Born of a respectable Norfolk family, Caius raised, on the foundation of Gonvil Hall, the college in the University of Cambridge that bears his name — to w^hich Eastern Counties' men do mostly resort. Those "who know Cambridge remember the pleasant irony with which, in obe- dience to the founder's fancy, the gates of Caius are named. As a president of the College of Physicians, Caius was a zealous defender of the riorhts of his order. It has been suororested that Shakspeare's Dr. Caius, in " The Merry Wives of Windsor," was produced in resentment towards the president, for his excessive fervour against the surgeons. ^2 COURT PHYSICIANS. " Caius terminated his laborious and honourable career on July the 29th, 1573, in the sixty-third year of his age. He was buried in his college chapel, in a tomb constructed some time before his decease, and marked with the brief epitaph — "Fui Caius." In the same year in which this physician of Edward YI., Mary, and Elizabeth died, was born Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, Baron Aulbone of France, and Sir Theodore Mayerne in England. Of Mayerne mention will be made in various places of these pages. There is some difficulty in ascertaining to how many crowned heads this lucky courtier was appointed physician. After leaving France and permanently fixing himself in England, he kept up his con- nection with the French, so that the list of his monarch-patients may be said to comprise two French and three English sovereigns — Henry IV. and Louis XIII. of France, and James I., Charles I., and Charles 11. of England. Mayerne died at Chelsea, in the eighty-second year of his age, on the 15th of March, 1655. Like John Hunter, he was buried in the church of St. Martin' s-in-the- Fields. His library went to the College of Phy- sicians, and his wealth to his only daughter, who was married to the Marquis of Montpouvillon. Though Mayerne was the most eminent physician of his time, his prescriptions show that his enlight- enment was not superior to the prevailing ignor- BALSAM OF BATS. 23 ance of the period. He recommended a monthly excess of wine and food as a fine stimulant to the system. His treatise on Gout, written in French and translated into English ("1676) by Charles H.'s physician in ordinary, Dr. Thomas Sherley, re- commends a clumsy and inordinate administration of violent drugs. Calomel he habitually adminis- tered in scruple doses. Sugar of lead he mixed largely in his conserves ; pulverized human bones he was very fond of prescribing ; and the principal ingredient in his gout-powder was " raspings of a human skull unburied." But his sweetest compound was his '^ Balsam of Bats," strongly recommended as an unguent for hypochondriacal persons, into which entered adders, bats, sucking- whelps, earth-worms, hog's grease, the marrow of a stag, and the thigh-bone of an ox. After such a specimen of the doctor's skill, possibly the reader will not care to study his receipts for ca- nine madness, communicated to the Royal Society in 1687, or his " Excellent and well-approved Eeceipts and Experiments in Cookery, with the best way of Preserving." Nor will the reader be surprised to learn that the great physician had a firm belief in the eflficacy of amulets and charms. But the ignorance and superstition of which May erne was the representative were approaching the close of their career; and Sir Theodore's court 24 THE DAGGER-WEARING DOCTOR. celebrity and splendour were to become contemp- tible by the side of the scientific achievements of a contemporary. The grave closed over May erne in 1655; but in the December of 1652 the College of Physicians had erected in their hall a statue of Harvey, who died on the third of June, 1657, aged seventy-nine years. " The circling streams, once thought but pools of blood, (Whether life's fuel, or the body's food) From dark oblivdon Harvey's name shall save." Aubrey says of Harvey — " He was not tall, but of the lowest stature ; round-faced, olivaster (like waintscott) complexion ; little eie — round, very black, full of spirit ; his haire was black as a raven, but quite white twenty years before he dyed. I remember he was wont to drinke coffee, which he and his brother E'liab did, before coffee-houses were in fashion in London. He was, as all the rest of his brothers, very cholerique ; and in his younger days wore a dagger (as the fashion then was) ; but this doctor would be apt to draw out his dagger upon every slight occasion. He rode on horse-bach with a foot-cloath to visit his patients, his man following on foot, as the fashion then was, was very decent, now quite discontinued^ From Harvey's discovery dates a new era in medical and surgical science. Its influence on scientific men, not only as a stepping-stone to WILLIAM BULLEYN. 25 further discoveries, but as a power rousing in all quarters a spirit of philosophic investigation, was immediately perceptible. A new class of students arose, before whom the foolish dreams of medical superstition and the darkness of empiricism slowly disappeared. Of the physicians of what may be termed the Elizabethan era, beyond all others the most saga- cious and interesting is William Bulleyn. He belongs to a bevy of distinguished Eastern Counties' physicians. Dr. Butts, Henry YHI.'s physician, mentioned in Strype's " Life of Cran- mer," and made celebrated amongst doctors by Shakespeare's " Henry the Eighth," belonged to an honourable and gentle family sprinkled over Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire. The butcher king knighted him by the style of William Butts of Norfolk. Calus was born at Norwich : and the eccentric William Butler, of whom Mayerne, Aubrey, and Fuller, tell fan- tastic stories, was born at Ipswich, about the year 1535. William Bulleyn was born in the isle of Ely ; but it is with the eastern division of the county of Suffolk that his name is especially associated. Sir William Bulleyn, the Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in the fifteenth year of Henry YH., and grandfather of the unfortunate Anne Boleyn, was one of the magnates of the doctor's family — mem- 26 ORFORD EUSHES. bers of which are still to be found in Ipswich and other parts of East Anglia, occupying positions of high respectability. In the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, no one ranked higher than William Bulleyn as botanist and physician. The record of his acuteness and learning is found in his numerous works, which are amongst the most in- teresting prose writings of the Elizabethan era. If Mr. Bohn, who has already done so much to render old and neglected authors popular, would present the public with a well-edited reprint of Bulleyn's works, he would make a valuable addition to the services he has already conferred on literature. After receiving a preliminary education in the university of Cambridge, Bulleyn enlarged his mind by extended travel, spending much time in Germany and Scotland. During the reign of Queen Mary he practised in Norwich; but he moved to Blaxhall, in Suffolk (of which parish it is believed his brother was for some years rector). Alluding to his wealthy friend, Sir Thomas Rushe, of Orford, he says, with a pun, '' I myself did know a Rushe growing in the fenne side, by Or- forde, in Suffolke, that might have spent three hundred marks by year. Was not this a rush of estimation ? A fevve sutch rushes be better than many great trees or bushes. But thou doste not know that countrey, where sometyme I did dwell, at a place called Blaxall, neere to that Rushe SAGE-TEA. 27 Bushe. I would all rushes within this realme were as riche in value." (The ancient family still maintain their connection with the county.) Speaking of the rushes near Orforde, in Suffolk, and about the isle of Ely, Bulleyn says, ^'The playne people make mattes and horse-collars of the greater rushes, and of the smaller they make lightes or candles for the winter. Rushes that growe upon dry groundes be good to strewe in halles, chambers, and galleries, to walke upon — defending apparell, as traynes of gownes and kirtles, from the dust." It is ever to Suffolk that he turns for a social or scientific illustration when writing his works, at the heiorht of his fame. He tells of the virtues of Suffolk sage (a herb that the nurses of that county still believe in as having miraculous effects, when administered in the form of '^ sage-tea.") Of Suffolk hops (now but little grown in the county) he speaks in terms of high praise — especially of those grown round Framlingham Castle, and ^Hhe late house of nunnes at Biiziarde." " I know in many places of the coun- try of Suffolke, where they brew theyr beere with hoppes that growe upon theyr owne groundes, as in a place called Briziarde, near an old famous castle called Framingham, and in many other places of the country." Of the peas of Orford the follow- ing mention is made : — " In a place called Or- forde, in Suffolke, betwene the haven and the 28 BASKETS OF FRUIT. mayne sea, wheras never plow came, nor natural earth was, but stones onely, infinite thousand ships loden in that place, there did pease grow, whose roots were more than iii fadome long, and the coddes did grow uppon clusters like the keys of ashe trees, bigger than fitches, and less than the fyeld peason, very sweet to eate upon, and served many pore people dwelling there at hand, which els should have perished for honger, the scarcity of bread was so great. In so much that the playne pore people did make very much of akornes ; and a sikness of a strong fever did sore molest the commons that yere, the like whereof was never hard of there. Now, whether th' occasion of these peason, in providence of God, came through some shipwracke with much misery, or els by miracle, I am not able to determine thereof; but sowen by man's hand they were not, nor like other pease." In the same way one has in the doctor's " Book of Simples " j^leasant gossip about the more choice productions of the garden and of commerce, show- ing that horticulture must have been far more ad- vanced at that time than is generally supposed, and that the luxuries imported from foreign countries were largely consumed throughout the country. Pears, apples, peaches, quinces, cherries, grape?, raisins, prunes, barberries, oranges, med- lars, raspberries and strawberries, spinage, ginger, PEARS AND GALLOW GRASSE. 29 and lettuces are the good things thrown upon the board. Of pears, the author says: "There is a kynd of peares growing in the city of Norwich, called the black freere's peare, very delicious and plea- saunt, and no lesse profitable unto a hoate stomacke, as I heard it reported by a ryghte w^orshipful phisicion of the same city, called Doctour Man- field." Other pears, too, are mentioned, " sutch as have names as peare Robert, peare John, bishop's blessyngs, with other prety names. The red warden is of greate vertue, conserved, rosted, or baken, to quench choller." The varieties of the apple specially mentioned are " the costardes, the greene cotes, the pippen, the queene aple." Grapes are spoken of as cultivated and brought to a high state of perfection in Suffolk and other parts of the country. Hemp is humorously called " gallow grasse or neckweede." The hartesease, or paunsie, is mentioned by its quaint old name, '^ three faces in one hodde." Parsnips, radishes, and carrots, are offered for sale. In the neighbour- hood of London large quantities w^ere grown for the London market ; but Bulleyn thinks little of them, describing them as "more plentifull than profytable." Of figs — " Figges be good agaynst melancholy, and the falling evil, to be eaten. Figges, nuts, and herb grace do make a suflfi- cient medicine against poison or the pestilence. 30 THE PARSLEY BED. Figges make a good gargarism to cleanse the throates." The double daisy is mentioned as growing in gardens. Daisy-tea was employed in gout and rheumatism — as herb-tea of various sorts still is by the poor of our provinces. With daisy-tea (or bellis-tea) " I, BuUeyn, did recover one Belliser, not onely from a spice of the palsie, but also from the quartan. And afterwards, the same Belliser, more unnatural than a viper, sought divers ways to have murthered me, taking part against me with my mortal enemies, accompanied with bloudy ruffins, for that bloudy purpose." Parsley, also, was much used in medicine. And as it was the custom for the doctor to grow his own herbs in his garden, we may here see the origin of the old nursery tradition of little babies being brought by the doctor from the parsley bed. At the time of BuUeyn's residence in Suffolk the old noble and gentle families were falling into decay, and parting with their estates to new- comers. Political feuds tended to increase the ill-will that subsisted between the ancient and modern gentry. The Howards, Willoughbys, Wingfields, and Glemhams found themselves rudely jostled by opulent lawyers, and successful merchant adventurers. Nor was dissension con- fined to the battle of these two parties, that must ever exist in a prosperous country. The state of AUNCIENT HOUSES. 31 the county in this respect is seen in the following passage : — '^ Marcellus. — AYhat is the vertue of mislen, growing upon thornes, pere-trees, okes, whereof I have seen great plenty growing in the countrye of Suffolke, with many goodly herbes and flowers ; as in these most auncient parkes of Framing- ham, Kelshall, Nettlestede, Lethringham, Parham, Somel, Heningham, and Benhall. These parkes be old neighbours. God send them continued friendship with eche other in unity, for whereas unity is broken, the parke pale will not hold, and so fal into sodain ruine and decay, and the dere will scatter. " Hilarius. — I know the places which you have known right well. Furthermore, I commend your good zeale that you beare to that worthy countrey, wishing their continual unity and concord. I desire the same, for they be people of no lesse civility then of most auncient good fxme and worship, descended from houses of fame, and worthy of memory. I meane no parkes, but people, nor them which have crept under a goose- wyng, drawing forth a bastarde svvorde no longer than a writing pen, fyghting their combat on a shete of paper, to the hurte of many, perhaps, and profyte of none but to themselves onely. But of them I speake, whose blood hath bene shed in the just quarel of their prynces; whose house be 32 SOARENES AND CHIRURGI. builded uppon hard rockes, of true gotten goodes ; whose dores be open, keping hospitality according to their callyng, who with the love of the countrey gard themselves, and with justice defendeth the causes of the pore. These be they which be worthy of the land, that thus feareth God. These be the right gentlemen ; but otherwise not." Scarcely less interesting than ^'The Book of Simples" isBulleyn's "Dialogue betweene Soarenes and Chirurgi." It opens with an honourable men- tion of many distinguished physicians and chirur- gians. Dr. John Kaius is praised as a worthy follower of Linacre. Dr. Turner's " booke of herbes will always grow greene." Sir Thomas Eliot's " ^ castell of health ' cannot decay." Thomas Faire " is not deade, but is transformed and chaunged into a new nature immortal." Androwe Borde, the father of ^ Merry An- drews,' " wrote also wel of physicke to profit the common wealth withal." Thomas Pannel, the translator of the Schola Saternitana, "hath play'd ye good servant to the common wealth, in translating good bookes of physicke." Dr. William Kunyngham " hath wel travailed like a good soukllour agaynst the ignorant enemy." Numerous other less eminent practitioners are mentioned — such as Buns, Edwards, Hatcher, Frere, Langton, Lorkin, Wendy — educated at Cambridge ; Gee and Simon Ludford, of Oxford ; AN EMBROCATION. 33 Huyck (the Queen's physician), Bartley, Carr ; Masters, John Porter, of Norwich ; Edmunds of York, Robert Baltrop, and Thomas Calfe, apo- thecary. "Soft chirurgians," says Bulleyn, "make foul sores." He was a bold and courageous one. " Where the wound is," runs the Philippine proverb, " the plaster must be." Bulleyn was of the same opinion ; but, in dressing a tender part, the surgeon is directed to have " a gladsome coun- tenance," because "the paciente should not be greatly troubled." For bad surgeons he has not less hostility than he has for ''Petty Foggers, in cases of the Law, Who make mountaynes of molhils, and trees of a straw." We shall best see the state of medicine in Elizabeth's reign by giving in full some of the best recipes of this physician, who, in sagacity and learning, was far superior to Sir Theodore Mayerne, his successor by a long interval. ''An Embrocation. — An embrocation is made after this manner : — R. Of a decoction of mal- lowes, vyolets, barly, quince seed, lettice leaves, one pint ; of barly meale, two ounces ; of oyle of vyolets and roses, of each, an ounce and half ; of butter, one ounce; and then seeth them all to- gether till they be like a broathe, puttyng thereto, at the ende, foure yolkes of eggs ; and the maner VOL. I. D 34 A GOOD EMPLASTER. of applying them is with peeces of cloth, dipped in the aforesaid decotioii, being actually hoate." " A Good Emplaster. — You shall mak a plaster with these medicines following, which the great learned men themselves have used unto their pacientes : — R. Of hulled beanes, or beane flower that is without the brane, one pound ; of mallow- leaves, two handfuls ; seethe them in lye, til they be well sodden, and afterwarde let them be stamped and incorporate with four ounces of meale of lint or flaxe, two ounces of meale of lupina ; and forme thereof a plaster with goat's grease, for this openeth the pores, avoideth the matter, and com- forteth also the member ; but if the place, after a daye or two of the application, fall more and more to blackness, it shall be necessary to go further, even to scarifying and incision of the place." Pearl electuaries and pearl mixtures were very fashionable medicines with the wealthy down to the commencement of the eighteenth century. Here we have Bulleyn's recipe for ^' Electuarium de Gemmis. — Take two drachms of white perles ; two little peeces of saphyre ; jacinth, corneline, emerauldes, granettes, of each an ounce ; setwal, the sweate roote doronike, the rind of pomecitron, mace, basel seede, of each two drachms ; of redde corall, amber, shaving of ivory, of each two drachms; rootes both of white and red behen, ginger, long peper, spicknard, folium A PRESCRIPTION OF 1846. 35 indiciim, saffron, cardamon, of each one drachm; of troch. diarodon, lignum aloes, of each half a small handful ; cinnamon, galinga, zurubeth, which is a kind of setwal, of each one drachm and a half; thin pieces of gold and sylver, of each half a scruple ; of musk, half a drachm. Make your electuary with honey emblici, which is the fourth kind of mirobalans with roses, strained in equall partes, as much as will suffice. This healeth cold diseases of ye braine, harte, stomack. It is a medicine proved against the tremblynge of the harte, faynting and souning, the weaknes of the stomacke, pensivenes, solitarines. Kings and noble men have used this for their comfort. It causeth them to be bold-sprited, the body to smell wel, and ingendreth to the face good coloure." Truly a medicine for kings and noblemen ! During the railway panic in '46 an unfortunate physician prescribed for a nervous lady : — R. Great Western, 350 shares. Eastern Counties ) mcA -.-r , , ^. -■ n, \ ^ — a 1050. North Middlesex ) Mft. Haust. 1. Om. noc. cap. This direction to a delicate gentlewoman, to swallow nightly two thousand four hundred and fifty railway shares, was regarded as evidence of the physician's insanity, and the management of his private affairs was forthwith taken out of d2 36 A PRECIOUS WATER. his hands. But assuredly it was as rational a prescription as BuUeyn's " Electuarium de Gem- mis." "J. Precious Water. — Take nutmegges, the roote called doronike, which the apothecaries have, setwall, gatangall, mastike, long peper, the bark of pomecitron, of mellon, sage, bazel, mar- jorum, dill, spiknard, wood of aloes, cubebe, cardamom, called graynes of paradise, lavender, peniroyall, mintes, sweet catamus, germander, enulacampana, rosemary, stichados and quinance, of eche lyke quantity ; saiFron, an ounce and half ; the bone of a harte's heart grated, cut, and stamped; and beate your spyces grossly in a morter. Put in ambergrice and musk, of each half a drachm. Distil this in a simple aqua vitsB, made with strong ale, or sackeleyes and aniseedes, not in a common styll, but in a serpentine; to tell the vertue of this water against colde, phlegme, dropsy, heavines of minde, comming of melancholy, I cannot well at thys present, the excellent vertues thereof are sutch, and also the tyme were to long." The cure of cancers has been pretended and attempted by a numerous train of knaves and simpletons, as well as men of science. In the Elizabethan time this most terrible of maladies was thought to be influenced by certain precious waters — i,e.y precious messes. AMATEUR DOCTORS. 37 " Many good men and women," says Bulleyn, "wythin thys realme have dyvers and sundry medicines for the canker, and do help their neigh- boures that bee in perill and daunger, whyche be not onely poore and needy, hauing no money to spende in chirurgie. But some do well where no chirurgians be neere at hand ; in such cases, as I have said, many good gentlemen and ladyes have done no small pleasure to poore people ; as that excellent knyght, and worthy learned man, Syr Thomas Eliot, whose works be immortall. Syr William Parris, of Cambridgeshire, whose cures deserve prayse ; Sir William Gascoigne, of Yorke- shire, that helped many soare eyen ; and the Lady Tailor, of Huntingdonshire, and the Lady Darrell of Kent, had many precious medicines to comfort the sight, and to heale woundes withal, and were well scene in herbes. " The commonwealth hath great want of them, and of theyr medicines, whych if they had come into my handes, they should have bin written in my booke. Among al other there was a knight, a man of great worshyp, a Godly hurtlesse gen- tleman, whych is departed thys lyfe, hys name is Syr Anthony Heveningham. This gentleman learned a water to kyll a canker of hys owne mo- ther, whych he used all hys lyfe, to the greate helpe of many men, women, and chyldren." This water 'learned by Sir Anthony Hevening^ o^-e rr>€ ^,^J 38 SIR Anthony's prescriptions. ham" was, Bulleyn states on report, composed thus : — " Precious Water to Cure a Canker : — Take dove's foote, a herbe so named, Arkangell ivy wyth the berries, young red bryer toppes, and leaves, whyte roses, theyr leaves and buds, red sage, selandyne, and woodbynde, of eche like quantity, cut or chopped and put into pure cleane whyte wyne, and clarified hony. Then breake into it alum glasse and put in a little of the pon- der of aloes hepatica. Destill these together softly in a limbecke of glasse or pure tin ; if not, then in limbecke wherein aqua vitae is made. Keep this water close. It will not onely kyll the canker, if it be duly washed therewyth ; but also two droppes dayly put into the eye wyll sharp the syght, and breake the pearle and spottes, specially if it be dropped in with a little fenell wa- ter, and close the eys after." There is reason to wish that all empirical ap- plications, for the cure of cancer, were as harmless as this. The following prescription for pomatum differs but little from the common domestic receipts for lip-salve in use at the present day : — " Sickness. — How make you pomatum ? " Health. — Take the fat of a young kyd one pound, temper it with the water of musk roses by the space of foure dayes; then take five apples, and SNAIL BROTH. 39 dresse them, and cut them in pieces, and lard them with cloves, then boyle them altogeather in the same water of roses, in one vessel of glasse ; set within another vessel ; let it boyle on the fyre so long until all be white ; then wash them with ye same water of muske roses ; this done, kepe it in a glass ; and if you wil have it to smel better, then you must put in a little civet or musk, or of them both, and amber grice. Gentilwomen doe use this to make theyr faces smoth and fay re, for it healeth cliftes in the lyppes, or in any other place of the hands and face." The most laughable of all Bulleyn's receipts is one in which, for the cure of a child suffering un- der a certain nervous malady, he prescribes '^a smal yong mouse rested." To some a "rosted mouse" may seem more palatable than the compound in which snails are the principal ingredient. " Snayles," says Bulleyn, " broken from the shelles and sodden in whyte wyne with oyle and suger are very holsome, because they be hoat and moist for the straightnes of the lungs and cold cough. Snails stamped with camphory, and leven wil draw forth prycks in the flesh." So long did this belief in the virtue of snails retain its hold on Suffolk, that the writer of these pages remem- bers a venerable lady (whose memory is cherished for her unostentatious benevolence and rare worth) 40 SUFFOLK WITCHES. who for years daily took a cup of snail broth, for the benefit of a weak chest. One minor feature of Bulleyn's works is the number of receipts given in them for curing the bites of mad dogs. The good man's horror of Suf- folk witches is equal to his admiration of Suffolk dairies. Of the latter he says, " Whaye is a good drynke in Sommer in the commonwealth, whereas good dayries be, as in Suffolk, the best country of milke, as about Lethryngham, Stratbrooke, Laxe- field, Kelshal, &c." Of the latter he says, " I dyd know wythin these few yeres a false witch, called M. Line, in a towne of Suffolke called Derham, which with a payre of ebene beades, and certain charmes, and no small resort of foolysh women, when theyr chyldren were syck. To thys lame wytch they resorted, to have the fairie charmed and the spy rite conjured away ; through the prayers of the ebene beades, whych she said came from the Holy Land, and were sanctyfyed at Rome. Through whom many goodly cures were don, but my chaunce was to burn ye said beads. Oh that damnable witches he suffered to live unpun- ished and so many blessed men burned ; witches be more hurtful in this realm than either quarten or pestilence. I know in a towne called Kelshall in Suffolke, a witch, whose name was M. Didge, who with certain Ave Marias upon her ebene beades, and a waxe candle, used this charme for GOVEEXMEXT OF HEALTH. 41 S. Anthonies f}Te, having the sycke body before her, holding up her hande, saying — ' There came two angels out of the Xorth-east, One brought fyre, the other brought frost, — Out fyre, and in frost ! ' I could reherse an hundred of sutch knackes, of these holy gossips. The fyre take them all, for they be God's enerayes." On leaving Blaxhall in Suffolk, Bulleyn mi- grated to the north. For many years he practised with success at Durham. At Shields he o^vned a considerable property. Sir Thomas, Baron of Hilton, Commander of Tinmouth Castle under Philip and Mary, was his patron and intimate friend. His first book, entitled " Government of Health," he dedicated to Sir Thomas Hilton ; but the MS., unfortunately, was lost in a shipwreck before it was printed. Disheartened by this loss, and the death of his patron, Bulleyn bravely set to work in London, to " revive his dead book." Whilst eno;aored on the laborious work of recom- position, he was arraigned on a grave charge of murder. " One William Hilton," he says, telling his own story, " brother to the sayd Syr Thomas Hilton, accused me of no lesse cryme, then of most cruel murder of his owne brother, who dyed of a fever (sent onely of God) among his owne frends, fynishing his lyfe in the Christian fayth. But this William Hilton caused me to be arrained 42 bulleyn's death. before that noble Prince, the Duke's Grace of Norfolke, for the same ; to this end to have had me dyed shamefully; that with the covetous Ahab he might have through false witnes and perjury, obtayned by the counsel of Jezabell, a wineyard, by the pryce of blood. But it is wrytten. Testis mendax peribit, a fals witnes shal com to naught ; his wicked practise was wisely espyed, his folly deryded, his bloudy purpose letted, and fynallye I was with justice delivered." This occurred in 1560. His foiled enemy after- wards endeavoured to get him assassinated ; but he again triumphed over the machinations of his adversary. Settling in London, he became a member of the College of Physicians, and ob- tained a large practice. His leisure time he devoted to the composition of his excellent works. To the last he seems to have kept up a close con- nection with the leading Eastern Counties' families. His " Comfortable Regiment and Very Wholsome order against the moste perilous Pleurisie," was dedicated to the Right Worshipful Sir Robart Wingfelde of Lethryngham, Knight. William Bulleyn died in London, on the 7th of January, 1576. He was buried in the church of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, in the same tomb "wherein his brother Richard had been laid thirteen years before; and wherein John Fox, the martyr- ologist, was interred eleven years later. 43 CHAPTER III. SIR THOMAS BROWNE AND SIR KENELM DIGBY. Amongst the distinguished physicians of the se- venteenth century were three Brovvnes — father, son, and grandson. The father wrote the " Religio Medici," and the " Pseudoxia Epidemica" — a trea- tise on vulgar errors. The son was the traveller and author of " Travels in Hungaria, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Friuli, &c.," and the trans- lator of the life of Themistocles in the English version of " Plutarch's Lives" undertaken by Dry- den. He was also a physician of Bartholomew's, and one of the physicians of Charles 11. The grandson was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and, like his father and grandfather, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. But he was cut off in the July of 1710, having survived his father not quite two years. 44 PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFOED. Of these three eminent men, the author of the "Religio Medici" is the only one the world now cares to think of; but he enjoys as good a chance of an immortality of fame as any of his contemporaries. The child of a London merchant, who left him a comfortable fortune, Thomas Browne was from the beginning of his life (Oct. 19, 1605) to its close (Oct. 19, 1682), well placed amongst the wealthier of those who occupied the middle way of life. From Winchester College, where his schoolboy days were spent, he proceeded to the University of Oxford, becoming a member of Broadgates Hall, z.e., Pembroke College — the col- lege of Blackstone, Shenstone, and Samuel John- son. After taking his B.A. and M.A. degrees, he turned his attention to medicine, and for some time practised as a physician in Oxfordshire. Subsequently to this he travelled over different parts of Europe, visiting France, Italy, and Hol- land, and taking a degree of Doctor in Physic at Leyden. Returning to England, he settled at. Norwich, married a rich and beautiful Norfolk lady, named Mileham; and for the rest of his days resided in that ancient city, industriously occu- pied with an extensive practice, the pursuits of literature, and the education of his children. When Charles H. visited Norwich in 1671, Tho- mas Browne, M.D., was knighted by the royal hand. This honour, little as a man of letters WHITEFOOT S TEXT. 45 would now esteem it, was highly prized by the philosopher. He alludes to it in his " Antiquities of Norwich" — " And it is not for some wonder," he says, ^' that Norwich having been for so long a time so considerable a place, so few kings have visited it ; of which number among so many monarchs since the conquest we find but four, viz., King Henry III., Edward I., Queen Elizabeth, and our gracious sovereign now reigning. King Charles II., of which I had a particular reason to take notice." Amongst the Norfolk people Sir Thomas was very popular, his suave and unobtrusive manners securing him many friends, and his philosophic moderation of temper saving him from ever making an enemy. The honour conferred on him was a subject of congratulation — even amongst his per- sonal friends^ when his back was turned. The Eev. John Whitefoot, M.A., Eector of Heigham, in Norfolk, in his " Minutes for the Life of Sir Thomas Browne," says, that had it been his province to preach his funeral sermon, he should have taken his text from an uncanonical book — " I mean that of Syracides, or Jesus, the son of Syrach, commonly called Ecclesiasticus, which, in the 38th chapter, and the first verse, hath these words, ' Honour a physician with the honour due unto him ; for the uses which you may have of him, for the Lord hath created him ; for of the Most 46 THE BLUSHING KNIGHT. High. Cometh healing, and he shall receive Honour of the King' (as ours did that of knighthood from the present King, when he was in this city). ' The skill of the Physician shall lift up his head, and in the sight of great men shall he be in admiration;' so was this worthy person by the greatest man of this nation that ever came into this country, by whom also he was frequently and personally visited." Widely and accurately read in ancient and mo- dern literature, and possessed of numerous accom- plishments. Sir Thomas Browne was in society diffident almost to shyness. " His modesty," says Whitefoot, " was visible in a natural habitual blush, which was increased upon the least occa- sion, and oft discovered without any observable cause. Those who knew him only by the brisk- ness of his writings were astonished at his gravity of aspect and countenance, and freedom from loquacity." As was his manner, so was his dress. " In his habit of cloathing he had an aversion to all finery, and affected plainness both in fashion and ornaments." The monuments of Sir Thomas and his lady are in the church of Sir Peter's, Man- croft, Norwich, where they were buried. Some years since Sir Thomas Browne's tomb was opened for the purpose of submitting it to repair, when there was discovered on his coffin SIR KENELM DIGBY. 47 a plate, of which Dr. Diamond, who happened at the time to be in Norwich, took two rubbings, one of which is at present in the writer's custody. It bears the following interesting inscription : — " Amplissimus vir Dr. Thomas Brown Miles Medicinae Dr. Annos Natus et Denatus 19 Die Mensis Anno Dmi., 1682 — hoc loculo in- dormiens corporis spagyrici pulvere plumbum in aurum convertit." The " Religio Medici " not only created an un- precedented sensation by its erudition and polished style, but it shocked the nervous guardians of or- thodoxy by its boldness of enquiry. It was assailed for its infidelity and scientific heresies. According to Coleridge's view of the "Religio Medici," Sir Thomas Browne, " a fine mixture of humourist, genius, and pedant," was a Spino- sist without knowing it. " Had he," says the poet, "lived now-a-days, he would probably have been a very ingenious and bold infidel in his real opinions, though the kindness of his nature would have kept him aloof from vulgar, prating, obtrusive infidelity." Amongst the adverse critics of the "Religio Medici " was the eccentric, gallant, brave, credu- lous, persevering, frivolous. Sir Kenelm Digby. A Mec^nas, a Sir Philip Sydney, a Dr. Dee, a Beau Fielding, and a Dr. Kitchener, all in one, this man is chief of those extravao;ant characters 48 LOKD MONTAGUE, OF HINCHINBKOKE. that astonish the world at rare intervals, and are found nowhere except in actual life. No novelist of the most advanced section of the idealistic school would dare to create such a personage as Sir Kenelm. The eldest son of the ill-fated Sir Everard Digby, he was scarcely three years old when his father atoned on the scaffold for his share in the gunpowder treason. Fortunately a por- tion of the family estate was entailed, so Sir Kenelm, although the offspring of attainted blood, succeeded to an ample revenue of about 3,000Z. a- year. In 1618 (when only in his fifteenth year) he entered Gloucester Hall, now Worcester Col- lege, Oxford. In 1621 he commenced foreign travel. He attended Charles I. (then Prince of Wales) at the Court of Madrid ; and return- ing to England in 1623, was knighted by James I. at Hinchinbroke, the house of Lord Montague, on the 23rd of October in that year. From that period he was before the world as courtier, cook, lover, warrior, alchemist, political intriguer, and man of letters. He became a gentleman of the bedchamber, and commissioner of the navy. In 1628 he obtained a naval command, and made his brilliant expedition against the Venetians and Algerines, whose galleys he routed off Scande- roon. This achievement is celebrated by his client and friend, Ben Jonson : — VENETIA STANLEY. 49 *' Thougli, happy Muse, thou know my Digby well, Yet read him in these lines : he doth excel In honour, courtesy, and all the parts Court can call hero, or man could call his arts. He's prudent, valiant, just, and temperate ; In him all virtue is beheld in state ; And he is built Uke some imperial room For that to dwell in, and be still at home. His breast is a brave palace, a broad street, Where all heroic, ample thoughts do meet : Where nature such a large survey hath ta'en, As other souls, to his, dwelt in a lane : Witness his action done at Scanderoon Upon his birthday, the eleventh of June." Returning from war, he became once more the student, presenting in 1632 the library he had purchased of his friend Allen to the Bodleian Library, and devoting his powers to the mastery of controversial divinity. Having in 1636 entered the Church of Rome, he resided for some time abroad. Amongst his works at, this period were his " Conference with a Lady about the Choice of Religion," published in 1638, and , bis "Letters between Lord George Digby and Sir Kenelm Digby, Knt., concerning Religion," not published till 1651. It is difficult to say to which he was most devoted — his king, his Church, literature, or his beautiful and frail wife, Yenetia Stanley, whose charms fascinated the many admirers on whom she distributed her favours, and gained her Sir Kenelm for a husband when she was the dis- VOL. I. E 50 LAW AND LOVE. carded mistress of Richard, Earl of Dorset. She had borne the Earl children, so his lordship on parting settled on her an annuity of 5001. per annum. On her marriage, this annuity not being punctually paid, Sir Kenelm sued the Earl for it. Well might Mr. Lodge say, '^By the frailties of that lady much of the noblest blood of England was dishonoured, for she was the daughter of Sir Edward Strmley, Knight of the Bath, grandson of the great Edward, Earl of Derby, by Lucy, daughter and co-heir of Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland." Such was her unfair fame. "The fair fame left to Posterity of that Truly Noble Lady, the Lady Venetia Digby, late wife of Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight, a Gentleman Ab- solute in all Numbers," is embalmed in the clear verses of Jonson. Like Helen, she is preserved to us by the sacred poet. " Draw first a cloud, all save her neck, And out of that make day to break ; Till like her face it do appear, And men may think all light rose there." In other and more passionate terms Sir Kenelm painted the same charms in his "Pri- vate Memoirs." But if Sir Kenelm was a chivalric husband, he was not a less loyal subject. How he avenged in France the honour of his King, on the body of a French nobleman, may be learnt in a curious siE kekelme's eternall hoxoue. 51 tract, " Sir Kenelme Digbye's Honour Main- tained. By a most courageous combat which he fought with Lord Mount le Ros, who by base and slanderous words reviled our King. Also the true relation how he went to the King of France, who kindly intreated him, and sent two hundred men to guard him so far as Flanders. And now he is returned from Banishment, and to his eternall honour lives in England." Sir Kenelm's " Observations upon Eeligio Medici," are properly characterized by Coleridge as those of a pedant. They were written whilst he was kept a prisoner, by order of the Parliament, in Winchester House. The author had the ludicrous folly to assert that he both read the '' Religio Me- dici" through for the first time, and wrote his bulky criticism upon it, in less than twenty-four hours. Of all the claims that have been advanced by authors for the reputation of being rapid workmen, this is perhaps the most audacious. For not only was the task one that at least would require a month, but the impudent assertion that it was accomplished in less than a day and night was contradicted by the title-page, in which " the observations " are described as " occasionally written." Beckford's vanity induced him to boast that " Yathek " was composed at one sitting of two days and three nights ; but this statement e2 52 SYMPATHETIC POWDER. — outrageous falsehood though it be — was sober truth compared with Sir Kenelm's brag. But of all Sir Kenelm's vagaries, his Sympa- thetic Powder was the drollest. The composition, revealed after the Knight's death by his chemist and steward, George Hartman, was effected in the following manner : — English vitriol was dis- solved in warm water ; this solution was filtered, and then evaporated till a thin scum appeared on the surface. It was then left undisturbed and closely covered, in a cool place for two or three days, when fair, green, and large crystals were evolved. " Spread these crystals," continues the chymist, " abroad in a large flat earthen dish, and expose them to the heat of the sun in the dog-days, turning them often, and the sun will calcine them white ; when you see them all white without, beat them grossly, and expose them again to the sun, securing them from the rain ; when they are well calcined, powder them finely, and expose this powder again to the sun, turning and stirring it often. Continue this until it be reduced to a white powder, which put up in a glass, and tye it up close, and keep it in a dry- place." The virtues of this powder were unfolded by Sir Kenelm, in a French oration delivered to ^^ a solemn assembly of Nobles and Learned Men at Montpellier in France." It cured wounds in the A DUEL INTERKUPTED. 53 following manner : — If any piece of a wounded person's apparel, having on it the stain of blood that had proceeded from the wound, was dipped in water holding in solution some of this sympa- thetic powder, the wound of the injured person would forthwith commence a healing process. It mattered not how far distant the sufferer was from the scene of operations, or whether he was con- scious of them. Sir Kenelm gravely related the case of his friend Mr. James Howel, the author of the " Dendrologia," translated into French by Mons. Baudoin. Coming accidentally on two of his friends whilst they were fighting a duel with swords, Howel endeavoured to separate them by grasping hold of their weapons. The result of his interference was to show the perils that " Environ The man who meddles with, cold iron," His hands were severely cut, insomuch that some four or five days afterwards, when he caUed on Sir Kenelm, with his wounds plastered and bandaged up, he said his surgeons feared the su- pervention of gangrene. At Sir Kenelm's request, he gave the knight a garter which was stained with his blood. Sir Kenelm took it, and without saying what he was about to do, dipped it in a solution of his powder of vitriol. Instantly the sufferer started. 54 A DISTINGUISHED CONVERT. "What ails you?" cried Sir Kenelm. ," I know not what ails me," was the answer ; " but I find that I feel no more pain. Methinks that a pleasing kind of freshuesse, as it were a cold napkin did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the inflammation that tormented me before." "Since that you feel," rejoined Sir Kenelm, " already so good an effect of my medicament, I advise you to cast away all your playsters. Only keep the wound clean, and in moderate temper 'twixt heat and cold." Mr. Howel went away, sounding the praises of his physician ; and the Duke of Buckingham, hearing what had taken place, hastened to Sir Kenelm's house to talk about it. The Duke and Knight dined together; when, after dinner, the latter, to show his guest the wondrous power of his powder, took the garter out of the solution, and dried it before the fire. Scarcely was it dry, *when Mr. Howel's servant ran in to say that his master's hand was worse than ever — burning hot, as if " it were betwixt coales of fire." The mes- seno:er was dismissed with the assurance that ere he reached home his master would be comfortable again. On the man retiring. Sir Kenelm put the garter back into the solution — the result of which was instant relief to Mr. Howel. In six days the wounds were entirely healed. This remarkable JAMES THE FIRST MAKES EXPERIMENTS. 55 case occurred in London, during the reign of James the First. " King James," says Sir Kenelm, "required a punctual! information of what had passed touching this cure ; and, after it was done and perfected, his Majesty would needs know of me how it was done — ^having drolled with me first (which he could do with a very good grace) about a magician and sorcerer." On the promise of inviolable secrecy. Sir Kenelm com- municated the secret to his Majesty ; " whereupon his Majesty made sundry proofs, whence he re- ceived singular satisfaction." The secret was also communicated by Sir Kenelm to May erne, through whom it was im- parted to the Duke of Mayerne — "a long time his friend and protector." After the Duke's death, his surgeon communicated it to divers people of quality ; so that, ere long, every country- barber was familiar with the discovery. The mention made of Mayerne in the lecture is in- teresting, as it settles a point on which Dr. Aikin had no information, viz. : —whether Sir Theodore's Barony of Albonne was hereditary or acquired ? Sir Kenelm says, " A little while after the Doctor went to France, to see some fair territories that he had purchased near Geneva, which was the Barony of Aubonne." For a time the Sympathetic Powder was very generally believed in; and it doubtless did as 5Q hartman's testimony. much good as harm, by inducing people to throw from their wounds the abominable messes of grease and irritants which were then honoured with the name of plasters. " What is this ? "" asked Abernethy, when about to examine a pa- tient with a pulsating tumour, that was pretty clearly an aneurism. " Oh I that is a plaister," said the family doc- tor. " Pooh ! " said Abernethy, taking it off and pitching it aside. " That was all very well," said the physician, on describing the occurrence ; " but that * pooh * took several guineas out of my pocket." Fashionable as the Sympathetic Powder was for several years, it fell into complete disrepute in this country before the death of Sir Kenelm. Hartman, the Knight's attached servant, could, of his own experience, say nothing more for it than, when dissolved in water, it was a useful astringent lotion in cases of bleeding from the nose ; but he mentions a certain " Mr. Smith, in the city of Augusta, in Germany, who told me that he had a great respect for Sir D. K.'s books, and that he made his sympatheticall powder every year, and did all his chiefest cures with it in green wounds, with much greater ease to the patient than if he had used ointments or plaisters." In 1643 Sir Kenelm Digby was released from THE MATCHLESS DIGBY. 51 the confinement to whicli he had been subjected by the Parliament, at the mstigation of the Queen- Dowager of France. The condition of his liberty was that he forthwith retired to the Continent — having previously pledged his word, as a Christian and a gentleman, in no way to act or plot against the Parliament. In France he became a celebrity of the highest order. Returning to England, with the Restoration, he resided in " the last fair house westward in the north portico of Covent Garden," and became the centre of literary and scientific society. He was appointed a member of the council of the Royal Society, on the incorporation of that learned body in the year 1663. His death occurred in his sixty-second year, on the 11th of June, 1665. His funeral took place in Christ's Church, within Newgate, where, several years be- fore, he had raised a splendid tomb to the memory of the lovely and abandoned Venetia. His epitaph, by the pen of R. Ferrar, is concise, and not too eulogistic for a monumental inscription: — " Under this tomb the matchless Digby lies — ■ Digby the great, the valiant, and the wise ; This age's wonder for his noble parts, Skilled in six tongues, and learned in all the arts. Born on the day he died — the Eleventh of June — And that day bravely fought at Scanderoon. It's rare that one and the same day should be His day of birth, and death, and victory," 58 COOKERY m THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. After his death, with approval of his son, was published (1669), "The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Dlgbie, Kt., Opened : Whereby is discovered Several ways for making of Metheglin, Sider, Cherry- Wine, &c. ; together with excellent Directions for Cookery : as also for Preserving, Conserving, Candying, &c." The fron- tispiece of this work is a portrait of Sir Kenelm, with a shelf over his head, adorned with his five principal works, entitled, " Plants," " Sym. Pow- der," "His Cookery," "Rects. in Physick, &c." '' Sr. K. Dlgby of Bodyes." In Sir Kenelm's receipts for cookery the gas- tronome would find something to amuse him, and more to arouse his horror. Minced pies are made (as they still are amongst the homely of some countries) of meatj raisins, and spices, mixed. Some of the sweet dishes very closely resemble what are still served on English tables. The potages are well enough. But the barley-pud- dings, pear-puddings, and oatmeal-puddings give ill promise to the ear. It is recommended to batter up a couple of eggs and a lot of brown sugar in a cup of tea ; a not less impious profana- tion of the sacred leaves than that committed by the Highlanders, mentioned by Sir Walter Scott, who, ignorant of the proper mode of treating a pound of fragrant Bohea, served it up in — melted- butter ! 59 CHAPTER IV. IR HANS SLOAN E. The lives of three physicians — Sydenham, Sir Hans Sloane, and Heberden — completely bridge over the uncertain period between old empiricism and modern science. The son of a wealthy Dor- setshire squire, Sydenham was born in 1624, and received the most important part of his education in the University of Oxford. He was not admitted a Member of the College of Physicians of London till the 2oth of June, 1663, when he was thirty- nine years of age. Previous to this he had taken an M.D. degree at Cambridge, and studied physic at MontpeUier ; but it may be questioned if his professional success was a consequence of his la- bours in these seats of learning, so much as a re- sult of that knowledoje of the world which he gained in the Civil war as a captain in the Parlia- 60 " KEAD DON QUIXOTE." mentary army. It was he who replied to Sir Richard Blackmore's enquiry after the best course of study for a medical student to pursue — "Read Don Quixote ; it is a very good book — I read it still." Medical critics have felt it incumbent on themselves to explain away this memorable an- swer — attributing it to the doctor's cynical temper rather than his scepticism with regard to medicine. When, however, the state of medical science in the seventeenth century is considered, one has not much difficulty in believing that the shrewd phy- sician meant exactly what he said. There is no question but that as a practitioner he was a man of many doubts. The author of the capital sketch of Sydenham in the '^ Lives of British Physicians." says — "At the commencement of his professional life it is handed down to us by tradition, that it was his ordinary custom, when consulted by his patients for the first time, to hear attentively the story of their complaints, and then say, " Well, I will consider of your case, and in a few days will order something for you." But he soon discovered that this deliberate method of proceeding was not satisfactory, and that many of the persons so received forgot to come again ; and he was consequently obliged to adopt the usual practice of prescribing immediately for the diseases of those who sought his advice." A doc- tor who feels the need for such deliberation must " PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS." 61 labour under considerable perplexity as to the pro- per treatment of his patient. But the low opinion he expressed to Blackmore of books as instructors in medicine, he gave publicly with greater deco- rum, but almost as forcibly, in a dedication ad- dressed to Dr. Mapletoft, where he says, " The medical art could not be learned so well and so surely as by use and experience ; and that he who w^ould pay the nicest and most accurate atten- tion to the symptoms of distempers would succeed best in finding out the true means of cure." Sydenham died in his house, in Pall Mall, on the 29th of December, 1689. In his last years he was a martyr to gout, a malady fast becoming one of the good things of the past. Dr. Forbes Wins- low, in his scholarly " Physic and Physicians " — a work that the present wi'iter is indebted to for several anecdotes of the Faculty — gives a picture, at the same time painful and laughable, of the doc- tor's sufferings. ''Sydenham died of the gout ; and in the latter part of his life is described as visited with that dreadful disorder, and sitting near an open window, on the ground floor of his house, in St. James's Square, respiring the cool breeze on a summer's evening, and reflecting, with a serene countenance and great complacency, on the alle- viation to human misery that his skill in his art enabled him to give. Whilst this divine man was enjoying one of these delicious reveries, a thief 62 SIR HANS SLOANE took away from the table, near to which he was sitting, a silver tankard filled with his favourite beverage, small beer, in which a sprig of rosemary had been immersed, and ran off with it. Syden- ham was too lame to ring his bell, and too feeble in his voice to give the alarm." Heberden, the medical friend of Samuel John- son, was born in London in 1710, and died on the 17th of May, 1801. Between Sydenham and Heberden came Sir Hans Sloane, a man ever to be mentioned honourably amongst physicians who have contributed to the advancement of science, and the amelioration of society. Pope says : — " 'Tis strange the miser should his cares employ, To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy ; Is it less strange the prodigal should waste His wealth, to purchase what he ne'er can taste ? Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats. Artists must chuse his pictures, music, meats •, He buys for Topham drawings and designs. For Pembroke statues, dirty gods, and coins ; Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone, And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane." Pofe's Moral Essays, Epistle IV. Hans Sloane (the seventh and youngest child of Alexander Sloane, receiver-general of taxes for the county of Down, before and after the Civil war, and a commissioner of array, after the restor- ation of Charles II.) was born at Killeleagh in VISITS THE WEST INDIES. 63 1660. An Irishman by birth, and a Scotchman by descent, he exhibited in no ordinary degree the energy and politeness of either of the sister countries. After a childhood of extreme delicacy, he came to England, and devoted himself to medical study and scientific investigation. After passing through a course of careful labour in London, he visited Paris and Montpellier, and, returning from the Continent, became the inti- mate friend of Sydenham. On the 21st of January, 1685, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society ; and on the 12th of April, 1687, he became a Fellow of the College of Physicians. In the September of the latter year he sailed to the West Indies, in the character of physician to the Duke of Albemarle, who had been ap- pointed Governor of Jamaica. His residence in that quarter of the globe was not of long duration. On the death of his Grace the doctor attended the Duchess back to England, arriving once more in London, in the July of 1689. From that time he remained in the capital — his professional career, his social position, and his scientific reputation being alike brilliant. From 1694 to 1 730, he was a physician of Christ's Hospital. On the 30th of November, 1693, he was elected Secretary of the Royal Society. In 1701 he was made an M.D. of Oxford; and in 1705 he was elected into the fellowship of the 64 THE FIRST MEDICAL BARONET. College of Physicians of Edinburgh. In 1708 he was chosen a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris. Four years later he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Berlin. In 1719 he became President of the College of Physicians; and in 1727 he was created Pre- sident of the Royal Society (on the death of Sir Isaac Newton), and was appointed physician to King George II. In addition to these honours, he won the distinction of being the first medical practitioner advanced to the dignity of a ba- ronetcy. In 1742, Sir Hans Sloane quitted his profes- sional residence at Bloomsbury ; and in the so- ciety of his library, museum, and a select number of scientific friends, spent the last years of his life at Chelsea, the manor of which parish he had purchased in 1722. In the Gentleman s Magazine for 1748, there is a long but interesting account of a visit paid by the Prince and Princess of Wales to the Baronet's museum. Sir Hans received his royal guests, and entertained them with a banquet of curiosities, the tables being cleverly shifted, so that a succession of "courses," under glass cases, gave the charm of variety to the labours of observation. In his old age Sir Hans became sadly penu- rious, grudging even the ordinary expenses of PARSIMONIOUS LIBERALITY. 65 hospitality. His intimate friend, George Ed- wards, F.R.S., gives, in his "Gleanings of Natural History," some particulars of the old Baronet, which present a stronger picture of his parsimony than can be found in the pages of his avowed detractors. " Sir Hans, in the decline of his life, left London and retired to his manor-house, at Chelsea, where he resided about fourteen years before he died. After his retirement at Chelsea, he requested it as a favour to him (though I embraced it as an honour due to myself), that I would visit him every week, in order to divert him for an hour or two with the common news of the town, and with everything particular that should happen amongst his acquaintance of the Royal Society, and other ingenious gentlemen, many of whom I was weekly conversant with; and I seldom missed drinking coffee with him on a Saturday, during the whole time of his retirement at Chelsea. He was so infirm as to be wholly confined to his house, except sometimes, though rarely, taking a little air in his garden in a wheeled chair ; and this confinement made him very desirous to see any of his old acquaintance, to amuse him. He was strictly careful that I should be at no ex- pense in my journeys from London to Chelsea to wait on him, knowing that I did not superabound in the gifts of fortune. He would calculate what VOL. 1, F 66 THE FOUNDER OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. the expense of coach-hire, waterage, or any other little charge that might attend on my journeys backward and forward would amount to, and would oblige me annually to accept of it, though I would willingly have declined it." Such generosity speaks of a parsimonious tem- per and habit more forcibly than positive acts of stinginess would. On the death of Sir Hans Sloane, on the 11th .of January, 1753, his museum and library passed into the hands of the nation for a comparatively small sum of money, and became the nucleus of our British Museum. The Eoyal Society of Sir Hans Sloane's time differed widely from the Royal Society of the pre- sent day. The reader of Mr, Charles Weld's history of that distinguished fraternity smiles a painful smile at the feeble steps of its first mem- bers in the direction of natural science. The efficacy of the divining rod, and the merits of Sir Kenelm Digby's sympathetic powder, were the subjects that occupied the attention of the philosophers of Charles H.'s reign. Entries such as the following are the records of their pro- ceedings : — ''June 5. — Col. Tuke related the manner of the rain like corn at Norwich, and Mr. Boyle and Mr. Evelyn were intreated to sow some of those rained seeds to try their product. THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 67 "Magneticall cures were then discoursed of. Sir Gilbert Talbot promised to bring what he knew of sympatheticall cures. Those that had any powder of sympathy were desired to bring some of it at the next meeting. " Mr. Boyle related of a gentleman, who, having made some experiments of the ayre, essayed the quicksilver experiment at the top and bottom of a hill, when there was found three inches dif- ference. ^^ Dr. Charleton promised to bring in that white powder, which, put into water, heates it. " The Duke of Buckingham promised to cause charcoal to be distilled by his chymist. " His Grace promised to bring into the society a piece of a unicorne's home. " Sir Kenelme Digby related that the calcined powder of toades reverberated, applyed in bagges upon the stomach of a pestiferate body, cures it by severall applications." '^ June 13. — Colonel Tuke brought in the his- tory of rained seedes which were reported to have fallen downe from heaven in Warwickshire and Shropshire, &c. " That the dy ving engine be going forward with all speed, and the treasurer to procure the lead and moneys. " Ordered, that Friday next the engine be tried at Deptford." f2 68 HUMPHRY DAVY. ''June 26.— Dr. Ent, Dr. Clarke, Dr. God- dard, and Dr. Whistler, were appointed curators of the proposition made by Sir G. Talbot, to tor- ment a man presently with the sympatheticall powder. " Sir G. Talbot brought in his experiments of the sympatetick cures." It is true that these passages relate to transac- tions of the Royal Society that occurred long before Sir Hans was one of the body. But even in his time the advances made towards greater enlightenment were few and feeble, when com- pared with the strides of science during the last century. So simple and childish were the opera- tions and speculations of the Society in the first half of the eighteenth century, that a brainless knave lite Sir John Hill was able to cover them with ridicule. Sir Hans had two medical successors in the presidentship of the Royal Society — Sir John Pringle, Bart., elected Nov. 30, 1772, and Wil- liam Hyde WoUaston, M.D., elected June 29, 1820. The last-mentioned physician had but a brief tenure of the dignity, for he retired from the exalted post on Nov. 30, 1820, in favour of Humphry Davy, Bart. Humphry Davy, (the son of the Penzance wood- carver, who was known to his acquaintances as " Little Carver Davy/') was the most acute natural A poet's epitaph. 69 philosopher of his generation, and at the same time about the vainest and most eccentric of his countrymen. With all his mental energy, he was disfigured by a moral pettiness, which, to a cer- tain extent, justified Wordsworth's unaccustomed bitterness in *' A Poet's Epitaph *" : — " Physician art thou? one all eyes ; Philosopher ? a fingering slave, One that would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave ! " Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece, O turn aside — and take, I pray, That he below may rest in peace, Thy ever-dwindling soul away." At the summit of his success, Davy was mor- bidly sensitive of the humility of his extraction. That his father had been a respectable mechanic — that his mother, on her husband's death, had established herself as a milliner in Penzance, in order to apprentice her son to an apothecary in that town — that by his own intellects in the hard battle of life he had raised himself from obscure poverty to a brilliant eminence — were to him facts of shame, instead of pride. In contradiction to this moral cowardice, there was in him, on some points, an extravagant eccentricity, which, in most men, would have pointed to imperviousness to ridicule. The demands of society, and the labours of his laboratory, of course left him with 70 A BUSY MAN. but little leisure. He, however, affected not to have time enough for the ordinary decencies of the toilet. Cold ablutions neither his constitu- tion nor his philosophic temperament required, 80 he rarely vrashed himself. And, on the plea of saving time, he used to put on his clean linen over his dirty — so that he has been known to wear at the same time five shirts and five 23airs of stockings. On the rare occasions when he di- vested himself of his superfluous integuments, he caused infinite perplexity to his less intimate friends, who could not account for his rapid transition from corpulence to tenuity. The ludicrousness of his costume did not end there. Like many other men of powerful and excitable minds, he w^as very fond of the tranquil and rather weak amusement of angling ; and on the banks of the Thames he might be found, at all unsuitable seasons, in a costume that must have been a source of no common merriment to the river nymphs. His coat and breeches were of green cloth. On his head he wore a hat that Dr. Paris describes as "having been originally intended for a coal-heaver, but as having, when in its raw state, been dyed green by some sort of pigment." In this attire Davy flattered himself that he resembled vegetable life as closely as it was possible for mortal to do. But if his angling dress was droll, his shooting A philosopher's shooting-dress. 71 costume was more so. His great fear as an angler was that the fish should escape him ; his greatest anxiety as a bearer of a gun was to escape being shot. In the one character, concealment was his chief object — in the other, revelation. So that he might be seen from a distance, and run fewer chances of being fired into by accident, he was accustomed, on shooting excursions, to crown himself with a broad-brimmed hat, covered with scarlet. It never struck him that, in our Protestant England, he incurred imminent peril of being mistaken for a cardinal, and knocked over accordingly. Naturally, Davy was of a poetical temperament ; and some of his boyish poetry possesses merit that unquestionably justifies the anticipation formed by his poet-friend of the flights his more mature muse would take. But when his intellect became absorbed in the pursuits by which he rendered inestimable service to his species, he never renewed the bright imaginings of his day-spring. On passing (in 1809) through the galleries of the Louvre, he could find nothing more worthy of admiration than the fine frames of the pictures. " What an extraordinary collection of fine frames!" he observed to the gentleman who acted as his guide, amidst the treasures art gathered from every part of the Continent. His attention was directed to the ^'Transfiguration;" when, on its 72 ART CRITICISMS. being suggested to him that lie was looking at a rather well-executed picture, he said, coldly, *' Indeed ! I am glad I have seen it." In the same way, the statues were to him simply blocks of material. In the Apollo Belvidere, the Laocoon, and the Venus de Medicis, he saw no beauty ; but when his eyes rested on the Antinous, treated in the Egyptian style, and sculptured in alabaster, he made an exclamation of delight, and cried, " Gracious powers, what a beautiful stalactite ! " More amusing than even these criticisms, is a story told of Lady Davy, who accompanied her husband to Paris. She was walking in the Tuil- eries garden, wearing the fashionable London bonnet of the day — shaped like a cockle-shell. The Parisians, who just then were patronizing bonnets of enormous dimensions, were astounded at the apparition of a head-dress so opposed to their notions of the everlasting fitness of things ; and, with the good-breeding, for which they are, and have long been proverbial, they surrounded the daring stransrer, and stared at her. This was sufficiently unpleasant to a timid English lady. But her discomfort had only commenced. Ere another minute or two had elapsed, one of the inspectors of the garden approached, and telling her ladyship that no cause of rassemblement could be permitted in that locality, requested her to retire. Alarmed, and indignant, she appealed A GUARD OF HOxN^OUR. 73 to some officers of the Imperial Guard, but they could afford her no assistance. One of them politely offered her his arm, and proposed to con- duct her to a carriage. But by the time she had decided to profit by the courtesy, such a crowd had gathered together, that it was found necessary to send for a guard of infantry, and remove la belle Anglaise, surrounded with bayonets. 74 CHAPTER V. THE APOTHECARIES AND SIR SAMUEL GARTH. Baldwin Hamey, whose manuscript memoirs of eminent physicians are amongst the treasures of the College, praises Winston because he treated his apothecary as a master might his slave. " Heriliter imperavit," says the Doctor. The learned Thomas Winston, anatomy lecturer at Gresham College, lived to the age of eighty years, and died on the 24th of October, 1655. He knew, therefore, apothecaries in the day of their humility — before prosperity had encouraged them to compete with their professional superiors. The apothecaries of the Elizabethan era com- pounded their medicines much as medicines are compounded at the present — as far as manipu- lation and measuring are concerned. Prescriptions have altered, but shop-customs have undergone THE ELIZABETHAN APOTICARYE. i 5 only a very slight change. The apothecaries' table of weights and measures, still in use, was the rule in the sixteenth century, and the symbols (for a pound, an ounce, a drachm, a scruple, a grain, &c.) remain at this day just what they were three hundred years ago. Our good friend, William Bulleyn, gave the following excellent rules for an apothecary's life and conduct : — " THE APOTICARYE. " 1. — Must fyrst serve God, forsee the end, be clenly, pity the poore. ^' 2. — Must not be suborned for money to hurt mankynde. ^' 3. — His place of dwelling and shop to be clenly to please the sences withal. " 4. — His garden must be at hand with plenty of herbes, seedes and rootes. " 5. — To sow, set, plant, gather, preserve and kepe them in due tyme. '' 6. — To read Dioscorides, to know ye natures of plants and herbes. " 7.^-To invent medicines to chose by coloure, tast, odour, figure, &c. " 8. — To have his morters, stilles, pottes, filters, glasses, boxes, cleane and sweete. " 9. — To have charcoles at hand, to make de- coctions, syrupes, &c. 76 GOLDEN RULES. " 10. — To kepe his cleane ware closse, and cast away the baggage. " 11. — To have two places in his shop — one most cleane for the phisik, and a baser place for the chirurgie stuff. " 12. — That he neither increase nor diminish the phisicion's bill (i. e. prescription), and kepe it for his own discharge. " 13. — That he neither buy nor sel rotten drugges. " 14. — That he peruse often his wares, that they corrupt not. " 15. — That he put not in quid pro quo (i.e., use one ingredient in the place of another when dis- pensing a physician! s prescription) without advyse- ment. " 16. — That he may open wel a vein for to helpe pleuresy. " 17. — That he meddle only in his vocation. " 18. — That he delyte to reede Nicolaus My- repsus, Valerius Cordus, Johannes Placaton, the Lubik, &c. " 19. — That he do remember his office is only to be ye phicisian's cooke. " 20. — That he use true measure and waight. "21. — To remember his end, and the judge- ment of God : and thus I do comend him to God, if he be not covetous, or crafty, seeking his own lucre before other men's help, succour, and comfort." APOTHECARIES AND GROCERS. 77 The apothecaries to whom these excellent direc- tions were given were only tradesmen — grocers who paid attention to the commands of phytiicians. They were not required to have any knowledge of the medical science, beyond what might be ob- tained by the perusal of two or three writers ; they were not to presume to administer drugs on their own judgment and responsibility — or to perform any surgical operation, except phlebotomy, and that only for one malady. The custom was for the doctors to sell their most valuable remedies as nostrums, keeping their composition a secret to themselves, and themselves taking the price paid for them by the sick. The commoner drugs were vended to patients by the drug-merchants (who invariably dealt in groceries for culinary use, as well as in medicinal simples), acting under the directions of the learned graduates of the Faculty. In the fourth year of James I. a charter was obtained, that ^' Willed, ordained, and granted, that all and singular the Freemen of the Mys- tery of Grocers and Apothecaries of the City of London .... should and might be . . . one body corporate and politique, in deed, fact, and name, by the name of Warden and Commo- nalty of the Mystery of Grocers of the city of London." But in the thirteenth year of the same king, the apothecaries and grocers were disunited. At the advice of Theodore de 78 GIDEON DE LAUNE. Mayerne and Henry Atkins, doctors in pliysick, another charter was granted, constituting drug- venders a distinct company. Amongst the apothecaries mentioned in this charter are the names of some of the most respectable families of the country. Gideon de Laune, one of this first batch of apothecaries, amassed a very large fortune in his vocation, and founded a family at Sharsted, in Kent, from which several persons of distinction draw part of their origin ; and not a few of De Laune's brethren were equally lucky. At their first foundation as a company the apothecaries were put completely imder the control of the College of Physicians, who were en- dowed with dangerous powers of inspecting their wares and punishing their malpractices. But before a generation had passed away, the apothe- caries had gained such a firm footing in society, that the more prosperous of them could afford to laugh at the censures of the College ; and before the close of a century, they were fawned upon by young physicians, and were in a position to quarrel with the old. The doctors of that day knew so little that the apothecaries found it easy to know as much. A knowledge of the herbals, an acquaintance with the ingredients and doses of a hundred empirical compounds and systems of maltreating eruptive fevers, gout, and consumption, con- THE COMMEXCEMEXT OF A QUARKEL. 79 stltuted all the medical learaing of such men as Majerne or Gibbons. To pick up that amount of information was no hard task for an ambitious apothecary. Soon the leading apothecaries began to pre- scribe on their own responsibility, without the countenance of a member of the College. If they were threatened with censure or other punish- ment by a regular physician, they retorted by discontinuing to call him in to consultations. Jealousies soon sprang up. Starving graduates, with the diplomas of Oxford and Cambridge, and the certificates of the College in their pockets, were embittered by having to trudge the pave- ments of London, and see the mean medicine- mixers (who had scarce scholarship enough to construe a Latin bill) dashing by in their carrlaofes. Ere lono^ the heartbumino^s broke out in a paper warfare, as rancorous and disreputable as any squabble embalmed in literature. The scholars called the rich tradesmen thieves, swindlers, and unlettered blockheads. The rich tradesmen taunted the scholars vrith discontent, falsehood, and ignorance of everything except Latin and Greek. Pope took the side of the physicians. Like Johnson, Parr, and all men of enlightenment and sound scholarship, he had a high opinion of the Faculty. It is indeed told of him, on questionable 80 MEAD AND CHESELDEN. authority, tliat on his deathbed, when he heard the bickerings of Dr. Burton and Dr. Thompson, each accusing the other of maltreating his patient, he levelled with his last breath an epigram at the two rivals — '' Dunces rejoice, forgive all censures past — The greatest dunce has killed your foe at last." To Dr. Arbuthnot he wrote — " Friend to my life, which did not you prolong, The world had wanted many an idle song." His feeble health, making his life a long disease, never allowed him vigour and confidence enough to display ingratitude to the Faculty, and illustrate the truth of the lines — " God and the doctor we alike adore, But only when in danger, not before ; The danger o'er, both are ahke requited, God is forgotten, and the doctor slighted." His habitual tone, when speaking of the medical profession, was that of warm admiration and affection. In the " Imitations of Horace " he says — '* Weak though I am of Hmb, and short of sight, Far from a lynx, and not a giant quite, I'll do what Mead and Cheselden advise. To keep these limbs, and to preserve these eyes." It is true that he elsewhere ridicules Mead's POPE AND THE PHYSICIANS. 81 fondness for rare books and Sloane's passion for butterflies ; but at the close of his days he wrote in a confidential letter to a friend of the Faculty, ^* They are in general the most amiable com- panions and the best friends, as well as the most learned men I know." In the protracted dissensions between the phy- sicians and the apothecaries Pope w^as a cordial supporter of the former. When he accused, in the "Essay on Criticism," the penny-a-lining critics of acquiring their slender knowledge of the poetic art from the poets they assailed, he compared them to apothecaries whose scientific information was pilfered from the prescriptions they were re- quired to dispense. " Then Criticism the Muse's handmaid prov'd, To dress her charms and make her more belov'd : But following wits from that intention stray'd, "Who could not win the mistress, woo'd the maid ; Against the poets their own arms they turn'd, Sure to hate most the men from whom they learn'd. So modern Tothecaries, taught the art By Doctors' bills to play the Doctor's part, Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools." The origin of the memorable Dispensarian Campaign between the College of Physicians and the Company of Apothecaries is a story that can be briefly told. The younger physicians, impatient at VOL. I. G 82 DISPENSAEIANS. beholding the increasing prosperity and influence of the apothecaries, and the older ones indignant at seeing a class of men they had despised creep- ing into their quarters and craftily laying hold of a portion of their monopoly, concocted a scheme to re-instate themselves in public favour. With- out a doubt many of the physicians who counte- nanced this scheme gave it their support from purely charitable motives ; but it cannot be ques- tioned that as a body the dispensarians were ac- tuated in their humanitarian exertions by a desire to lower the apothecaries, and raise themselves in the eyes of the world. With all its genuine and sterling benevolence, the medical profession, by the unworthy and silly conduct of its obscure members, has repeatedly laid itself open to the charge of trading on its reputation for humanity. In Smollett's time, as his novels show, the recognized mode employed by unknown doctors to puiF them- selves into notoriety and practice, was to get up little hospitals and infirmaries, and advertise to the charitable for aid in the good task of ameliorating the condition of the poor. And half the peddling little charitable institutions, infirmaries, dispen- saries, or hospitals, that at the present time rob the rich and do harm to the poor in every quarter of London, originated in " the friends " of young physicians and surgeons conspiring together to get them " the position of being attached to an SIR ASTLEY COOPER's EXPERIENCE. 83 hospital staff." In 1687, the physicians, at a college-meeting, voted " that all members of the College, whether Fellows, Candidates, or Licen- tiates, should give their advice gratis to all their sick neighbouring poor, when desired, within the city of London, or seven miles round." To give prescriptions to the very poor, unac- companied with the means of getting them dis- pensed, is of little use. Sir Astley Cooper used to see in the vicinity of his residence the slips of paper, marked with his pen, which it was his wont to distribute gratuitously to indigent applicants. The fact was, the poor people, finding it beyond their means to pay the druggist for dispens- ing them, threw them away in disgust. It was just the same in 1687. The poor folk carried their prescriptions to the apothecaries, to learn that the trade charge for dispensing them was beyond their means. The physicians asserted that the demands of the drug-venders were extortionate, and were not reduced to meet the finances of the applicants, to the end that the undertakings of benevolence might prove abortive. This was of course absurd. The apothecaries knew their own interests better than so to oppose a system which at least rendered drug-consuming fashionable with the lower orders. Perhaps they regarded the poor as their peculiar property as a field of prac- tice, and felt insulted at having the same humble G 2 84 THE WAKWICK LANE DISPENSARY. people — for whom they had pompously prescribed and put up boluses at two pence a piece — now entering their shops with papers dictating what the two-penny bolus was to be composed of. But the charge preferred against them was groundless. Indeed, a numerous body of the apothecaries ex- pressly offered to sell medicines "to the poor within their respective parishes, at such rates as the committee of physicians should think reason- able." But tliis would not suit the game of the physi- cians. " A proposal was started by a committee of the College, that the College should furnish the medicines of the poor, and perfect alone that charity which the apothecaries refused to concur in ; and after divers methods ineffectually tried, and much time wasted in endeavouring to bring the Apothecaries to terms of reason in relation to the poor, an instrument was subscribed by divers charitably disposed members of the College, now in number about fifty, wherein they obliged them- selves to pay ten pounds apiece towards the pre- paring and delivering medicines at their intrinsic value." Such was the version of the affair given by the College apologists. The plan was acted upon ; and a dispensary was eventually established (some nine years after the vote of 1687) in the ColleiT^e of Physicians, Warwick-Lane, where medicines were vended to the poor at cost price. THE PROFESSION DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF. 85 This measure of the College was impolitic and unjustifiable. It was unjust to that important division of the trade who were ready to vend the medicines at rates to be fixed by the College au- thorities — for it took altogether out of their hands the small amount of profit which they, as dealers, could have realized on those terms. It was also an eminently unwise course. The College sank to the level of the Apothecaries' Hall, becoming an em- porium for the sale of medicines. It was all very well to say that no profit was made on such sale — the censorious world would not believe it. The apothe- caries and their friends denied that such was the fact, and avowed that the benevolent dispensa- rians were bent only on underselling and ruining them. A2:ain, the movement introduced dissension within the walls of the College. Many of the first physicians, with the conservatism of success, did not care to oiFend the apothecaries, who were continually calling them in, and paying them fees. They therefore joined in the cry against the dispensary. The profession was split up into di^pensarians and anti-dispensarians. The apo- thecaries combined and agreed not to recom- mend the dispensarians. The anti-dispensa- rians repaid this ill service by refusing to meet dispensarians in consultation. Sir Thomas Millington, the president of the College, Edward 86 SIR SAMUEL GARTH. Hulse, Hans Sloane, John Woodward, Sir Ed- mund King, and Samuel Garth were amongst the latter. Of them the last-named was the man who rendered the most efficient service to his party. Garth is perhaps the most cherished by the present generation of all the physicians of Pope's time. He was a Whig without rancour, and a hon- vivard without selfishness. Full of jest and amia- bility, he did more to create merriment at the Kit'Kat club than either Swift or Arbuthnot. He loved wine to excess ; but then wine loved him too, ripening and warming his wit, and leaving no sluggish humour behind. His practice was a good one, but his numerous patients prized his bon-mots more than his prescriptions. His enemies averred that he was not only an epicure, but a profligate voluptuary and an infidel. Pope, how- ever, wrote of him after his death, " If ever there was a good Christian, without knowing himself to be so, it was Dr. Garth." Pope had honoured him when alive by dedicating his second pastoral to him. " Accept, O Garth, the muse's early lays, That adds this wreath of ivy to thy bays ; Hear what from love unpractised hearts endure. From love, the sole disease thou canst not cure." A good picture of Garth the politician is found in the "Journal to Stella." "London, Nov. 17, GARTH AND BLACKMORE. 87 1711," writes Swift — "This is Queen Elizabeth's birthday, usually kept in this town by apprentices, &c.; but the Whigs designed a mighty procession by midnight, and had laid out a thousand pounds to dress up the pope, devil, cardinals, Sacheveral, &c.y and carry them with torches about and burn them. They did it by contribution. Garth gave five guineas ; Dr. Garth I mean, if ever you heard of him. But they were seized last night by order from the Secretary. . . . The figures are now at the Secretary's Office at Whitehall. I design to see them if I can." A Whig, but the friend of Tories, Garth cordially disliked Sir Richard Blackmore, a member of his own profession and political party. Blackmore was an anti-dispensarian, a bad poet, and a pure and rigid moralist. Naturally Garth abominated him, and sneered at him for his pomposity and bad scholarship. It is to be regretted that Garth, with the vulgarity of the age, twitted him with his early poverty, and with having been — a school- master. To ridicule his enemy Garth composed the following verses ; — " TO THE MERRY POETASTER, AT SADLER's HALL, IN CHEAPSIDE. Unwieldy pedant, let thy awkward muse With censures praise, with flatteries abuse ; To lash, and not be felt, in thee's an art. Than ne'er mad'st any but thy school-boys smart. 88 RABELAIS' DEATH. Then be advised and scribble not again — Tbou'rt fashioned for a flail and not a pen. If B I's immortal wit thou wouldst decry, Pretend 'tis he that wrote thy poetry. Thy feeble satire ne'er can do him wrong — Thy poems and thy patients live not long." Garth's death, as described by William Ayre, was characteristic. He was soon tired of an inva- lid's sufferings and helplessness, the ennui and boredom of the sick room afflicting him more than the bodily pain. " Gentlemen," said he to the crowd of weeping friends who stood round his bed, " I wish the ceremony of death was over." And so, sinking lower in the bed, he died with- out a struggle. He had previously, on being informed that his end was approaching, ex- pressed pL-asure at the intelligence, because he was tired of having his shoes pulled off and on. The manner of Garth's exit reminds one of the death of Rabelais, also a physician. The presence of officious friends troubled him ; and when he saw his doctors consulting together, he raised his head from his pillow and said with a smile, " Dear gentlemen, let me die a natural death." After he had received extreme unction, a friend approached him, and asked him how he did ? '' I am going on my journey," was the answer — " they have greased my boots already." Garth has, apart from his literary productions, one great claim on posterity, — to hina Dry den THE IRISHMAN IN THE COFFEE-HOUSE. 89 owed honourable interment. When the great poet died, Garth caused his body to be con- veyed to the College of Physicians, and started a public subscription to defray the expenses of the funeral. He pronounced an oration over the deceased, at the College in Warwick Lane, and then accompanied it to Westminster Abbey. Of the stories preserved of Garth's social humour some are exquisitely droll. Writing a letter at a coffee-house, he found himself overlooked by a curious Irishman, who was impudently reading every word of the epistle. Garth took no notice of the impertinence, until he had finished and signed the body of the letter, when he added a postscript, of unquestionable legibility : '^ I would vrrite you more by this post, but there's a d tall impudent Irishman looking over my shoulder all the time." " What do you mean, sir ? " roared the Irish- man in a fury. "Do you think I looked over your letter?" " Sir," replied the physician, " I never once opened my lips to you." " Ay, but you have put it down, for all that." " 'Tis impossible, sir, that you should know that, for you have never once looked over my letter." Stumbling into a Presbyterian church one Sun- day, for pastime, he found a pathetic preacher shedding tears over the iniquity of the earth. 90 MOVED TO TEARS. " What makes the man greet ? " asked Garth of a bystander. " By my faith," was the answer, " and you too would greet if you were in this place, and had as little to say." " Come along, my dear fellow," responded Garth to his new acquaintance, "and dine with me. You are too good a fellow to be here." At the Kit-kat he once stayed to drink long after he had said that he must be off to see his patients. Sir Richard, more humane than the physician, or possibly, like the rest of the world, not disinclined to be virtuous at another's expense, observed, ^' Really, Garth, you ought to have no more wine, but be off to see those poor devils." "It's no great matter," Garth replied, "whether I see them to-night or not, for nine of them have such bad constitutions, that all the physicians in the world can't save them ; and the other six have such good constitutions, that all the physicians in the world can't kill them." Born of a respectable north-country family, Garth was educated first at a provincial school, and then at Cambridge. He was admitted a Fel- low of the College of Physicians on June 26, 1692, just when the quarrel of the Physicians and Apothe- caries was waxing to itshottest,^.e., between the Col- lege edict of 1687, ordaining gratuitous advice, and the creation of the dispensary in 1696. As a garth's poem. 91 young man he saw that his right place was with the dispensarians — and he took it. For a time his great poem, " The Dispensary," covered the apothecaries and anti-dispensarians with ridi- cule. It rapidly passed through numerous edi- tions — in each of which, as was elegantly observed, the world lost and gained much. To say that of all the books, pamphlets, and broad-sheets thrown out by the combatants on both sides, it is by far the one of the greatest merit, would be scant justice, when it might almost be said that it is the only one of them that can now be read by a gentleman without a sense of annoyance and disgust. There is no point of view from which the medical profession appears in a more humiliating and contemptible light than that which the literature of this memorable squabble presents to the student. Charges of ig- norance, dishonesty, and extortion were preferred on both sides ; and the dispensarian physicians did not hesitate to taunt their brethren of the op- posite camp with playing corruptly into the hands of the apothecaries — prescribing enormous and unnecessary quantities of medicine, so that the drug-venders might make heavy bills, and, as a consequence, recommend in all directions such complacent superiors to be called in. Garth's poem, unfair and violent though it is, nowhere of- fends against decency. As a work of art it can- not be ranked high, and is now deservedly forgot- 92 EOSE THE APOTHECARY. ten, although it has many good lines and some felicitous satire. Johnson rightly pointed to the secret of its success, though he took a one-sided and unjust view of the dissensions which called it forth. *' The poem," observes the biographer, "as its subject was present and popular, co-opera- ted with passions and prejudices then prevalent ; and, with such auxiliaries to its intrinsic merit, was universally and liberally applauded. It was on the side of charity against the intrigues of in- terest, and of regular learning against licentious usurpation of medical authority." Sir Samuel Garth (knighted by the sword of Marlborough) died January 18, 1718-19, and was buried at Harrow-on-the-Hill. But he lived to see the apothecaries gradually emancipate themselves from the ignominious regu- lations to which they consented, when their voca- tion was first separated from the grocery trade. Four years after his death they obtained legal ac- knowledgment of their right to dispense and sell medicines without the prescription of a physician; and six years later the law again decided in their favour with regard to the physicians' right of ex- amining and condemning their drugs. In 1721, Mr. Rose, an apothecary, on being prosecuted by the College for prescribing as well as compounding medicines, carried the matter into the House of Lords, and obtained a favourable decision. And '' ESSAY ON AN APOTHECARY." 93 from 1727, in which year Mr. Goodwin, an apothe- cary, obtained in a court of law a considerable sum for an illegal seizure of his wares (by Drs. Ar- buthnot, Bale, and Levit) the physicians maybe said to have discontinued to exercise their privileges of inspection. Arbuthnot did not exceed Garth in love to the apothecaries. His contempt for, and dislike of, the fraternity, inspired him to write his '"' Essay on an Apothecary." He thinks it a pity that, to prevent the country from being overrun with apothecaries, it should not be allowed to ana- tomize them, for the improvement of natural knowledge. He ridicules them for pedantically " dressinoj all their discourse in the lanajuao^e of Faculty." " At meals," he says, " they distributed their wine with a little lymph, dissected a widgeon, cohobated their pease-porridge, and amalgamated a custard. A morsel of beef was a bolus; a grillard was scarified ; eating was mastication and deglutition ; a dish of steaks was a compound of many powerful ingredients ; and a plate of soup was a very exalted preparation. In dress, a suit of cloaths was a system, a loophole a valve, and a surtout an integument. Cloth was a texture of fibres spread into a drab or kersey ; a small rent in it was cutaneous ; a thread was a filament ; and the waistband of the breeches the peritoneum." 94 TYROCINIDM MEDICUM. The superior branch of the Faculty invited in many ways the same satire. Indeed, pedantry was the prevalent fault of the manners of the eighteenth century. The physician, the divine, the lawyer, the parliament-man, the country gentleman, the author by profession — all had peculiarities of style, costume, speech, or intonation, by which they were well pleased that they should be recognized. In one respect this was well ; men were proud of being what they were, and desired to be known as belonging to their respective vocations. They had no anxiety to be free from trade-marks. The barrister's smirk, the physician's unctuous smiles, the pedagogue's frown, did not originate in a mean desire to be taken for somethino- of his/her mark and esteem than they really were. From the time when Bulleyn called him the physician's cook, down to the present generation, the pure apothecary is found holding a very sub- ordinate position. His business is to do unplea- sant drudgery that a gentleman finds it unpleasant to perform, but which cannot be left to the hands of a nurse. The questions to be considered pre- vious to becoming apprentice to an apothecary, put in Chamberlaine's "Tyrocinium Medicum," well describe the state of the apothecary's pupil. " Can you bear the thoughts of being obliged to get up out of your warm bed, in a cold winter's night, or rather morning, to make up medicines PRIOR TO 1788. 95 which your employer, just arrived through frost and snow, prescribes for a patient taken suddenly or dangerously ill ? — or, supposing that your master is not yet in sufficient business to keep a boy to take out medicines, can you make up your mind to think it no hardship to take them to the patient after you have made them up ?" &c. &c. When such services were expected from pupils studying for admittance to the craft, of course boys with ample means, or prospects elsewhere, did not as a rule desire to become apothecaries. Within the last fifty years a change has been effected in various departments of the medical profession, that has rendered the apothecary a feature of the past, and transferred his old functions to a new labourer. Prior to 1788, it is stated on authority there were not in all London more than half-a-dozen druggists who dispensed medicines from physicians' prescriptions. Before that time, the apothecaries — the members of the Apothecaries' Company — were almost the sole com- pounders and preparers of drugs. At the present time it is exceptional for an apothecary to put up prescriptions, unless he is acting as the family or ordinary medical attendant to the patient pre- scribed for. As a young man, indeed, he some- times condescends to keep an open shop ; but as soon as he can get on without " counter" business, he leaves the commercial part of his occupation 96 NOW AND THEN. to the druggist, as beneath his dignity. The dispensing chemists and druggists, whose shops, flashing with blue bottles (last remnant of empiric charlatanry), brighten our street corners and scare our horses at night, are the apothecaries of the last century. The apothecary himself — that is, the member of the Company — is hardly ever found as an apothecary pur et simple. He enrols himself at " the hall" for the sake of being able to sue ungrateful patients for money due to him. But in the great majority of cases he is also a Fellow or Member of the College of Surgeons, and acts as a general practitioner; that is, he does anything and everything — prescribes and dis- penses his prescriptions ; is at the same time phy- sician, surgeon, accoucheur, and dentist. Physic and surgery were divided at a very early date in theory, but in practice they were combined by eminent physicians till a comparatively recent period. And yet later the physician performed the functions of the apothecary, just as the apothecary presumed to discharge the offices of physician. It was not derogatory to the dignity of a leading physician, in the reign of Charles the Second, to keep a shop, and advertise the wares vended in it, announcing in the same manner their prices. Dr. Mead realized large sums by the sale of worthless nostrums. And only a few years since a distinguished Cam- GOUT TINCTURE. 97 bridge physician, retaining as an octogenarian the popularity he had achieved as a young man in one of our eastern counties, used to sell his "gout tincture" — a secret specific against gout — at so many shiUings per bottle. In many respects the general practitioner of this century would con- sider his professional character compromised if he adopted the customs generally in vogue amongst the physicians of the last. VOL. I. 98 CHAPTER VI. QUACKS. The history of quackery, if it were written on a scale that should include the entire number of those frauds which may be generally classed under the head of humbug, would be the history of the human race in all ages and climes. Neither the benefactors nor the enemies of mankind would escape mention ; and a searching scrutiny would show that dishonesty had played as important, though not as manifest, a part in the operations of benevolence as in the achievements of the devil. But a more confined use of the word must satisfy us on the present occasion. We are not about to enter on a philosophic enquiry into the causes that contributed to the success of Mahomet and Cromwell, but only to chronicle a few of the most humorous facts connected with POPULAR CREDULITY. 99 the predecessors of Dr. Townsend and Mr. Mor- rison. In the success that has in every century attended the rascally enterprises of pretenders to the art of medicine is found a touching evidence of the sorrow, credulity, and ignorance of the generations that have passed, or are passing, to the silent home where the pain and joy, the simplicity and cunning, of this world are alike of insignificance. The hope that to the last lurks in the breast of the veriest wretch under heaven's canopy, whether his trials come from broken health, or an empty pocket, or wronged affection, speaks aloud in saddest tones, as one thinks of the multitudes who, worn with bodily malady and spiritual de- jection, ignorant of the source of their sufferings, but thirsting for^ relief from them, have gone from charlatan to charlatan, giving hoarded money in exchange for charms, cramp-rings, warming-stones, elixirs, and trochees, warranted to cure every ill that flesh is heir to. The scene, from another point of view, is more droll, but scarcely less mournful. Look away from the throng of miser- able objects, for a few seconds, who press round the empiric's stage ; wipe out for a brief while the memory of their woes, and regard the style and arts of the practitioner who, with a trunk full of nostrums, bids disease to vanish, and death to retire from the scenes of his triumph. There he H 2 100 MEDICINE IN THE FEUDAL AGES. stands — a lean fantastic man, voluble of tongue, empty-headed, full of loud words and menaces, prating about kings and princes who have taken him by the hand and kissed him in gratitude for his benefits showered upon them — dauntless, greedy, and so steeped in falsehood that his crazy-tainted brain half believes the lies that flow from his glib tongue. Are there no such men amongst us now — not standing on carts at the street-corners, and selling their wares to a dingy rabble, but having their seats of exchange in honoured places, and vending their prescriptions to crowds of wealthy clients ? In the feudal ages medicine and quackery were the same, as far as any principles of science are concerned. The only difference between the phy- sician and the charlatan was, that the former was a fool and the latter a rogue. Men did not meddle much with the healing art. A few clerks devoted themselves to it, and in the exercise of their spi- ritual and medical functions discovered how to get two fleeces from a sheep at one shearing ; but the care of the sick was for the most part left to the women, who then, as in every other period of the world's history, prided themselves on their medical cunning, and, with the exception of intrigue, pre- ferred attending on the sick to any other occupa- tion. From the time of the Reformation, however, the number of lady doctors rapidly diminished. EARLY PUFFING. 101 The fair sex gradually relinquished the ground they had so long occupied to men who, had the monastic institutions continued to exist, would have assumed the priestly garb and passed their days in sloth. Quackery was at length fairly taken out of the hands of women and the shelter of domestic life, and was practised, not for love, and in a superstitious belief in its efficacy, but for money, and frequently with a perfect know- ledge of its worthlessness as a remedial system. As soon as the printing-press had become an institution of the country, and there existed a considerable proportion of the community capable of reading, the empirics seized hold of Caxton's invention, and made it subservient to their honour- able ends. The advertising system was had re- course to in London, during the Stuart era, scarcely less than it is now. Handbills were distributed in aU directions by half-starved wretches, whose withered forms and pallid cheeks were of them- selves a sufficient disproof of the assertions of their employers. The costume, language, style, and artifices of the pretenders to physic in the seventeenth cen- tury were doubtless copied from models of long standing, and differed little in essentials from those of their predecessors. Professions retain their characteristics with singular obstinacy. The doctor of Charles the Second's London 102 THE QUACK OF A.D. 1650. transmitted all his most salient features to the quack of the Regency. Cotgrave, in his ^' Treasury of Wit and Lan- guage/' published 1655, thus paints the poor phy- sician of his time : — " My name is Pulsefeel, a poor Doctor of Physick, That does wear three pile velvet in his hat, Has paid a quarter's rent of his house before-hand, [sea. And (simple as he stands here) was made doctor beyond I vow, as I am right worshipful, the taking Of my degree cost me twelve French crowns, and Thirty-five pounds of butter in Upper Germany. I can make your beauty, and preserve it, Rectifie your body and maintaine it, Clarifie your blood, surfle your cheeks, perfume Your skin, tinct your hair, enliven your eye. Heighten your appetite ; and as for Jellies, Dentifrizes, Dyets, Minerals, Fricasses, Pomatums, Fumes, Italia masks to sleep in, Either to moisten or dry the superficies. Faugh ! Galen Was a goose, and Paracelsus a Patch, To Doctor Pulsefeel." This picture would serve for the portrait of Dr. Pulsefeel in the eighteenth and nineteenth, as well as the seventeenth century. How it calls to mind the image of Oliver Goldsmith, when, with a smattering of medical knowledge, a cane, and a German diplo- ma, he tried to pick out of the miseries and ignor- ance of his fellow-creatures the means of keeping body and soul together. He too, poet and scholar though he was, would have sold a pot of rouge to THE quack's academy. 103 a faded beauty, or a bottle of hair-dye, or a nos- trum warranted to cure the bite of a mad dog. A more accurate picture, however, of the char- latan is to be found in " the Quack's Academy ; or the Dunce's Directory," published in 1678, of which the following is a portion : — " However, in the second place, to support this title, there are several things very convenient ; of which some are external accoutrements, others in- ternal qualifications. "Your outward requisites are a decent black suit, and (if your credit will stretch so far in Long Lane) a plush jacket ; not a pin the worse though thread-bare as a taylor's cloak — it shows the more reverend antiquity. " Secondly, like Mercury you must always carry a caduceus or conjuring japan in your hand, capt with a civet-box ; with which you must walk with Spanish gravity as in deep contemplation upon an arbitrament between life and death. "Thirdly, a convenient lodging, not forget- ting a hatch at the door ; a chamber hung with Dutch pictures, or looking-glasses, belittered with empty bottles, gallipots, and vials filled with tap- droppings, or fair water, coloured with saunders. Any sexton will furnish your window with a skull, in hope of your custom ; over which hang up the skeleton of a monkey, to proclaim your skill in anatomy. ] 04 DK. PULSEFEEL IN THE COUNTRY. "Fourthly, let your table be never without sorae old musty Greek or Arabick author, and the 4th book of Cornelius Agrippa's ' Occult Philoso- phy,' wide open to amuse spectators ; with half-a- dozen of gilt shillings, as so many guineas received that morning for fees. " Fifthly, fail not to oblige neighbouring ale- houses, to recommend you to enquirers ; and hold correspondence with all the nurses and midwives near you, to applaud your skill at gossippings." The directions go on to advise loquacity and impudence, qualities which quacks of all times and kinds have found most useful. But in cases where the practitioner has an impediment in his speech, or cannot by training render himself glib of ut- terance, he is advised to persevere in a habit of mysterious silence, rendered impressive by grave nods of the head. When Dr. Pulsefeel was tired of London, or felt a want of country air, he concentrated his powers on the pleasant occupation of fleecing rus- tic simplicity. For his journeys into the provinces he provided himself with a stout and fast-trotting hack — stout, that it might bear without fatigue weighty parcels of medicinal composition ; and fleet of foot, so that if an ungrateful rabble should com- mit the indecorum of stoning their benefactor as an impostor (a mishap that would occasionally occur) escape might be effected from the infa- THE DOCTOR HIS OWN TRUMPETER. 105 tuated and excited populace. In his circuit the doctor took in all the fairs, markets, wakes, and public festivals ; not however disdaining to stop an entire week, or even month, at an assize town, where he found the sick anxious to benefit by his wisdom. His plan of making acquaintance with a new place was to ride boldly into the thickest crowd of a fair or market, with as much speed as he could make without imperilling the lives of by- standers; and then, when he had checked his steed, inform all who listened that he had come straight from the Duke of Bohemia, or the most Serene Emperor of Wallachia, out of a desire to do good to his fellow-creatures. He was born in that very town, — yes, that very town in which he then was speaking, and had left it, when an orphan child of eight years of age, to seek his fortune in the world. He had found his way to London, and been crimped on board a vessel bound for Morocco, and so had been carried off to foreign parts. His adventures had been won- derful. He had visited the Sultan and the Great Mogul. There was not a part of the Indies with whicli he was not familiar. If any one doubted him, let his face be regarded, and his bronze com- plexion bear witness of the scorching suns he had endured. He had cured hundreds — ay, thousands — of emperors, kings, queens, princes, margra- 106 PATRIOTISM. vines, grand duchesses, and generalissimos, of their diseases. He had a powder which would stay the palsy, jaundice, hot fever, and cramps. It was expensive ; but that he couldn't help, for it was made of pearls, and the dried leaves of violets brought from the very middle of Tartary ; still he could sell a packet of the medicine for a crown — a sum which would just pay him back his outlaid money, and leave him no profit. But he didn't want to make money of them. He was their fellow-townsman ; and in order to find them out and cure them he had refused offers of wealth from the king of Mesopotamia, who wanted him to accept a fortune of a thousand gold pieces a month, tarry with the Mesopotamians, and keep them out of the devil's clutches. Sometimes this harangue was made from the back of a horse; sometimes from a rude hustings, from which he was called mountebank. He sold all kinds of medicaments : dyes for the hair, washes for the complexion, lotions to keep young men youthful ; rings which, when worn on the fore-finger of the right hand, should make a chosen favourite des- perately in love with the wearer, and when worn on the same finger of the left hand, should drive the said favourite to commit suicide. Nothing could surpass the impudence of the fellow's lies save the admiration with which his credulous auditors swallowed his assertions. There they PARIS, A.D. 1622. 107 stood, — stout yeomen, drunken squires, merry peasant girls, gawky hinds, gabbling dames, deem- ing themselves in luck's way to have lived to see such a miracle of learning. Possibly a young student, home from Oxford, with the rashness of inexperience, would smile scornfully, and in a loud voice designate the pretender a quack — a quacksalver (kwabzalver), from the liniment he vended for the cure of wens. But such an inter- ruption, in ninety and nine ca^es out of every hundred, w^as condemned by the orthodox friends of the young student, and he w^as warned that he would come to no good if he went on as he had begun — a contemptuous unbeliever, and a mocker of wise men. The author of the " Discours de I'Origine des Moeurs, Fraudes, et Impostures des Ciarlatans, avec leur Decouverte, Paris, 1622," says, "Pre- mierement, par ce mot de Ciarlatans, j'entens ceux que les Italiens appellent Saltambaci, baste- leurs, bouffons, vendeurs de bagatelles, et gene- ralement toute autre personne, laquelle en place publique montee en banc, a terre, ou a cheval, vend medecines, baumes, huilles ou poudres, com- posees pour guerir quelque infirmite, louant et exaltant sa drogue, avec artifice, et mille faux sermens, en racontant mille et mille merveilles. ***** Mais c'est chose plaisante de voir 1' artifice dont se 108 THOMAS SAFFOLD. servent .ces medecins de banc pour vendre leur drogue, quand avec mille faux sermens ils affirment d' avoir appris leur secret du roi de Daimemarc, ou d'un prince de Transilvanie." The great quack of Charles the Second's Lon- don was Dr. Thomas Saffold. This man (who was originally a weaver) professed to cure every disease of the human body, and also to foretell the destinies of his patients. Along Cheapside, Fleet- street, and the Strand, even down to the sacred precincts of Whitehall and St. James's, he sta- tioned bill-distributors, who showered prose and poetry on the passers-by — ^just as the agents (possibly the poets) of the Messrs. Moses cast their literature on the town of Queen Victoria. When this great benefactor of his species departed this life, on May the 12th, 1691, a satirical broad- sheet called on the world to mourn for the loss of one — " So skilled in drugs and verse, ' twas hard to show it, Whether was best, the doctor or the poet." The ode continues : — " Lament, ye damsels of our London city, (Poor unprovided girls) tho' fair and witty. Who, maskt, would to his house in couples come, To understand your matrimonial doom ; To know what kind of men you were to marry. And how long time, poor things, you were to tarry ; Your oracle is silent, none can tell On whom his astrologick mantle fell ; HOROSCOPE. 109 For he when sick refused all doctors' aid, And only to his pills devotion paid ! Yet it was surely a most sad disaster, The saucy pills at last should kill their master." EPITAPH. " Here lies the corpse of Thomas Saffold, By death, in spite of physick, bafSed ; Who, leaving off his working loom, Did learned doctor soon become. To poetry he made pretence. Too plain to any man's own sense ; But he when hving thought it sin To hide his talent in napkin. Now death does doctor (poet) crowd Within the limits of a shroud." The Tocation of fortune-teller was exercised not only by the quacksj but also by the apothe- cariesj of that period. Garth had ample founda- tion in fact for his satirical sketch of Horoscope's shop in the second canto of " The Dispensary." " Long has he been of that amphibious fry, Bold to prescribe and busie to apply ; His shop the gazing vulgars ' eyes employs, With foreign trinkets and domestick toys. Here mummies lay most reverendly stale, And there the tortoise hung her coat of mail. Not far from some huge shark's devouring head The flying fish theii- finny pinions spread ; Aloft in rows large poppy-heads were strung, And near a scaly alligator hung ; In this place, drugs in musty heaps decay'd. In that, dry'd bladders and drawn teeth were laid. 110 QUEEN ANNE'S OCULISTS. " An inner room receives the num'rous shoals Of such as pay to be reputed fools ; Globes stand by globes, volumes by volumes lye, And planetary schemes amuse the eye. The sage, in velvet chair, here lolls at ease. To promise future health for present fees. Then, as from Tripod, solemn shams reveals, And what the stars know nothing of reveals. " One asks how soon Panthea may be won, And longs to feel the marriage fetters on ; Others, convinced by melancholy proof, Enquire when courteous fates will strike them off ; Some by what means they may redress the wrong, When fathers the possession keep too long ; And some would know the issue of their cause. And whether gold can solder up its flaws. " Whilst Iris his cosmetick wash would try, To make her bloom revive, and lovers die ; Some ask for charms, and others philters chose, To gain Corrinna, and their quartans lose." Queen Anne's weak eyes caused her to pass from one empiric to another, for the relief they all promised to give, and in some cases even per- suaded that they gave her. She had a passion for quack oculists ; and happy was the advertis- ing scoundrel who gained her Majesty's favour with a new collyrium. For, of course, if the great- est personage in the land said that Professor Bun- galo was a wonderful man, a master of his art, and inspired by God to heal the sick, there was no ap- peal from so eminent an authority. How should an SIR WILLIAM READE. Ill elderly lady with a crown on her head be mistaken ? Do we not hear the same arguments every day in our own enlightened generation, when the new Chiropodist, or Rubber, or inventor of a specific for consumption, points to the social distinctions of his dupes as conclusive evidence that he is neither supported by vulgar ignorance, nor afraid to meet the most searching scrutiny of the educated ? Good Queen Anne was so charmed with two of the many knaves who by turns en- joyed her countenance, that she had them sworn in as her own oculists in ordinary; and one of them she was even so silly as to knight. This lucky gentleman was WilHam Reade, originally a botching tailor, and to the last a very ignorant man, as his " Short and Exact Account of all the Diseases Incident to the Eyes" attests ; yet he rose to the honour of knighthood, and the most lucra- tive and fashionable physician's practice of his period. Surely every dog has his day. Lazarus never should despair ; a turn of fortune may one fine day pick him from the rags which cover his nakedness in the kennel, and put him to feast amongst princes, arrayed in purple and fine linen, and regarded as an oracle of wisdom. It was true that Sir William Reade was unable to read the book which he had written (by the hand of an amanuensis), but I have no doubt that many worthy people who listened to his sonorous voice^ 112 SIR WILLIAM'S POET. beheld his lace ruffles and gold-headed cane, and saw his coach drawn along to St. James's by su- perb horses, thought him in every respect equal, or even superior, to Pope and Swift. When Sir William was knighted he hired a poet, who lived in Grub Street, to announce the fact to posterity and " the town," in honest — that is to say, honest in quantity for the sum paid — de- casyllabic verse. The production of this bard, " The Oculist, a Poem," was published in the year 1705, and has already (thanks to the British Museum, which like the nets of fishermen receiveth of " all sorts ") endowed him with an immortality of more than a century and a half ; and no one can deny that such an amount of fame is due both to the man who bought and the scribbler who sold such a strain as this : — " Whilst Britain's Sovereign scales such worth has weighed, And Anne herself her smiling favours paid, That sacred hand does your fair chaplet twist, Great Reade her own entitled Ocuhst. With this fair mark of honour, sir, assume No common trophies from this shining plume ; Her favours by desert are only shar'd — Her smiles are not her gift, but her reward. Thus in your new fair plumes of Honour drest. To hail the Royal Foundress of the feast ; When the great Anne's warm smiles this favourite raise, 'Tis not a royal grace she gives, but pays." Queen Anne's other " sworn oculist," as he and Reade termed themselves, was Roger Grant, a cob- ROGEK GKANT, 113 bier and Anabaptist preacher. He was a prodi- giously vain man, even for a quack, and had his likeness engraved in copper. Impressions of the plate were distributed amongst his friends, but were not in all cases treated with much respect ; for one of those who had been complimented with a present of the eminent oculist's portrait fixed it on a wall of his house, having first adorned it with the following lines : — " See here a picture of a brazen face, The fittest lumber of this wretched place. A tinker first his scene of life began ; That failing, he set up for cunning man ; But wanting luck, puts on a new disguise, And now pretends that he can mend your eyes ; But this expect, that, like a tinker true, Where he repairs one eye he puts out two." The charge of his being a tinker was preferred against him also by another lampoon writer. " In his stead up popped Roger Grant, the tinker, of whom a friend of mine once sung : — " * Her majesty sure was in a surprise, Or else was very short-sighted ; When a tinker was sworn to look after her eyes, And the mountebank Reade was knighted. ' " This man, according to the custom of his class, was in the habit of publishing circumstantial and minute accounts of his cures. Of course his state- ments were a tissue of untruths, with just the faint- VOL. I. I 114 A VALUABLE CERTIFICATE. est possible admixture of what was not altogether falsehood. His plan was to get hold of some poor person of imperfect vision, and, after treating him with medicines and halfcrowns for six weeks, induce him to sign a testimonial to the effect that he had been born stone-blind, and had never en- joyed any visual power whatever, till Providence led him to good Dr. Grant, who had cured him in little more than a month. This certificate the clergyman and churchwardens of the parish, in which the patient had been known to wander about the streets in mendicancy, were asked to attest ; and if they proved impregnable to the cunning representations of the importunate suitors, and declined to give the evidence of their hand- writing, either on the ground that they had reason to question the ftict of the original blindness, or be- cause they were not thoroughly acquainted with the particulars of the case. Dr. Grant did not scruple to sign their names himself, or by the hands of his agents. The modus operandi with which he carried out these frauds may be learned by the curious in a pamphlet, published in the year 1 709, and entitled " A Full and True Account of a Mi- raculous Cure of a Young Man in Newington that was Born Blind." But the last century was rife with medical quacks. The Kev. John Hancocke, D.D., Rector of St. Margaret's, Lothbury, London, Prebendary TAR-WATER. 115 of Canterbury, and chaplain to the Duke of Bed- ford, preached up the water-cure, which Pliny the naturalist described as being in his day the fashionable remedy in Rome. He published a work in 1723 that immediately became popular, called "Febrifugum Magnum; or, Common Water the best Cure for Fevers, and probably for the Plague." The good man deemed himself a genius of the highest order, because he had discovered that a draught of cold water, under certain circum- stances, is a powerful diaphoretic. His pharma- copeia, however, contained another remedy — namely, stewed prunes, which the Doctor re- garded as a specific in obstinate cases of blood- spitting. Then there was Ward, with his famous pill, whose praises that learned man. Lord Chief Baron Reynolds, sounded in every direction. There was also a tar-water mania, which mastered the clear intellect of Henry Fielding, and had as its principal advocate the supreme intellect of the age. Bishop Berkeley. In volume eighteen of the Gentlemar^s Magazine is a list of the quack- doctors then practising ; and the number of those named in it is almost as numerous as the nos- trums, which mount up to 202. These accom- modating fellows were ready to fleece every rank of society. The fashionable impostor sold his specific sometimes at the rate of 25. M. a pill, i2 116 MR. AND MRS. LOUTHERBOURG. while the humbler knave vended his boluses at Qd. a box. To account for society tolerating, and, yet more, warmly encouraojing such a state of things, we must remember the force of the example set by eminent physicians in vending medicines the composition of which they kept secret. Sir Hans Sloane sold an eye-salve ; and Dr. Mead had a favourite nostrum — a powder for the bite of a mad dog. The close of the seventeenth century was not in respect of its quacks behind the few preceding generations. In 1 789, Mr. and Mrs Loutherbourg became notorious for curing people without medi- cine. God, they proclaimed, had endowed them with a miraculous power of healing the impove- rished sick, by looking upon them and touching them. Of course every one who presumed to doubt the statement was regarded as calling in question the miracles of holy writ, and was ex- claimed against as an infidel. The doctor's house was besieged with enormous crowds. The good man and his lady refused to take any fee whatever, and issued gratuitous tickets amongst the mob, which would admit the bearers into the Louther- bourgian presence. Strange to say, however, these tickets found their way into the hands of venal people, who sold them to others in the crowd (who were tired of waiting) for sums varying from two to five guineas each ; and ere long it was discovered MISS MARY PRATT. 117 that these barterers of the healing power were accomplices in the pay of the poor man's friend. A certain Miss Mary Pratt, in all probability a puppet acting in obedience to Loutherbourg's in- structions, wrote an account of the cures per- formed by the physician and his wife. In a dedicatory letter to the Archbishop of Canter- bury, ]Miss Pratt says: — "I therefore presume, when these testimonies are searched into (which will corroborate with mine) your lordship will compose a form of prayer, to be used in all churches and chapels, that nothing may im- pede or prevent this inestimable gift from having its free course; and publick thanks may be offered up in all churches and chapels, for such an astonishing proof of God's love to this favoured land." The publication frankly states that " Mr. De Loutherbourg, who lives on Hammersmith Green, has received a most glorious power from the Lord Jehovah — viz., the gift of healing all manner of diseases incident to the human body, such as blindness, deafness, lameness, cancers — loss of speech, palsies." But the statements of " cases " are yet more droll. The reader will enjoy the perusal of a few of them. " Case of Tliomas Robinson. — Thomas Robin- son was sent home to his parents at the sign of the Ram, a public-house in Cow Cross, so ill with what is called the king's evil, that they applied 118 FELL INTO HER KNEE. for leave to bring him into St. Bartholomew's Hospital." (Of course he was discharged as " incurable," and was eventually restored to health by Mr. Loutherbourg). ^'But how," continues Miss Pratt, "shall my pen paint ingratitude? The mother had procured a ticket for him from the Finsbury Dispensary, and with a shameful reluctance denied havinof seen Mr. De Louther- bourg, waited on the kind gentlemen belonging to the dispensary, and, amazing I thanked them for relief which they had no hand in ; for she told me and fifty more, she took the drugs and medicines and threw them away, reserving the phials, &c. Such an imposition on the public ought to be de- tected, as she deprived other poor people of those medicines which might have been useful ; not only so — robbed the Lord of Life of the glory due to him only, by returning thanks at the Dis- pensary for a cure which they had never per- formed. The lad is now under Mr. De Louther- bourg's care, who administered to him before me }^esterday in the public healing-room, amongst a large concourse of people, amongst whom was some of the first families in the kingdom." " Case. — Mari/ Anne Hughes. — Her father is chairman to her Grace the Duchess of Rutland, who lives at No. 37 in Ogle Street. She had a most violent fever, fell into her knee, went to Middlesex Hospital, where they made every ex- MES. LOUTHEEBOURG'S " CONDESCENSION." 119 periment in order to cure her — but in vain ; she came home worse than she went in, her leg con- tracted and useless. In this deplorable state she waited on Mrs. De Loutherbourg, who, mth in- finite condescension, saw her, administered to her, and the second time of waiting on Mrs. De Loutherbourg she was perfectly cured." " Case. — Mrs. Hooh. — ^Irs. Hook, Stableyard, St. James's, has two daughters born deaf and dumb. She waited on the lady above-mentioned, who looked on them with an eye of benignity, and healed them. (I heard them both speak)." Mary Pratt, after enumerating several cases like the foregoing, concludes thus : — " Let me repeat, with horror and detestation, the wickedness of those who have procured tickets of admission, and sold them for five and two guineas a-piece ! — whereas this gift was chiefly intended for the poor. Therefore Mr. De Loutherbourg has retired from the practice into the country (for the present), having suffered all the indignities and contumely that man could suffer, joined to ungrateful behaviour, and tumul- tuous proceedings. I have heard people curse him, and threaten his life, instead of returning him thanks : and it is my humble wish that prayers may be put up in all churches for his great gifts to multiply. 120 SPIRITUALISM. " Finis. "Report says three thousand persons have waited for tickets at a time." Forming a portion of this interesting work by Miss Pratt is a description of a case which throws the Loutherbourgian miracles into the shade, and is apparently cited only for the insight it affords into the state of public feeling in Queen Anne's time, as contrasted with the sceptical enlighten- ment of George III.'s reign : — " I hope the public will allow me to adduce a case which history will evince the truth of. A girl, whose father and mother were French refugees, had her hip dislocated from her birth. She was apprentice to a milliner, and obliged to go out about the mistress's business; the boys used to insult her for her lameness continually, as she limped very much ..... Providence directed her to read one of the miracles performed by our blessed Saviour con- cerning the withered arm. The girl exclaimed, * Oh, madam, was Jesus here on earth he would cure me.' Her mistress answered, ^ If you have faith his power is the same now.' She imme- diately cried, ^ I have faith ! ' and the bone flew into its place with a report like the noise of a pistol. The girl's joy was ecstatic. She jumped about the room in raptures. The servant was called, sent for her parents, and the minister HAMMERSMITH PHILANTHROPY. 121 under whom she sat. They spent the night praising God. Hundreds came to see her, amongst whom was the Bishop of London, by the command of her Majesty Queen Anne (for in those days people were astonished at this great miracle)." Dr. Loutherbourg was not the first quack to fleece the good people of Hammersmith. In the 572nd paper of the Spectator^ dated July 26, 1714, there is a good story of a consummate artist, who surrounded himself with an enormous crowd, and assured them that Hammersmith was the place of his nativity : and that, out of strong natural affection for his birth-place, he was willing to give each of its inhabitants a pre- sent of five shillings. After this exordium, the benevolent fellow produced from his cases an immense number of packets of a powder war- ranted to cure everything and kill nothing. The price of each packet was properly five shillings and sixpence ; but out of love for the people of Hammersmith the good doctor offered to let any of his audience buy them at the rate of sixpence a-piece. The multitude availed themselves of this proposition to such an extent that it is to be feared the friend of Hammersmith's humanity suffered greatly for his liberality. Steele has transmitted to us some capital anec- dotes of the empirics of his day. One doctor of 122 DE. MYERSBACH. Sir Richard's acquaintance resided in Moore Alley, near Wapping, and proclaimed his ability to cure cataracts, because he had lost an eye in the emperor's service. To his patients he was in the habit of displaying, as a conclusive proof of his surgical prowess, a nmster-roU showing that either he or a man of his name had been one of his imperial majesty's troops. At the sight of this document of course mistrust fled. Another man professed to treat ruptured children, because his father and grandfather were born bursten. But more humorous even than either of these gentlemen was another friend of Sir Richard's, who announced to the public that " from eight to twelve, and from two till six, he attended for the good of the public to bleed for threepence." The fortunes which pretenders to the healing art have amassed would justify a belief that empiricism, under favourable circumstances, is the best trade to be found in the entire list of indus- trial occupations. Quacks have in all ages found staunch supporters amongst the powerful and affluent. Dr. Myersbach, whom Lettsom endea- voured to drive back into obscurity, continued, long after the publication of the " Observations," to make a large income out of the credulity of the fashionable classes of English society. Without learning of any kind, this man raised himself to opulence. His degree was bought at Erfurth THE BARON DE CASTELET. 123 for a few shillings, just before that university raised the prices of its academical distinctions, in consequence of the pleasant raillery of a young Englishman, who paid the fees for a Doctor's diploma, and had it duly recorded in the collegiate archives as having been presented to Anglicus Ponto; Ponto being no other than his mastiff dog. With such a degree Myersbach set up for a philosopher. Patients crowded to his consulting room, and those who were unable to come sent their servants with descriptions of their cases. But his success was less than that of the inventor of Ailhaud's Powders, which ran their devastating course through every country in Europe, sending to the silence of the grave almost as many thou- sands as were destroyed in all Napoleon's cam- paigns. Tissot, in his "Avis au Peuple," published in 1803, attacked Ailhaud with characteristic ve- hemence, and put an end to his destructive power ; but ere this took place the charlatan had mounted on his slaughtered myriads to the pos- session of three baronies, and was figuring in European courts as the Baron de Castelet. The tricks which these practitioners have had recourse to for the attainment of their ends are various. Dr. Katterfelto, who rose into eminence upon the evil wind that brought the influenza to England in the year 1782, always travelled about the country in a large caravan, 124 MILK AND APPLES. containing a number of black cats. This gentle- man's triumphant campaign was brought to a disastrous termination by the mayor of Shrews- bury, who gave him a taste of the sharp discipline provided at that time by the law for rogues and vagabonds. — " The Wise Man of Liverpool," whose destiny it was to gull the canny inhabitants of the North of England, used to traverse the country in a chariot drawn by six horses, attended by a perfect army of outriders in brilliant liveries, and affecting all the pomp of a prince of the royal blood. The quacks who merit severe punishment the least of all their order are those who, while they profess to exercise a powerful influence over the bodies of their patients, leave nature to pursue her operations pretty much in her own way. Of this comparatively harmless class was Atwell, the parson of St. Tue, who, according to the account given of him by Fuller in his English Worthies, "although he now and then used blood-letting, mostly for all diseases prescribed milk, and often milk and apples, which (although contrary to the judgments of the best esteemed practitioners) either by virtue of the medicine, or fortune of the physician, or fancy of the patient, recovered many out of desperate extremities." Atwell won his reputation by acting on the same principle that has brought popularity to the homoeopathists — HOMOEOPATHY. 125 that, namely, of letting things run their own course. The higher order of empirics have always availed themselves of the wonderful faculty pos- sessed by nature of taking good care of herself. Simple people who enlarge on the series of miracu- lous cm-es performed by their pet charlatan, and find in them proofs of his honesty and professional worth, do not reflect that in ninety and nine cases out of every hundred where a sick person is re- stored to heal til, the result is achieved by nature rather than art, and would have been arrived at as speedily without as with medicine. The fame of an ordinary medical practitioner is never backed up by simple and compound addition. His cures and half cures are never summed up to a magni- ficent total by his employers, and then flaunted about on a bright banner before the eyes of the electors. 'Tis a mere matter of course that he (although he is quite wrong, and knows not half as much about his art as any great lady w^ho has tested the eflScacy of the new system on her sick poodle) should cure people. 'Tis only the cause of globules which is to be supported by docu- mentary evidence, containing the case of every young lady who has lost a severe headache under the benign influence of an infinitesimal dose of flour and water. Dumoulin, the physician, observed at his death that ''he left behind him two great physicians, 126 DUMOULIN AND VILLARS. Regimen and River Water." A due appreciation of the truth embodied in this remark, coupled with that masterly assurance, without which the human family is not to be fleeced, enabled the French quack Villars to do good to others and to himself at the same time. This man, in 1723, confided to his friends that his uncle, who had recently been killed by an accident at the ad- vanced age of one hundred years, had bequeathed to him the recipe for a nostrum which would pro- long: the life of one who used it to a hundred and fifty, provided only that the rules of sobriety were never transgressed. Whenever a funeral passed him in the street he said aloud, ^^ Ah! if that un- fortunate creature had taken my nostrum, he might be carrying that coffin, instead of being carried in it." This nostrum was composed of nitre and Seine water, and was sold at the ridicu- lously cheap rate of five francs a bottle. Those who bought it were directed to drink it at certain stated periods, and also to lead regular lives, to eat moderately, drink temperately, take plenty of bodily exercise, go to and rise from bed early, and to avoid mental anxiety. In an enormous ma- jority of cases the patient was either cured or benefited. Some possibly died who, by the minis- trations of science, might have been preserved from the grave. But in these cases, and doubt- less they were few, the blunder was set down to POPULARITY. 127 Nature, who, somewhat unjustly, was never cre- dited with any of the recoveries. The world was charitable, and the doctor could say — " The grave my faults does hide, The world my cures does see ; What youth and time provide, Are oft ascribed to me." Anyhow Yillars succeeded, and won the appro- bation not only of his dupes, but of those also who were sagacious enough to see the nature of his trick. The Abbe Pons declared him to be the superior of the marshal of the same name. "The latter," said he, "kills men — the former prolongs their existence." At length Yillars' secret leaked out ; and his patients, unwise in coming to him, unwisely deserted him. His occu- pation was gone. The displeasure of Yillars' dupes, on the disco- very of the benevolent hoax played upon them, reminds us of a good story. Some years since, at a fashionable watering-place, on the south-east coast of England, resided a young surgeon — handsome, well-bred, and of most pleasant address. He was fast rising into public favour and a good practice, when an eccentric and wealthy maiden lady, far advanced in years, sent for him. The summons of course was promptly obeyed, and the young practitioner was soon listening to a most terrible story of suffering. The afflicted lady, 128 THEY WONT SEE IT ! according to her account, had a year before, during the performance of her toilet, accidentally taken into her throat one of the bristles of her tooth- brush. This bristle had stuck in the top of the gullet, and set up an irritation which, she was convinced, was killing her. She had been from one surgeon of eminence to another, and every- where in London and in the country the Faculty had assured her that she was only the victim of a nervous delusion — that her throat was in a per- fectly healthy condition — that the disturbance existed only in her own imagination. "And so they go on, the stupid, obstinate, perverse, unfeel- ing creatures," concluded the poor lady, " saying there is nothing the matter with me, while I am — dy'mg — dying — dying!" "Allow me, my dear lady," said the adroit surgeon in reply, " to in- spect for myself — carefully — the state of your throat." The inspection was made gravely, and at much length. " My dear Miss ," resumed the surgeon, when he had concluded his examina- tion, "you are quite right, and Sir Benjamin Brodie and Sir James Clark are wrong. I can see the head of the bristle low down, almost out of sight ; and if you'll let me run home for my instruments, I'll forthwith extract it for you." The adroit man retired, and in a few minutes re- entered the room, armed with a very delicate pair of forceps, into the teeth of which he had inserted TOLD IN CONFIDENCE. 129 a bristle taken from an ordinary tooth-brush. The rest can be imagined. The lady threw back her head; the forceps were introduced into her mouth ; a prick — a scream ! and 'twas all over ; and the surgeon, with a smiling face, was holding up to the light, and inspecting with lively curiosity, the extracted bristle. The patient was in rap- tures at a result that proved that she was right, and Sir Benjamin Brodle wrong. She imme- diately recovered her health and spirits, and went about everywhere sounding the praises of " her saviour," as she persisted in calling the dexterous operator. So enthusiastic was her gratitude, she offered him her hand in marriage and her noble fortune. The fact that the young surgeon was already married was an insuperable obstacle to this arrangement. But other proofs of gratitude the lady lavishly showered on him. She com- pelled him to accept a carriage and horses, a service of plate, and a new house. Unfortunately the lucky fellow could not keep his own counsel. Like foolish Samson with Dalilah, he imparted the secret of his cunning to the wife of his bosom ; she confided it to Louise Clarissa, her especial friend, who had been her bridesmaid; Louise Clarissa told it under vows of inviolable secrecy to six other particular friends ; and the six other particular friends — base and unworthy girls ! — told it to all the world. Ere long the story came VOL. I. K 130 PETER m'dOUGAL. round to the lady herself. Then what a storm arose ! She was in a transport of fury ! It was of no avail for the surgeon to remind her that he had unquestionably raised her from a pitiable con- dition to health and happiness. That mattered not. He had tricked, fooled, bamboozled her! She would not forgive him, she would pursue him with undying vengeance, she would ruin him ! The writer of these pages is happy to know that the surgeon here spoken of, whose prosperous career has been adorned by much genuine benevo- lence, though unforgiven, was not ruined. The ignorant are remarkable alike for suspicion and credulity; and the quack makes them his prey by lulling to sleep the former quality, and artfully arousing and playing upon the latter. Whatever the field of quackery may be, the dupe must ever be the same. Some years since a canny drover, from the North of the Tweed, gained a high reputation throughout the Eastern Counties for selling at high prices the beasts intrusted to him as a salesman. At Norwich and Earl Soham, at Bury and Ipswich, the story was the same — Peter M^Dougal invariably got more per head for a lot than even his warmest admirers had calcu- lated he would obtain. He managed his business so well, that his brethren, unable to compete with him, came to a conclusion not altogether sup- ported by the facts of the case, but flattering to A BARGAIN. 131 their own self-love. Clearly Peter could only surpass them by such a long distance, through the agency of some charm or witch's secret. They hinted as much ; and Peter wisely accepted the suggestion, with a half-assenting nod of cunning, and encouraged his mates to believe in it. A year or so passed on, and it was generally allowed that Peter M^Dougal was in league, on honourable terms, with the unseen world. To contend with him was useless. The only line open to his would-be imitators was to buy from him partici- pations in his mysterious powers. "Peter," at length said a simple southern, at the close of Halesworth cattle-fair, acting as spokesman for himself and four other conspirators, " Lets us into yer secret, man. You ha' made here twelve poun a yead by a lot that aren't woth sex. How ded yer doo it? We are all old friens. Let's us goo to * Th' Alter' d Case,' an I an my mets uU Stan yar supper an a dead drunk o' whisky or rom poonch, so be yar jine hans to giv us the wink." Peter's eyes twinkled. He liked a good supper and plenty of hot grog at a friend's ex- pense. Indeed of such fare, like Sheridan with wine, he was ready to take any given quantity. The bargain was made, and an immediate adjourn- ment effected to the public-house rejoicing in the title of '^ The Case is Altered." The supper was of hot steak-pudding, made savoury with pepper K 2 132 THE USE OF FOOLS. and onions. Peter M^Dougal ate plentifully and deliberately. Slowly also he drank two stiff tumblers of whisky punch, smoking his pipe meanwhile without uttering a word. The second tumbler was foUow^ed by a third, and as he sipped the latter half of it, his entertainers closed round him, and intimated that their part of the contract being accomplished, he, as a man of honour, ought to fulfil his. Peter was a man of few words, and, without any unnecessary prelude or comment, he stated in one laconic speech the secret of his pro- fessional success. Laying down his pipe by his empty glass, and emitting from his gray eyes a light of strange humour, he said drily, "Ye'd knoo hoo it was I cam to mak sae good a sale o' my beasties ? Weel, I ken it was joost this — I fund a fuUr The drover who rises to be a capitalist, and the lawyer who mounts to the woolsack, ascend by the same process. They know how to find out fools, and how to turn their discoveries to ad- vantage. It is told of a Barbadoes physician and slave- holder, that having been robbed to a serious ex- tent in his sugar-works, he discovered the thief by the following ingenious artifice. Having called his slaves together, he addressed them thus : " My friends, the great serpent appeared to me during the night, and told me that the person who stole .A SIGN OF GUILT. 133 my money should, at this instant — this very instant — have a parrot's feather at the point of his nose." On this announcement, the dishonest thief, anxious to find out if his guilt had declared itself, put his finger to his nose. " Man," cried the master in- stantly, "'tis thou who hast robbed me. The great serpent has just told me so." Clearly this piece of quackery succeeded, be- cause the quack had " fund a fule." 134 CHAPTER VII. JOHN RADCLIFFE. Radcliffe, the Jacobite partisan, the physician without learning, and the luxurious bon-vivantj who grudged the odd sixpences of his tavern scores, was born at Wakefield in Yorkshire, in the year 1650. His extraction was humble, his father being only a well-to-do yeoman. In after life, when he lived on intimate terms with the leading nobility of the country, he put in a claim for aristocratic descent ; and the Earl of Derwentwater recognized him as a kinsman deriving his blood from the RadclifFes of Dilston, in the county of North- umberland, the chiefs of which honourable family had been knights, barons, and earls, from the time of Henry IV. It may be remembered that a simi- lar countenance was given to Burke's patrician pretensions, which have been related by more than EDUCATED AT OXFOED. 135 one biographer, with much humorous pomp. In KadcliiFe's case the Heralds interfered with the Earl's decision ; for after the physician's decease they admonished the University of Oxford not to erect any escutcheon over or upon his monument. But though RadclifFe was a plebeian, he contrived, by his shrewd luimour, arrogant simplicity, and im- measurable insolence, to hold both Whigs and Tories in his grasp. The two factions of the aris- tocracy bowed before him — the Tories from affec- tion to a zealous adherent of regal absolutism ; and the AYhigs, from a superstitious belief in his remedial skill, and a fear that in their hours of need he would leave them to the advances of Death. At the age of fifteen he became a member of the University College, Oxford ; and having kept his terms there, he took his B.A. degree in 1669, and was made senior-scholar of the college. But no fellowship falling vacant there, he accepted one on the foundation of Lincoln College. His !M.B. de- gree he took in 1675, and forthwith obtained con- siderable practice in Oxford. Owing to a misun- derstanding with Dr. Marshall, the rector of Lin- coln College, Eadcliffe relinquished a feUowship, which he could no longer hold, without taking or- ders, in 1677. He did not take his M.D. degree till 1682, two years after which time he went up to London, and took a house in Bow Street, next 136 NURSE GIBBONS. that in which Sir Godfrey Kneller long resided ; and with a facility which can hardly be credited in these days, when success is achieved only by slow advances, he stept forthwith into a magnifi- cent income. The days of mealy-mouthed suavity had not yet come to the Faculty. Instead of standing by each other with lip-service, as they now do in spite of all their jealousies, physicians and surgeons vented their mutual enmities in frank, honest abuse. RadclifFe's tongue was well suited for this part of his business : and if that unruly member created for him enemies, it could also contend with a legion of adversaries at the same time. Foulks and Adams, then the first apothecaries in Oxford, tried to dis- credit the young doctor, but were ere long com- pelled to sue for a cessation of hostilities. LuflP, who afterwards became Professor of Physic in the University, declared that all " RadclifFe's cures were performed only by guess-work; " and Gibbons, with a sneer, said, " that it was a pity that his friends had not made a scholar of the young man." In return RadclifFe always persisted in speaking of his opponent as Nurse Gibbons, — because of his slops and diet drinks, whereas he (Radcliife the innovator) preached up the good effects of fresh air, a liberal table, and cordials. This was the Dr. Gibbons around whom the apothecaries rallied, to defend their interests in the great Dispensarian SIR EDWARD HANNES. 137 contest, and whom Garth in his poem ridicules, un- der the name of " Mirmillo," for entertaining drug- vendors : — " Not far from that frequented theatre, Where wandering punks each night at five repair, Where purple emperors in bui^kins tread, And rule imaginary worlds for bread ; Where Bentley, by old writers, wealthy grew, And Briscoe lately was undone by new ; There triumphs a physician of renown, To none, but such as rust in health, unknown. n^ ^ * * * * The trading tribe oft thither throng to dine. And want of elbow-room supply in wine." Gibbons was not the only dangerous antagonist that EadclifFe did battle with in London. Dr. AVhistler, Sir Edmund King, Sir Edward Hannes, and Sir Richard Blackmore were all strong enough to hurt him and rouse his jealousy. Hannes, also an Oxford man, was to the last a dangerous and hated rival. He opened his campaign in Lon- don with a carriage and four horses. The equi- page was so costly and imposing that it attracted the general attention of the town. ^^ By Jove! RadclifFe," said a kind friend, "Hannes's horses are the finest I have ever seen." " Umph ! " growled Radcliffe savagely, "then lie'U be able to sell them for all the more." To make his name known Hannes used to send his liveried footmen running about the streets, 138 ^' GARKA way's " AND " BATSON'S." with directions to put their heads into every coach they met, and enquire, with accents of alarm, if Dr. Hannes was in it. Acting on these orders, one of his fellows, after looking into every carriage between Whitehall and the Royal Exchange, without finding his employer, ran up Exchange Alley into Garraway's Coffee-house, which was one of the great places of meeting for the members of the medical profession. (Apothecaries used regularly to come and consult the physicians, while the latter were over their wine, paying only half-fees for the advice so given, without the pa- tients being personally examined. Batson's coffee- house in Corn-hill was another favourite spot for these Galenic reunions. Sir William Blizard being amono^st the last of the medical authorities who frequented that hostelry for the purpose of receiv- ing apothecaries.) " Gentlemen, can your honours tell me if Dr. Hannes is here ? " asked the man, running into the very centre of the exchange of medicine-men. " Who wants Dr. Hannes, fellow ? " demanded Radcliffe, who happened to be present. "Lord A and Lord B , your honour!" answered the man. ^* No, no, friend," responded the doctor slowly, and with pleasant irony, ^* you are mistaken. Those lords don't want your mas- ter — 'tis he who wants them." But Hannes made friends and a fine income, to the deep chagrin of his contemptuous opponent. A CONSULTATION. 139 An incessant feud existed between the two men. The Tu-ulence of their mutual anitnosity may be estimated by the following story. When the poor little Duke of Gloucester was taken ill, Sir Edward Hannes and Blackmore (famous as Sir Richard Blackmore, the poet) were called in to attend him. On the case taking a fatal turn, Radcliffe was sent for; and after roundly charging the two doctors with the grossest mismanagement of a simple attack of rash, went on, " It would have been happy for this nation had you, sir, been bred up a basket- maker — and you, sir, had remained a country schoolmaster, rather than have ventured out of your reach, in the practice of an art which you are an utter stranger to, and for your blunders in which you ought to be whipped with one of your own rods." The reader will not see the force of this delicate speech if he is not aware that Hannes was generally believed to be the son of a basket- maker, and Sir Eichard Blackmore had in the period of his early poverty, like Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith, been a teacher of boys. When- ever " The Amenities of the Faculty" come to be published, this consultation, on the last illness of Jenkin Lewis's little friend, ought to have its niche in the collection. " Towards the conclusion of his life, Radchffe said that, "when a young practitioner, he possessed twenty remedies for every disease; and at the 140 DANDRIDGE THE APOTHECARY. close of his career he found twenty diseases for which he had not one remedy." His mode of practice, however, as far as anything is known about it, at the outset was the same as that which he used at the conclusion of his career. Pure air, cleanliness, and a wholesome diet were amongst his most important prescriptions ; though he was so far from running counter to the interest of the druggists, that his apothecary, Dandridge, whose business was almost entirely confined to preparing the doctor's medicines, died worth 50,000/. For the imaginary maladies of his hypochondriacal male and fanciful female patients he had the greatest contempt, and neither respect for age or rank, nor considerations of interest, would always restrain him from insulting such pa- tients. In 1686 he was appointed physician to Princess Anne of Denmark, and was for some years a trusted adviser of that royal lady ; but he lacked the compliant temper and imperturbable suavity requisite for a court-physician. Shortly after the death of Queen Mary, the Princess Anne, having incurred a fit of what is by the vul- gar termed " blue devils," from not paying proper attention to her diet, sent in all haste for her phy- sician. RadclifFe, when he received the impera- tive summons to hurry to St. James's, was sitting over his bottle in a tavern. The allurements of Bacchus were too strong for him, and he delayed COUKT FROWNS. 141 his visit to the distinguished sufferer. A second messenger arrived, but by that time the physician was so gloriously ennobled with claret, that he dis - carded all petty considerations of personal advan- tage, and flatly refused to stir an inch from the room where he was experiencing all the happiness humanity is capable of. " Tell her Royal High- ness," he exclaimed, banging his fist on the table, " that her distemper is nothing but the vapours. She's in as good a state of health as any woman breathing — only she can't make up her mind to be- lieve it." The next morning prudence returned with sobriety ; and the doctor did not fail to present himself at an early hour in the Princess's apart- ment in St. James's palace. To his consternation he was stopped in the ante-room by an oflacer, and informed that he was dismissed from his post, which had already been given to Dr. Gibbons. Anne never forgave the sarcasm about " the va- pours." It so rankled in her breast, that, though she consented to ask for the Doctor's advice both for herself and those dear to her, she never again held any cordial communication with him. Rad- cliffe tried to hide the annoyance caused him by his fall, in a hurricane of insolence towards his triumphant rival : Nurse Gibbons had gotten a new nursery — Nurse Gibbons was not to be envied his new acquisition — Nurse Gibbons was 142 kadcliffe's fees. fit only to look after a woman wlio merely fan- cied herself ill. Notwithstanding this rupture with the Court, EadclifFe continued to have the most lucrative practice in town. In all that regarded money he was from first to last a most lucky man. On coming to town he found Lower, the Whig phy- sician, sinking in public favour — and Thomas Short, the Eoman Catholic doctor, about to drop into the grave. Whistler, Sir Edmund King, and Black- more had plenty of patients. But there was a " splendid opening," and so cleverly did Radcliffe slip into it, that at the end of his first year in town he made more than twenty guineas per diem. The difference in the value of money be- ing taken into consideration, it may be safely affirmed that no living physician makes more. Occasionally the fees presented to him were very large. He cured Bentinck, afterwards Earl of Portland, of a diarrhoea, and Zulestein, afterwards Earl of Bochford, of an attack of congestion of the brain. For these services William III. pre- sented him with 500 guineas out of the privy- purse, and offered to appoint him one of his phy- sicians, with 200Z. per annum more than he gave any other of his medical officers. Radcliffe pocketed the fee, but his Jacobite principles pre- cluded him from accepting the post. William, however, notwithstanding the opposition of Bidloe SIR GODFEEY KNELLEE. 143 and the rest of his medical servants, held Ead- clifFe in such estimation that he continually con- sulted him ; and during the first eleven years of his reign paid him, one year with another, 600 guineas per annum. And when he restored to health William, Duke of Gloucester (the Princess of Denmark's son) who in his third year was at- tacked with severe convulsions, Queen Mary sent him, through the hand of her Lord Chamberlain, a 1000 guineas. And for attending the Earl of Albemarle at Namur he had 400 guineas and a diamond ring, 1200 guineas from the treasury, and an offer of a baronetcy from the King. For many years he was the neighbour of Sir Godfrey Kneller, in Bow Street. A dispute that occurred between the two neighbours and friends is worth recording. Sir Godfrey took pleasure in his garden, and expended large sums of money in stocking it with exotic plants and rare flowers. Radcliffe also enjoyed a garden, but loved his fees too well to expend them on one of his own. He suggested to Sir Godfrey that it would be a good plan to insert a door into the boundary wall be- tween their gardens, so that on idle afternoons, when he had no patients to visit, he might slip into his dear friend's pleasure-grounds. Kneller readily assented to this proposition, and ere a week had elapsed the door was ready for use. The plan, however, had not been long acted on 144 DISLIKED BY LADIES. when the painter was annoyed by RadclifFe's ser- vants wantonly injuring his parterres. After fruitlessly expostulating against these depredations^ the sufferer sent a message to his friend, threaten- ing, if the annoyance recurred, to brick up the wall. " Tell Sir Godfrey," answered Radcliffe to the messenger, '' that he may do what he likes to the door, so long as he does not paint it." When this vulgar jeer was reported to Kneller, he replied, with equal good-humour and wit, "Go back and give my service to Dr. Radcliffe, and tell him, I'll take anything from him — but physic." Radcliffe was never married, and professed a degree of misogyny that was scarcely in keeping with his conduct on certain occasions. His person was handsome and imposing, but his manners were little calculated to please women. Over- bearing, truculent, and abusive, he could not rest without wounding the feelings of his companions with harsh jokes. Men could bear with him, but ladies were like Queen Anne in vehemently dis- liking him. King William was not pleased with his brutal candour in exclaiming, at the sight of the dropsical ancles uncovered for inspection, " I would not have your majesty's legs for your three kingdoms.'' His sister-in-law, for a much slio'hter offence, was seized with life-long indigna- tion. In 1693, however, the doctor made an offer to a citizen's daughter, who had beauty and a for- THE DOCTOR IN LOVE AGAIN. 145 tune of 15,000/. As she was only twenty-four years of age, the doctor was warmly congratulated by his friends when he informed them that he, though well-advanced in middle age, had suc- ceeded in his suit. Before the wedding-day, how- ever, it was discovered that the health of the lady rendered it incumbent on her honour that she should marry her father's book-keeper. This mishap soured the doctor's temper to the fair sex, and his sarcasms at feminine folly and frailty were innumerable. He was fond of declarino* that he wished for an act of parliament entitling nurses to the sole and entire medical care of women. A lady who consulted him about a nervous singino^ in the head was advised to ^' curl her hair with a ballad." His scorn of women was not lessened by advances made to him by certain disorderly ladies of con- dition, who displayed for him a passion of that kind which medical practitioners have often to resist in the treatment of hysterical patients. Yet he tried his luck once again at the table of love. '^ There's no fool so great as an old fool." In the summer of 1709, Radcliffe, then in his sixtieth year, started a new equipage ; and having arrayed himself In the newest mode of foppery, threw all the town into fits of laughter by paying his ad- dresses, with the greatest possible publicity, to a lady who possessed every requisite charmx — (youth, VOL. I. L 146 THE TATLER. beauty, wealth) — except a tenderness for her aged suitor. Again was there an unlucky termination to the doctor's love, which Steele, in No. 44 of The Tatler^ ridiculed in the following manner : — " This day, passing through Covent Garden, I was stopped in the Piazza by Pacolet, to observe what he called The Triumph of Love and Youth, I turned to the object he pointed at, and there I saw a gay gilt chariot, drawn by fresh prancing horses, the coachman with a new cockade, and the lacqueys with insolence and plenty in their coun- tenances. I asked immediately, ^ What young heir, or lover, owned that glittering equipage ? ' But my companion interrupted, ' Do not you see there the mourning ^sculapius ? ' ' The mourn- ing? ' said I. ^ Yes, Isaac,' said Pacolet, ^ he is in deep mourning, and is the languishing, hopeless lover of the divine Hebe, the emblem of Youth and Beauty. That excellent and learned sage you behold in that furniture is the strongest in- stance imaginable that love is the most powerful of all things. " ' You are not so ignorant as to be a stranger to the charactor of iEsculapius, as the patron and most successful of all who profess the Art of Medi- cine. But as most of his operations are owing to a natural sagacity or impulse, he has very little troubled himself with the Doctrine of Drugs, but has always given Nature more room to help herself HEBE AND ^SCULAPIUS. 147 than any of her learned assistants ; and conse- quently has done greater wonders than in the power of Art to perform ; for which reason he is half deifyed by the people, and has ever been courted by all the world, just as if he were a seventh son. " ' It happened that the charming Hebe was re- duc'd, by a long and violent fever, to the most ex- tream danger of Death ; and when all skill failed, they sent for ^sculapius. The renowned artist was touched with the deepest compassion, to see the faded charms and faint bloom of Hebe ; and had a generous concern, too, in beholding a struggle, not between Life, but rather between Youth, and Death. All his skill and his Passion tended to the recovery of Hebe, beautiful even in sickness ; but, alas ! the unhappy physician knew not that in all his care he was only sharpening darts for his own destruction. In a word, his fortune was the same with that of the statuary who fell in love with an image of his own making ; and the unfor- tunate ^sculapius is become the patient of her whom he lately recovered. Long before this, ^sculapius was far gone in the unnecessary and superfluous amusements of old age, in the increase of unTN-ieldy stores, and the provision in the midst of an incapacity of enjoyment, of what he had for a supply of more wants than he had calls for in Youth itself. But these low considerations are l2 148 A SECOND ATTACK. now no more ; and Love has taken place of Ava- rice, or ratlier is become an Avarice of another kind, which still urges him to pursue what he does not want. But behold the metamorphosis : the anxious mean cares of an usurer are turned into the languishments and complaints of a lover. ' Behold,' says the aged ^sculapiu?, ^ I submit ; I own, great love, thy empire. Pity, Hebe, the fop you have made. What have I to do with gilding but on Pills ? Yet, O Fate ! for thee I sit amidst a crowd of painted deities on my chariot, buttoned in gold, clasp'd in gold, without having any value for that beloved metal, but as it adorns the per- son, and laces the hat, of the dying lover. 1 ask not to live, O Hebe 1 Give me but gentle death. Euthanasia, Euthanasia! that is all I implore.' When ^sculapius had finished his complaint, Pacolet went on in deep morals on the uncertainty of riches, with this remarkable explanation — ' O wealth ! how impatient art thou ! And how little dost thou supply us with real happiness, when the usurer himself cannot forget thee, for the love of what is foreign to his felicity, as thou art ? ' " Seven days after the Tatler resumed the attack, but with less happy effect. In this picture, the justice of which was not questioned, even by the Doctor's admirers, the avarice of the veteran is not less insisted on as the basis of his character, than his amorousness is displayed as a ludicrous OLD AT SIXTY. 149 freak of servile vanity. (Gentlemen of sixty need not stand aghast at this expression. Rad- cliffe was a deep toper — even for the time of Queen Anne; and deep topers lose their youth and manly vigour sooner than the temperate.) Indeed, love of money was the master-defect of Radcliffe's disposition. Without a child, or a pros- pect of offspring, he screwed and scraped in every direction. Even his debaucheries had an alloy of discomfort that does not customarily mingle in the dissipations of the rich. The flaA^our of the money each bottle cost gave an ungrateful smack to his wine. He had numerous poor relations, of whom he took, during his life, little or no notice. Even his sisters he kept at arm's distance, lest they should show their affection for him by dipping their hands in his pockets. It is true, he provided liberally for them at his death — leaving to the one (a married lady — Mrs. Hannah Redshaw) a thousand a year for life, and to the other (a spinster lady) an income of half that amount as long as she lived. But that he treated them with unbrotherly neglect there is no doubt. After his decease, a letter was found in his closet, directed to his unmarried sister, Millicent Radcliffe, in which, with contrition, and much pathos, he bids her a farewell. " You will find," says he, in that epistle, '^ by my will that I have taken better care of you than perhaps you might 150 MEANNESS AND GENEKOSITT. expect from my former treatment of you; for which, with my dying breath, I most heartily ask pardon. I had indeed acted the brother's part much better, in making a handsome settlement on you while living, than after my decease ; and can plead nothing in excuse, but that the love of money, which I have emphatically known to be the root of all evil, was too predominant over me. Though, I hope, I have made some amends for that odious sin of covetousness, in my last dispo- sitions of those worldly goods which it pleased the great Dispenser of Providence to bless me with." What made this meanness of disposition in money matters the more remarkable was that he was capable of occasional munificence, on a scale almost beyond his wealth, and also of a stoical fortitude under any reverse of fortune that chanced to deprive him of some of his beloved guineas. In the year 1704, at a general collection for propagating the Gospel in foreign parts, he settled on the Society established for that pur- pose 50/. per annum for ever. And this noble gift he unostentatiously made under an assumed name. In the same year he presented 520Z, to the Bishop of Norwich, to be distributed among the poor non-juring clergy ; and this donation he also desired should be kept a secret from the world. JAMES DRAKE. 151 His liberality to Oxford was far from being all of the post-mortem sort. In 1687 he presented the chapel of University College with an east window, representing, in stained glass, the Na- tivity, and having the following inscription: — "D.D. Johan Radcliffe, M.D. hujus CoUegii quondam Socius, Anno Domini mdclxxxvii." In 1707 he gave Sprat, Bishop of Eochester, bills for 300/., drawn under the assumed name of Francis Andrews, on Waldegrave the goldsmith, of RusseU Street, Covent Garden, for the relief of distressed Scotch Episcopal clergy. As another instance of how his nio^orard nature CDC) could allow him to do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame, his liberality to James Drake, the Tory writer, may be mentioned. Drake was a physician, as well as a political author. As the latter, he was well liked, as the former he was honestly hated by Radcliffe. Two of a trade — where one of the two is a John Radcliffe — can never agree. Each of the two doctors had done his utmost to injure the reputation of the other. But when Drake, broken in circumstances by a political persecution, was in sore distress from want of money, Radcliffe put fifty guineas into a lady's hands, and begged her to convey it to Drake. "Let him," said Radcliffe, with the delicacy of a fine heart, "by no means be told whence it comes. He is a gentleman, and has 152 THE MITRE TAVERN. often done his best to hurt me. He could, there- fore, by no means brook the receipt of a benefit from a person whom he had used all possible means to make an enemy " After such instances of Radcliffe's generosity, it may seem unnecessary to give more proofs of the existence of that quality, disguised though it was by miserly habits. His friend Nutley, a loose rollicking gentleman about town, a barrister without practice, a man of good family and no fortune, a jovial dog, with a jest always on his lips, wine in his head, and a death's-head grinning over each shoulder [such bachelors may still be found in London], was in this case the object of the doctor's benevolence. Driven by duns and tippling to the borders of distraction, Nutley crept out of his chambers under the cover of night to the "Mitre Tavern," and called for "a bottle." [The writer of these pages has himself heard that same order given to a dingy little waiter, in the dingy little coffee-room of that same dingy little house of entertainment.] " A bottle " with Nutley meant '' many bottles." The end of it was that the high-spirited gentleman fell down in a condition of well ! in a con- dition that Templars, in this age of earnest pur- pose and decent morals, would blush to be caught in. Mr. Nutley was taken hold of by the waiters, THE WIDOW WATTS. 153 and carried up- stairs to bed. [A very queer, dingy little bed-room it is.] The next morning the merry fellow is in the saddest of all possible humours. The memory of a few little bills, the holders of which are holding a parliament on his staircase in Pump-court ; the recollection that he has not a guinea left — either to pacify those creditors with, or to use in paying for the wine consumed over night ; a depressing sense that the prominent features of civilized ex- istence are tax-gatherers and hot coppers ; a head that seems to be falling over one side of the pillow, whilst the eyes roll out on the other ! Poor Mr. Nutley ! A knock at the door, and the land- lady enters. The landlady is the widow Watts, daughter of the widow Bowles, also in the same line. As now, so a hundred and fifty years ago, ladies in licensed victualling circles played tricks with their husbands' night-caps — killed them with kindness, and reigned in their stead. The widow Watts has a sneaking fondness for poor Mr. Nutley, and is much affected when, in answer to her inquiry how "his honour feels his-self," he begins to sob like a child, narrate the troubles of his infancy, the errors of his youth, and the sor- rows of his riper age. Mistress Watts is alarmed. Only to think of Mr. Nutley going on like that, talking of his blessed mother who had been dead these twenty years, and vowing he'd kill himself, 154 RADCLIPFE HIS OWN APOTHECARY. for he was an unfortunate beast, and no better than a disgrace to his family. " To think of it ! and only yesterday he were the top of company, and would have me drink his own honourable health in a glass of his own wine." Mistress Watts sends straightway for Squire Nutley's friend, the Doctor. When EadcliiFe makes his appearance, he sees the whole case at a glance, rallies Billy Nutley about his rascally morals, estimates his assertion that " it's only his liver a little out of order" exactly at its worth, and takes his leave shortly, saying to himself, " If poor Billy could only be freed from the depression caused by his present pecuniary difficulties, he would escape for this once a return of the deliri . . ." At the end of another half hour, a goldsmith's man enters the bed-room, and puts into Nutley's hand a letter and a bag of gold containing 200 guineas. The epistle was from Radcliffe, begging his friend to accept the money, and to allow the donor to send him in a few days 300 more of the same coins. Such was the physician's prescrip- tion, in dispensing which he condescended to act as his own apothecary. Bravo, doctor ! — who of us shall say which of the good deeds — thy gift to Billy Nutley or thy princely bequest to Oxford— r has the better right to be regarded as the off- spring of sincere benevolence ? Some — and let no ^*fiel" be cried upon them— will find in this story WILLY NUTLET IS " CAEEIED OFF." 155 more to make them love thy memory than they have ever found in that noble library whose dome stands up amidst the towers, and steeples, and sacred walls of beloved Alma Mater. It would not be hard to say which of the two gifts has done the greater good. Poor Will Nutley took his 500 guineas, had " more bottles," went a few more times to the theatres in lace and velvet and brocade, roared out at a few more driuking bouts, and was carried off by [his bio- grapher calls it " a violent fever"] in the twenty- ninth year of his age. And possibly since Willy Nutley was Willy Nutley, and no one else, this was the best possible termination for him. That Radcliffe, the head of a grave profession, and a man of fifty-seven years of age, should have con- ceived an enthusiastic friendship for a youugster of half his age, is a fact that affords us an insio^ht into one of the consequences of the tavern life of our great-grandfathers. It puts us in mind of how Fielding, ere he had a beard, burst into popularity with the haunters of coffee-houses. When roistering was in fashion, a young man had many chances which he no longer possesses. After the theatres were closed, he reeled into hostels of the town, singing snatches with the blithe clear voice of youth, laughing and jesting with all around, and frequently amongst that " all" he came in contact with the highest and 156 OBADIAH WALKER. most powerful men of the time. A boy-adven- turer could display his wit and quality to states- men and leaders of all sorts; whereas now he must wait years before he is even introduced to them, and years more ere he gets an invitation to their formal dinners, at which Barnes Newcome cuts as brilliant a figure as the best and the strongest. Throughout his life Radcliffe was a staunch and manly Jacobite. He was for " the king ; " but neither loyalty nor interest could blind him to higher considerations than those of attachment to the individual he regarded as the rightful head of the realm. In 1688, when Obadiah Walker tried to wheedle him into the folly of becoming a Romanist, the attempt at perversion proved a signal failure. Nothing can be more manly than his manner of rejecting the wily advances of the proselytizing pervert. " The advantages you pro- pose to me," he writes, ^' may be very great, for all that I know : God Almighty can do very much, and so can the king; but you'll pardon me if I cease to speak like a physician for once, and, with an air of gravity, am very apprehensive that I may anger the one in being too com- plaisant to the other. You cannot call this pinning my faith to any man's sleeve ; those that know me are too well apprized of my quite contrary tendency. As I never flattered a man myself, so *tis my firm resolution never to be wheedled out INTERMENT OF WALKER. 157 of my real sentiments — which are, that since it has been my good fortune to be educated ac- cording to the usage of the Church of England, established by law, I shall never make myself so unhappy as to shame my teachers and instructors by departing from what I have imbibed from them." Thus was Walker treated when he abused his position as head of University College. But when the foolish man was deprived of his office, he found a good friend in him whom he had tried to seduce from the Church in which he had been reared. From the time of his first coming to London from Oxford, on the abdication of James the Second, up to the time of his death, Walker subsisted on a handsome allowance made to him out of RadclifFe's purse. When, also, the dis- carded principal died, it was the Doctor who gave him an honourable interment in Pancras church- yard, and years afterwards erected a monument to his memory. As years passed on, without the restitution of the proscribed males of the Stuart House, Eatlcliffe's political feelings became more bitter. He was too cautious a man to commit himself in any plot having for its object a change of dynasty; but his ill-humour at the existing state of things vented itself in continual sarcasms against the chiefs of the Whig party with whom he came in 158 WHIGS AND TORIES. contact. He professed that he did not wish for practice amongst the faction to which he was opposed. He had rather only preserve the lives of those citizens who were loyal to their king. One of the immediate results of this affectation was increased popularity with his political an- tagonists. Whenever a Whig leader was danger- ously ill, his friends were sure to feel that his only chance of safety rested on ministrations of the Jacobite doctor. Radcliffe would be sent for, and after swearing a score times that nothing should induce him to comply with the summons, made his appearance at the sick-bed, where he would sometimes tell the sufferer that the devil would have no mercy on those who put consti- tutional government above the divine right of kings. If the patient recovered, of course his cure was attributed to the Tory physician ; and if death was the result, the same cause was pointed to. It might be fancied that, rather than incur a charge of positively killing his political antagonists, Radcliffe would have left them to their fates. But this plan would have served him the reverse of well. If he failed to attend a Whig's death-bed to which he had been summoned, the death was all the same attributed to him. "He might," exclaimed the indignant survivors, " have saved poor Tom, if he had liked ; only poor Tom was a burnet's history. 159 Whig, and so he left him to die." He was alike charged with killing Queen Mary, whom he did attend in her dying illness — and Queen Anne, whom he didn't. The reader of the Harleian MS. of Burnet's " History " is amused with the following passage, which does not appear in the printed editions : — " I will not enter into another province, nor go out of my own profession, and so will say no more of the physician's part, but that it was universally condemned ; so that the Queen's death was imputed to the unskilfulness and wil- fulness of Dr. RadclifFe, an impious and vicious man, who hated the Queen much, but virtue and religion more. He was a professed Jacobite, and was, by many, thought a very bad physician; but others cried him up to the highest degree imaginable. He was called for, and it appeared but too evidently that his opinion was depended on. Other physicians were called when it was too late; all symptoms were bad, yet still the Queen felt herself well." Radcliffe's negative murder of Queen Anne was yet more amusing than his positive destruc- tion of Mary. When Queen Anne was almost in extremis, Radcliffe was sent for. The Queen, though she never forgave him for his drunken ridi- cule of her vapours, had an exalted opinion of his professional talents, and had, more than once, 160 BEING REVENGED ON AN ENEMY. winked at her ladies consulting him about the health of their royal mistress. Now that death was at hand, Lady Masham sent a summons for the Doctor ; but he was at Carshalton, sick of his dying illness, and returned answer that it would be impossible for him to leave his country-seat and wait on her Majesty. Such was the absurd and superstitious belief in his mere presence, that the Queen was popularly pictured as having died because he was not present to see her draw her last breath. Whom he liked he could kill, and whom he liked keep alive and well. Even Arbuth- not, a brother physician, was so tinctured with the popular prejudice, that he could gravely tell Swift of the pleasure RadcliflPe had " in preserving my Lord Chief Justice Holt's wife, whom he attended out of spite to her husband, who wished her dead." It makes one smile to read Charles Ford's letter to the sarcastic Dean on the subject of the Queen's last illness. " She continued ill the whole day. In the evening I spoke to Dr. Arbuthnot, and he told me that he did not think her distemper was desperate. RadclifFe was sent for to Carshalton about noon, by order of council ; but said he had taken physic and could not come. In all j)roba'' hility he had saved her life ; for I am told the late Lord Gower had been often in the condition with the gout in his head, and liadcliffe kept him alive many GIVE US BACK OUR QUEEN. 161 years after r The author of Gulliver must have grinned as he read this sentence. It vras strange stuff to write about *^ that puppy Radcliffe " (as the Dean calls the physician in his journal to SteUa) to the man who coolly sent out word to a Dublin mob that he had put off an eclipse to a more suitable time. The absurdity of Ford's letter is heightened by the fact that it was written before the Queen's death. It is dated July 31, 1714, and concludes with the following postscript ; — " The Queen is something better, and the council again adjourned till eight in the morning." Surely the accusation, then, of nega- tive woman-slaughter was preferred somewhat pre- maturely. The next day, however, the Queen died; and then arose a magnificent hubbub of indignation against the impious doctor. The poor man, him- self sinking into the grave, was at that country- seat where he had entertained his medical friends with so many noisy orgies. But the cries for vengeance reached him in his retreat. ^' Give us back our ten days ! " screamed the rabble of Lon- don round Lord Chesterfield's carriage. " Give us back our Queen ! " was the howl directed against Radcliffe. The accused was a member of the House of Commons, having been elected M.P. for the town of Buckingham in the previous year ; and positively a member (one of Radcliffe's intimate personal acquaintances) moved that VOL. I. M 162 THE PEOPLE ABOUT HEE. the physician should be summoned to at- tend in his place and be censured for not at- tending her late majesty. To a friend the doctor wrote from Carshalton on Aug. 7, 1714: — "Dear Sir, — I could not have thought so old an acquaint- ance, and so good a friend as Sir John always professed himself, would have made such a motion against me. God knows my will to do her ma- jesty any service has ever got the start of my ability, and I have nothing that gives me greater anxiety and trouble than the death of that great and glorious Princess. I must do that justice to the physicians that attended her in her illness, from a sight of the method that was taken for her preservation, transmitted to me by Dr Mead, as to declare nothing was omitted for her preserva- tion ; but the people about her (the plagues of Egypt fall upon them!) put it out of the power of physick to be of any benefit to her. I know the nature of attending crowned heads to their last moments too well, to be fond of waiting upon them, without being sent for by a proper authority. You have heard of pardons signed for physicians before a sovereign's demise. However, as ill as I was, I would have went to the Queen in a horse- litter, had either her majesty, or those in commis- sion next to her, commanded me so to do. You may tell Sir John as much, and assure him, from me, that his zeal for her majesty will not excuse A MURDEROUS CONSPIRACY. 163 his 111 usage of a fnencl icho has drunk many a hundred bottles with him^ and cannot, even after this breach of a good understanding, that was ever preserved between us, but have a very good esteem for him." So strong was the feeling against the doctor, that a set of maniacs at large formed a plan for his assassination. Fortunately, however, the plot was made known to him in the following letter : — " Doctor, — Tho' I am no friend of yours, but, on the contrary, one that could wish your destruction in a legal way, for not preventing the death of our most excellent Queen, whom you had it in your power to save, yet I have such an aversion to the taking away men's lives unfairly, as to acquaint you that if you go to meet the gentlemen you have appointed to dine with at the ' Greyhound,' in Croydon, on Thursday next, you will be most certainly murthered. I am one of the persons engaged in the conspiracy, with twelve more, who are resolved to sacrifice you to the Ghost of her late Majesty^ that cries aloud for blood ; therefore, nei- ther stir out of doors that day, nor any other, nor think of exchanging your present abode for your house at Hammersmith, since there and everywhere else we shall be in quest of you. I am touched with remorse, and give you this notice ; but take care of yourself, lest I repent of it, and give proofs of m2 164 THE GREAT DOCTOR DIES. SO doing, by having it in my power to destroy you, who am your sworn enemy. — N. G." That thirteen men could have been found to meditate such a ridiculous atrocity is so incredible, that one is inclined to suspect a hoax in this epistle. RadclifFe, however, did not see the letter in that light. Panic-struck, he kept himself a close prisoner to his house and its precincts, though he was very desirous of paying another visit to Lon- don — the monotony of his rural seclusion being broken only by the customary visits of his profes- sional associates who came down to comfort and drink with him. The end, however, was fast approach- incr. The maladies under which he suffered were exacerbated by mental disquiet ; and his powers suddenly failing him, he expired on the 1st of November, 1714, just a month after the death of the murdered Queen, of whose vapours he had spoken so disrespectfully. His original biographer (from whose work all his many memoirs have been taken) tells the world that the great physician "/eZZ a victim to the ingratitude of a thankless world, and the fury of the gout" Radcliffe was an ignorant man, but shrewd enough to see that in the then existing state of medical science the book-learning of the Faculty could be but of little service to him. He was so notoriously deficient in the literature of his pro- mead's compliment. 165 fession, that his warmest admirers made merry about it. Garth happily observed that for Rad- clifFe to leave a library was as if a eunuch should found a seraglio. Nor was RadclifFe ashamed to admit his lack of lore. Indeed, he was proud of it ; and on the inquiry being made by Bathurst, the head of Trinity College, Oxford, where his study was, he pointed to a few vials, a skeleton, and an herbal, and answered, ^' This is Radcliffe's library." Mead, who rose into the first favour of the town as the doctor retired from it, was an ex- cellent scholar; but far from assuming on that ground a superiority to his senior, made it the means of paying him a graceful compliment. The first time that RadcliflTe called on Mead when in town he found his young friend reading Hip- pocrates. '' Do you read Hippocrates in Greek ?" de- manded the visitor. " Yes," replied Mead timidly, fearing his scho- larship would offend the great man. *' I never read him in my life," responded Rad- cliffe sullenly. *^ You, sir," was the rejoinder, " have no occa- sion — you are Hippocrates himself." A man who could manufacture flattery so promptly and courageously deserved to get on. RadclifFe swallowed the fly, and was glad to be the prey of the expert angler. Only the day 166 SECURELY HOOKED. before, Mead had thrown in his ground-bait. As a promising young man, Radcliffe had asked him to a dinner-party at Carshalton, with the hos- pitable resolve of reducing such a promising young man to a state of intoxication, in the presence of the assembled elders of his profession. Mead, however, was not to be so managed. He had strong nerves, and was cautious to drink as little as he could without attracting attention by his abstinence. The consequence was that Mead saw magnate after magnate disappear under the table, just as he had before seen magnum after magnum disappear upon it ; and still he retained his self-possession. At last he and his host were the only occupants of the banqueting-room left in a non-recumbent position. Radcliffe was de- lighted with his youthful acquaintance — loved him almost as well as he had loved Billy Nutley. " Mead," cried the enthusiastic veteran to the young man who anyhow had not fallen from his chair, " you are a rising man. You will succeed me." "That, sir, is impossible," Mead adroitly an- swered; "you are Alexander the Great, and no -one can succeed Radcliffe; to succeed to one of his kingdoms is the utmost of my ambition." Charmed with the reply, Radcliffe exclaimed, " By , I'll recommend you to my patients." The promise was kept ; and Mead endeavoured 167 to repay the worldly advancement with spi- ritual counsel. "I remember," says Kennett (vide Lansdowne MSS., Brit. Mus.), " what Dr. Mede has told to several of his friends, that he fell much into the favour of Dr. Eadcliffe a few years before his death, and visited him often at Carshalton, where he observed upon occasion that there was no Bible to be found in the house. Dr. Mede had a mind to supply that defect, with- out taking any notice of it ; and therefore one day carried down with him a very beautiful Bible that he had lately bought, which had lain in a closet of King William for his Majesty's own use, and left it as a curiosity that he had picked up by the way. When Dr. Mede made the last visit to him he found that Dr. R. had read in it as far as the middle of the Book of Exodus, from whence it might be inferred that he had never before read the Scriptures; as I doubt must be inferred of Dr. Lin acre, from the account given by Sir John Cheke." The allusion to " the kino^dom of Alexander the Great" reminds one of Arbuthnot's letter to Swift, in which the writer concludes his sketch of the proposed map of diseases for Martinus Scriblerus with — "Then the great diseases are like capital cities, with their symptoms all like streets and suburbs, with the roads that lead to other diseases. It is thicker set with towns than any Flanders 1 68 ANOTHER BLOW AT NURSE GIBBONS. map you ever saw. RadclifFe is painted at the corner of the map, contending for the universal empire of this world, and the rest of the physicians opposing his ambitious designs, with a project of a treaty of partition to settle peace." As a practitioner, RadclifFe served the public not less well than he did his own interests. The violent measures of bleeding, and the exhibition of reducing medicines, which constituted the popular practice even to the present generation, he re- garded with distrust in some cases and horror in others. There is a good story told of him, that well illustrates his disapproval of a kill-or-cure system, and his hatred of Nurse Gibbons. John Bancroft, the eminent surgeon, who resided in Russell-street, Covent Garden, had a son attacked with inflammation of the lungs. Gibbons was called in, and prescribed the most violent re- medies, or rather the most virulent irritants. The child became rapidly worse, and Radcliflfe was sent for. " I can do nothing, sir," observed the doctor, after visiting his patient, '^ for the poor little boy's preservation. He is killed to all in- tents and purposes. But if you have any thoughts of putting a stone over him, I'll help you to an inscription." The offer was accepted, and over the child's grave, in Covent Garden churchyard, was placed a stone sculptured with the figure of a child laying one hand on his side, and saying, MUNIFICENCE TO OXTORD. 169 "Hie dolor," and pointing with the other to a death's head on which was engraved, " Ibi medi- cus." This is about the prettiest professional libel which we can point to in all the quarrels of the Faculty. The uses to which the Doctor applied his wealth every one knows. Notwithstanding his occasional acts of munificence, and a loss of 5000^. in an East Indian venture, into which Betterton, the tragedian, seduced him, his accumulations were v^ry great. In his will, after liberally pro- viding for the members of his family and his dependents, he devoted his acquisitions to the benefit of the University of Oxford. From them have proceeded the Radcliffe Library, the Rad- cliffe Infirmary, the Radclifie Observatory, and the Radcliffe Travelling Fellowships. It is true that nothing has transpired in the history of these last-mentioned endowments to justify us in re- versing the sentiment of Johnson, who remarked to Boswell : " It is wonderful how little good Radcliffe's Travelling Fellowships have done. I know nothing that has been imported by them." After lying in state at his own residence, and again in the University, of which his fame as a distinguished member and benefactor will long live, Radcliffe's body was interred, with great pomp, in St. Mary's Church. The royal gift of so large an estate (which during life he had been un« 170 DE MORTUIS NIL, ETC. able thoroughly to enjoy) to purchase a library, the contents of which he at no time could have read, of course provoked much comment. It need not be said that the testator's memory was, for the most part, extolled to the skies. He had died rich — a great virtue in itself. He was dead ; and as men like to deal out censure as long as it can cause pain, and scatter praise when it can no longer create happiness, RadclifFe, the physician, the friend of suffering humanity, tlie benefactor of ancient and Tory Oxford, was spoken of in " most handsome terms." One could hardly be- lieve that this great good man, this fervent Christian and sublime patriot, was the same man as he whom Steele had ridiculed for servile vanity, and to bring whom into contempt a play was written, and publicly acted, only ten years before, to the intense delight of the Duchess of Marl- borough, and the applauding maids of honour. The philosophic Mandeville, far from approving the behaviour of the fickle multitude, retained his old opinion of the Doctor, and gave it to the world in his " Essay on Charity and Charity Schools." '^That a man," writes Mandeville, "with small skill in physick, and hardly any learning, should by vile arts get into practice, and lay up great wealth, is no mighty wonder; but that he should so deeply work himself into the good opinion of the world as to gain the general 171 esteem of a nation, and establish a reputation beyond all his contemporaries, with no other qualities but a perfect knowledge of mankind, and a capacity of making the most of it, is some- thing extraordinary. "If a man arrived to such a height of glory should be almost distracted with pride — sometime give his attendance on a servant, or any mean person for nothing, and, at the same time, neglect a nobleman that gives exorbitant fees — at other times refuse to leave his bottle for his business, without any regard to the quality of the persons that sent for him, or the danger they are in ; if he should be surly and morose, affect to be an humourist, treat his patients like dogs, though people of distinction, and value no man but what would deify him, and never call in question the certainty of his oracles ; if he should insult all the world, affront the first nobility, and extend his insolence even to the royal family ; if to maintain, as well as to increase, the fame of his sufficiency, he should scorn to consult his betters, on what emergency soever, look down with contempt on the most deserving of his profession, and never confer with any other physician but what will pay homage to his genius, creep to his humour, and ever approach him with all the slavish obse- quiousness a court flatterer can treat a prince with ; if a man in his life-time should discover, on 172 USE ALL MEN ILL. the one hand, such manifest symptoms of superla- tive pride, and an insatiable greediness after wealth at the same time ; and, on the other, no regard to religion or affection to his kindred, no compassion to the poor, and hardly any humanity to his fellow-creatures ; if he gave no proofs that he loved his country, had a public spirit, or was a lover of the arts, of books, or of literature — what must we judge of his motive, the principle he acted from, when, after his death, we find that he has left a trifle among his relations who stood in need of it, and an immense treasure to a Univer- sity that did not want it. " Let a man be as charitable as it is possible for him to be, without forfeiting his reason or good sense, can he think otherwise, but that this famous physician did, in the making of his will, as in everything else, indulge his darling passion, entertaining his vanity with the happiness of the contrivance ? " This severe portrait is just about as true as the likeness of a man, painted by a conscientious enemy, usually is. KadcliiFe was not endowed with a kindly nature. "Mead, I love you," said he to this fascinating adulator ; " and I'll tell you a sure secret to make your fortune — use all mankind ill." Radcliffe carried out his rule by wringing as much as possible from, and returning as little as possible to, his fellow-men. He could not pay a OLD TYSON OF HACKNEY 1 73 tradesman's bill without a sense of keen suffering. Even a poor pavior, who had been employed to do a job to the stones before the Doctor's house in Bloomsbury Square (whither the physician had removed from Bow Street), could not get his money without a contest. '' Why, you rascal ! '^ cried the debtor, as he alighted from his chariot, " do you pretend to be paid for such a piece of work ? Why, you have spoiled my pavement, and then covered it over with earth to hide the bad work." '^ Doctor," responded the man, dryly " mine is not the only bad work the earth hides." Of course, the only course to pursue with a creditor who could dun in this sarcastic style was to pay, and be rid of him. But the Doctor made up for his own avarice by being ever ready to condemn it in others. Tyson, the miser, being near his last hour, mag- nanimously resolved to pay two of his 3,000,000 guineas to RadclifFe, to learn if anything could be done for his malady. The miserable old man came up with his wife from Hackney, and tottered into the consulting-room in Bloomsbury Square, with two guineas in his hand — " You may go sir," exclaimed RadclifFe, to the astonished wretch, who trusted he was unknown — " you may go home, and die, and be , with- out a speedy repentance ; for both the grave and 174 JOE MILLERS FASTENED ON RADCLIFFE. the devil are ready for Tyson of Hackney, who has grown rich out of the spoils of the publick, and the tears of orphans and widows. You'll be a dead man, sir, in ten days." There are numerous stories extant relative to RadclifFe's practice; but nearly all those which bear the stamp of genuineness are unfit for publi- cation in the present polite age. Such stories as the hasty-pudding one re -edited by the pleasant author of " The Gold-headed Cane," can be found by the dozen, but the cumbrous workmanship of Mr. Joseph Miller is manifest in them all. 175 CHAPTER yill. THE DOCTOR AS A BON-VIYA^T. " What must I do, sir ? " enquired an indolent bon-vivant of Abernethy. "Live on sixpence a day, and earn it, sir," was the stem answer. Gabriel Fallopius, who has given his name to a structure with which anatomists are familiar, gave the same reproof in a more delicate manner. With a smile he replied in the words of Terence, '' Otio abundas Antipho," — " Sir, you're as lazy as Hall's dog." But, though medical practitioners have dealt in sayings like these, to do them bare justice, it must be admitted that their preaching has gener- ally been contradicted by their practice. TVTien medicine remained very much in the hands of the ladies, the composition of remedies, and the 176 ONE OF DK. KITCHTNER's DISCIPLES. making of dinners, went on in the same apartment. Indeed hunger and thirst were but two out of a list of diseases that were ministered to by the attendants round a kitchen table. The same book held the receipts for dishes and the recipes for electuaries. In many an old hall of England the manual still remains from which three centuries ago the lady of the house learned to dress a boar's head or cure a cold. Most physicians would now disdain to give dietetic instruction to a patient beyond the most general directions ; but there are cases where, even in these days, they stoop to do so, with advantage to themselves and their patients. " I have ordered twelve dinners this morning," a cheery little doctor said to the writer of these pages, on the white cliffs of a well-known seaside town. " Indeed — I did not know that was your busi- ness." " But it is. A host of rich old invalids come down here to be medicinally treated. They can't be happy without good living, and yet are so ignorant of the science and art of eating, that they don't know how to distinguish between a luxurious and pernicious diet, and a luxurious and wholesome one. They flock to the ^Duke's Hotel,' and I always tell tlie landlord what they are to have. Each dinner costs three or four guineas. They'd grudge them, and their con- FAT DOCTORS. 177 sciences would be uneasy at spending so much money, if they ordered their dinners themselves. But when they regard the fare as medicine recom- mended by the doctor, there is no drawback to their enjoyment of it. Their confidence in me is unbounded." The bottle and the board were once the doc- tor's two favourite companions. More than one eminent physician died in testifying his affection for them. In the days of tippling they were the most persevering of tavern-haunters. No wonder that some of them were as fat as Daniel Lambert, and that even more died sudden deaths from apoplexy. The obesity of Dr. Stafford was cele- brated in an epitaph: — "Take heed, good traveller, and do not tread hard, For here hes Dr. Stafford in all this churchyard." Dr. Beddoes was so stout that the Clifton ladies used to call him their "walking feather- bed." Dr. Flemyng weighed twenty stone and eleven pounds, till he reduced his weight by abstinence from the delicacies of the table, and by taking a quarter of an ounce of common Castile soap every night. Dr. Cheyne's weight was thirty-two stone, till be cured himself by persevering in a temperate diet. Laughing at two unwieldy noblemen whose VOL. I. N 178 A PARTY OF DOCTORS POISONED. corpulence was the favourite jest of all the wits in the court, Louis XY. said to one of them, "I suppose you take little or no exercise." ^'Your majesty will pardon me," replied the bulky duke, "for I generally walk two or three times round my cousin every morning." Sir Theodore Mayerne, who, though he was the most eminent physician of his time, did not dis- dain to write "Excellent and Well- Approved Receipts in Cookery, with the best way of Pre- serving," was killed by tavern wine. He died, after returning from supper In a Strand hotel ; his immediate friends attributing his unexpected death to the quality of the beverage, but others, less charitable, setting It down to the quantity. Not many years ago, about a score surgeons were dining together at a tavern, when, about five minutes after some very "particular port" had been sent round for the first time, they all fell back in their chairs, afflicted in various degrees with sickness, vertigo, and spasm. A more pleasant sight for the waiters can hardly be conceived. One after one they were conveyed to beds or sofas. Unfortunately for the startling effect which the story would otherwise have produced, they none of them expired. The next day they remem- bered that, instead of relishing the "particular port," they had detected a very unpleasant smack in it. The black bottles were demanded from the A NAUGHTY OLD GENTLEMAN. 179 trembling landlord, when chemical analysis soon discovered that they had been previously used for fly-poison, and had not been properly cleansed. A fine old crust of such a kind is little to be desired. It would perhaps have been well had old Butler (mentioned elsewhere in these volumes) met with a similar mishap, if it had only made him a less incessant frequenter of beer- shops. He loved tobacco, deeming it " A physician Good both for sound and sickly ; 'Tis a hot perfume That expels cold Rheume, And makes it flow down quickly." It is on record that he made one of his patients smoke twenty-five pipes at a sitting. But fond though he was of tobacco, he was yet fonder of beer. He invented a drink called " Butler's ale," afterwards sold at the Butler's Head, in Mason's Alley, Basinghall Street. Indeed, he was a sad old scamp. Nightly he would go to the tavern, and drink deeply for hours, till his maid-servant, old Nell, came between nine and ten o'clock and fetched him home, scolding him all the way for beino; such "a drunken beast." But though Butler liked ale and wine for himself, he thouo^ht highly of water for other people. When he occu- pied rooms in the Savoy, looking over the Thames, n2 180 THE BLOUD OF THE GEAPE. a gentleman afflicted with an ague came to con- sult him. Butler tipped the wink to his servants, who flung the sick man, in the twinkling of an eye, slap out of the window into the river. We are asked to believe that " the surprise absolutely cured " the patient of his malady. The physicians of Charles the Second's day were jolly fellows. They made deep drinking and intrigue a part of their profession as well as of their practice. Their books contain arguments in favour of indulgence, which their passions sug- gested and the taste of the times approved. Tobias Whitaker and John Archer, both physi- cians in ordinary to the merry monarch, were re- presentative men of their class. Whitaker, a Norfolk man, practised with success at Norwich before coming up to London. He published a discourse upon waters, that proved him very igno- rant of the subject; and a treatise on the properties of wine, that is a much better testimony to the soundness of his understanding. Prefixed to his " Elenchus of opinions on Small-Pox " is a por- trait that represents him as a well-looking fellow. That he was a sincere and discerning worshipper of Bacchus, is shown by " His tree of Humane Life, or the Bloud of the Grape. Proving the possibilitie of maintaining humane life from in- fancy to extreame old age without any sicknesse by the use of Wine." In this work (sold, by the ARCHEPw's " EVERY MAN HIS OWN DOCTOR." 181 way, in the author's shop, Pope's Head Alley) we read of wine. " This is the phisick that doth not dull, but sets a true edge upon nature, after operation leaveth no venomous contact. Sure I am this was ancient phisick, else what meant Avicenna, Hha^is, and Averroes, to move the body twice every month with the same ; as it is familiar to Nature, so they used it familiarly. As for my own experience, though I have not lived yet so long as to love excesse, yet have I scene such powerful effects, both on my selfe and others, as if I could render no other reason, they were enough to persuade me of its excellencie, seeing extenuate withered bodies by it cause to be faire, fresh, plumpe, and fat, old and infirme to be young and sound, when as water or small-beer drinkers looke like apes rather than men." John Archer, the author of " Every man his own Doctor," and '' Secrets disclosed," was an ad- vocate of generous diet and enlightened sensu- ality. His place of business was " a chamber in a Sadler's howse over against the Black Horse nigh Charing-cross," where his hours of attendance for some years were from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. On setting up a house at Knightsbridge, where he resided in great style, he shortened the number of hours daily passed in London. In 1684 he announced in one of his works — '^For these and other Directions you may send to the 182 DE. EVERARD. Author, at his chamber against the Mews by Char- ing-cross, who is certainly there from twelve to four, at other times at his house at Knightsbridge, being a mile from Charing-cross, where is good air for cure of consumptions, melancholy, and other infirmities." He had also a business establishment in Winchester Street, near Gresham College, next door to the Fleece Tavern. Indeed, physi- cian-in-ordinary to the King though he was, he did not think it beneath him to keep a number of apothecaries' shops, and, like Whitaker, to live by the sale of drugs as well as fees. His cordial dyet drink was advertised as costing 2s. %d per quart ; for a box containing 30 morbus pills, the charge was 5s; 40 corroborating pills were to be had for the same sum. Like Dr. Everard, he re- commended his patients to smoke, saying that "tobacco smoke purified the air from infectious ma- lignancy by its fragrancy, sweetened the breath, strengthened the brain and memory, and revived the sight to admiration." He sold tobacco, of a superior quality to the ordinary article of com- merce, at 2s. and Is. an ounce. " The order of taking it is like other tobacco at any time ; its virtues may be perceived by taking one pipe, after which you will spit more, and your mouth will be dryer than after common tobacco, which you may moisten by drinking any warm drink, as coffee, THE STOMACH BRUSH. 183 &c., or witli sugar candy, liquorish, or a raisin, and you will find yourself much refreshed." Whilst Whitaker and Archer were advicinor o men to smoke and drink, another physician of the court was inventing a stomach-brush, in some re- spects much like the bottle -brush with which fly- poison ought to be taken from the interior of black bottles before wine is committed to them. This instrument was pushed down the gullet, and then poked about and turned round, much in the same way as a chimney-sweeper's brush is handled by a dexterous operator on soot. It was recommended that gentlemen should thus sweep out their insides not oftener than once a week, but not less frequently than once a month. What a race of men our ancestors must have been ! The curious may find not only a detailed description but an engraved likeness of this re- markable stomach-brush, in the Gentlemari s Magazine, vol. xx., for the year 1 750. It would be unfair to take leave of Dr. Archer without mentioning his three inventions, on which he justly prided himself not a little. He con- structed a hot steam-bath, an oven " which doth with a small faggot bake a good quantity of any- thing," and '^ a compleat charriot that shall with any ordinary horse run swift with four or five people within, and there is place for more without, all which one horse can as easily draw as two 184 THE PHYSICIAN AND THE LADY. horses." In these days of vapour baths, bachelors' kettles, and broughams, surely Dr. Archer ought to have a statue by the side of Jenner in Tra- falgar Square. The doctors of Anne's time were of even looser morals than their immediate predecessors. In taverns, over wine, they received patients and apothecaries. It became fashionable (a fashion that has lasted down to the present day) for a physician to write his prescriptions illegibly; the mode, in all probability, arising from the fapt that the writer's hand was too unsteady to write legibly. Freind continually visited his patients in a state of intoxication. To one lady of high rank he came in such a state of confusion that when in her room he could only grumble to himself, ^' Drunk — drunk — drunk, by God!" Fortunately the fair patient was suffering from the same malady as her doctor, who (as she learnt from her maid on returning to consciousness) had made the above bluff comment on her case, and then had gone away. The next day, as Freind was sitting in a penitent state over his tea, debating what apology he should offer to his aristocratic patient, he was relieved from his perplexity by the arrival of a note from the lady herself, enclosing a handsome fee, imploring her dear Dr. Freind to keep her secret, and THE MAHOGANY TREE. 185 beofo-iniT him to visit her durinor the course of the day. On another occasion Freind wrote a prescrip- tion for a member of an important family, when his faculties were so evidently beyond his control that Mead was sent for. On arriving, Mead, with a characteristic delicacy towards his professional fiiend, took up the tipsy prescription, and having looked at it, said, "'Pon my honour, Dr. Freind can write a better prescription when drunk than I can when sober." Gibbons — the "Nurse Gibbons" of our old friend RadclifFe — was a deep drinker, disgusting, by the grossness of his debaucheries, the polite and epicurean Garth. But Gibbons did some- thinor for English dinner-tables worth remem- berinor. He brouo^ht into domestic use the ma- hogany with which one has so many pleasant associations. His brother, a West Indian Captain, brought over some of the wood as ballast, thinking it might possibly turn to uSe. At first the carpen- ters, in a truly conservative spirit, refused to have anything to do with the " new wood," saying it was too hard for their tools. Dr. Gibbons, how- ever, had first a candle-box and bureau made for Mrs. Gibbons out of the condemned material. The bureau so pleased his friends, amongst whom was the Duchess of Buckingham, that her Grace ordered a similar piece of furniture, and so intro- 1 86 THE CHEVALIER DE SOISSONS. duced the wood into high life, where it quickly became the fashion. Of RadclifFe's drunkenness mention is made elsewhere. As an eater, he was a gourmand^ not a gourmet. When Prince Eugene of Savoy- came over to England on a diplomatic mission, his nephew, the Chevalier de Soissons, fell into the fashion of the town, roaming it at night in search of frays — a roaring, swaggering mohock. The sprightly Chevalier took it into his head that it would be a pleasant thing to thrash a watch- man ; so he squared up to one, and threatened to kill him. Instead of succumbing, the watchman returned his assailant's blows, and gave him an awful thrashing. The next day, what with the mauling he had undergone, and what with deliriujn tremens, the merry roisterer was declared by his physician, Sieur Swartenburgh, to be in a dying state. Radcliffe was called in, and, acting on his almost invariable rule, told Prince Eugene that the young man must die, because Swartenburgh had maltreated him. The prophecy was true, if the criticism was not. The Chevalier died, and was buried amongst the Ormond family, in West- minster Abbey — it being given out to the public that he had died of small-pox. Prince Eugene conceived a strong liking for Radcliffe, and dined with him at the Doctor's residence. The dinner Radcliffe put before his 187 guest is expressive of tlie coarseness both of the times and the man. On the table the only viands were barons of beef, jiggets of mutton, legs of pork, and such other ponderous masses of butcher's stuff, which no decent man can look at without discomfort, when the first edge has been taken off his appetite. Prince Eugene expressed himself delighted with " the food and liquors ! " George Fordyce, like Kadcliffe, was fond of substantial fare. For more than twenty years he dined daily at Dolly's Chophouse. The dinner he there consumed was his only meal during the four-and-twenty hours, but its bulk would have kept a boa-constrictor happy for a twelvemonth. Four o'clock was the hour at which the repast commenced, when, punctual to a minute, the Doctor seated himself at a table specially reserved for him, and adorned with a silver tankard of strong ale, a bottle of port-wine, and a measure containing a quarter of a pint of brandy. Before the dinner was first put on, he had one light dish of a broiled fowl, or a few whitings. Having leisurely devoured this plate, the Doctor took one glass of brandy, and asked for his steak. The steak was always a prime one, weighing one pound and a-half. When the man of science had eaten the whole of it, he took the rest of his brandy, then drank his tankard of heady ale, and, lastly, sipped down his bottle of port. Having 188 EATING AND DEINKING. brought his intellects, up or down, to the standard of his pupils, he rose, and walked down to his house in Essex Street, to give his six o'clock lecture on Chemistry. Dr. Beauford was another of the eighteenth- century physicians who thought temperance a vice that hadn't even the recommendation of transient pleasure. A Jacobite of the most enthu- siastic sort, he was not less than Freind a favour- ite with the aristocracy who countenanced the Stuart faction. As he was known to be very intimate with Lord Barrymore, the Doctor was summoned, in 1745, to appear before the Privy- Council, and answer the questions of the cus- todians of his Majesty's safety and honour. " You know Lord Barrymore ? " said one of the Lords of Council. "Intimately — most intimately" — was the an- swer. "You are continually with him? " " We dine together almost daily when his lord- ship is in town." "What do you talk about?" " Eating and drinking." "And what else?" " Oh, my lord, we never talk of anything except eating and drinking — drinking and eating." A good deal of treasonable sentiment might have been exchanged in these discussions of SAGE ADVICE. 189 eating and drinking. "God send this crum-well down ! " was the ordinary toast of the Cavalier during the glorious Protectorate of OHver. And long afterwards, English gentlemen of Jacobite sympathies, drinking "to the King," before they raised the glass to their lips, put it over the water- bottle, to indicate where the King was whose pros- perity they pledged. At the tavern in Finch Lane, where Beauford received the apothecaries who followed him, he drank freely, but never was known to give a glass from his bottle to one of his clients. In this re- spect he resembled Dr. Gaskin of Plymouth, a phy- sician in a fine practice in Devonshire at the close of the last century, w^ho once said to a young beginner in his profession, "Young man, when you get a fee, don't give fifteen shillings of it back to your patient in beef and port-wine." Contemporary with Beauford was Dr. Barrowby — wit, scholar, political partisan, and toper. Bar- rowby was the hero of an oft-told tale, recently attributed in the newspapers to Abernethy. When canvassing for a place on the staff of St. Bartho- lomew's Hospital, Barrowby entered the shop of one of the governors, a grocer on Snow-Hill, to solicit his influence and vote. The tradesman, bursting with importance, and anticipating the pleasure of getting a very low bow from a gentle- man, strutted up the shop, and, with a mixture of 1 90 A POUND OF PLUMS. insolent patronage and insulting familiarity, cried, " Well, friend, and what is your business ? " Barrowby paused for a minute, cut him right through with the glance of his eye, and then saidj quietly and slowly, " I want a pound of plums." Confused and blushing, the grocer did up the plums. Barrowby put them in his pocket, and went away, without asking the fellow for his vote. A good political story is told of Barrowby, the incident of which occurred in 1749, eleven years after his translation of Astruc's "Treatise" ap- peared. Lord Trentham (afterwards Lord Gower) and Sir George Vandeput, were contesting the election for Westminster. Barrowby, a vehement supporter of the latter, was then in attendance on the notorious Joe Weatherby, master of the " Ben Johnson's Head," in Eussell Street, who lay in a perilous state, emaciated by nervous fever. Mrs. Weatherby was deeply afflicted at her husband's condition, because it rendered him unable to vote for Lord Trentham. Towards the close of the polling days the Doctor, calling one day on his patient, to his great astonishment found him up, and almost dressed by the nurse and her assistants. " Hey-day ! what's the cause of this 1" exclaims Barrowby. "Why are you up without my leave?" THE CASE IS ALTERED. - 191 " Dear doctor," says Joe, in a broken yoice, " I am going to poll." " To poll !" roars Barrowby, supposing the man to hold his wife's political opinions, " you mean — going to the devil ! Get to bed, man, the cold air will kill you. If you don't get into bed in- stantly, you'll be dead before the day is out." " I'll do as you bid me, doctor," was the re- luctant answer. ^' But as my wife was away for the morning, I thought I could get as far as Covent Garden church, and vote for Sir George Vandeput." " How, Joe, for Sir George ?" " Oh, yes, sir, I don't go with my wife. I am a Sir George's man." Barrowby was struck by a sudden change for the better in the man's appearance, and said, " Wait a minute, nurse. Don't pull off his stock- ings. Let me feel his pulse. Humph — a good firm stroke ! You took the pills I ordered you?" ^' Yes, sir, but they made me feel very ill." "Ay, so much the better; that's what I wi-hed. Xurse, how did he sleep f " Charminly, sir." " Well, Joe," said Barrowby, after a few seconds' consideration, "if you are bent on going to this election, your mind ought to be set at rest. It's a fine sunny day, and a ride wiU very 192 baerowbt's death. likely do you good. So, bedad, I'll take you with me in my chariot." Delighted with his doctor's urbanity, Weather- by was taken off in the carriage to Covent Garden, recorded his vote for Sir George Yande- put, was brought back in the same vehicle, and died two hours afterwards, amidst the reproaches of his wife and her friends of the Court party. Charles the Second was so impressed with the power of the Medical Faculty in influencing the various intrigues of political parties, that he averred that Dr. Lower, Nell Gwynn's physician, did more mischief than a troop of horse. But Barrowby was prevented, by the intrusion of Death, from rendering effectual service to his party. Called away from a dinner-table, where he was drinking deeply and laughing much, to see a patient, he got into his carriage, and was driven off. When the foo tman opened the door, on arriving at the Eouse of sickness, he found his master dead. A fit of apoplexy had struck him down, whilst he was still a young man, and just as he w^as ascending to the highest rank of his profession. John Sheldon was somewhat addicted to the pleasures of the table. On one occasion, however, he had to make a journey, fasting. The son of a John Sheldon, an apothecary, who carried on business in the Tottenham Court Koad, a few OUT GOES THE CHICKEN. 193 doors from the Black Horse Yard, Sheldon con- ceived in early life a strong love for mechanics. At Harrow he was birched for making a boat and floating it. He in after-life had a notable scheme for taking whales with poisoned harpoons; and, to test its merit, actually made a voyage to Green- land. He was moreover the first Englishman to make an ascent in a balloon. He went with Blanchard. He had taken his place in the car, when the aeronaut, seeing that his machine was too heavily weighted, begged him to get out. " If you are my friend, you will alight. My fame, my all, depends on success," exclaimed Blanchard. " I wont," bluntly answered Sheldon, as the balloon manifested symptoms of rising. In furious passion, the little air-traveller ex- claimed, *' Then I starve you! Point du chicken, by Gar, you shall have no chicken." So saying, he flung the hamper of provisions out of the car, and, thus lightened, the balloon went up. Abernethy is said to have reproved an over-fed alderman for his excesses at table in the following manner. The civic footman was ordered to put a large bowl under the sideboard, and of what- ever he served his master with to throw an equal quantity into the bowl. After the repast was at an end, the sated feaster was requested to look into the bowl at a nauseous mess of mock turtle, YOL. I. 194 JEBB ON BOILED TURNIPS. turbot, roast beef, turkey, sausages, cakes, wines, ale, fruits, cheese. Sir Richard Jebb showed little favour to the digestion, thinking it was made to be used — not nursed. Habitually more rough and harsh than Abernethy in his most surly moods, Jebb offended many of his patients. " That's my way," said he to a noble invalid, astonished at his rudeness. " Then," answered the sick man, pointing to the door, " I beg you'll make that your way." To all questions about diet Jebb would respond tetchily or carelessly. ** Pray, Sir Richard, may I eat a muffin ?" asked a lady. " Yes, madam, 'tis the best thing you can take." " Oh dear ! Sir Richard, I am glad of that. The other day you said it was the worst thing in the world for me." '' Good, madam, I said so last Tuesday. This isn't a Tuesday — is it f To another lady who asked what she might eat he said contemptuously, " boiled turnips."" '^ Boiled turnips!" was the answer; "you for- get. Sir Richard — I told you I could not bear boiled turnips." ^* Then, madam," answerd Sir Richard, sternly, as if his sense of the moral fitness of things was offended, '^ you must have a d d vitiated ap- petite." 195 Sir Richard's best set of dietetic directions con- sisted of the following negative advice, given to an old gentleman who put the everlasting ques- tion, " What may I eat ?" " My directions, sir, are simple. You must not eat the poker, shovel, or tongs, for they are hard of digestion ; nor the bellows ; but anything else you please." Even to the King, Sir Richard was plain-spoken. George the Third lamented to him the restless spirit of his cousin, Dr. John Jebb, the dissent- ing minister. "And please your Majesty," was the answer, "if my cousin were in heaven, he would be a reformer." Dr. Babington used to tell a story of an Irish gentleman, for whom he prescribed an emetic, saying, " My dear doctor, it is of no use your giving me an emetic. I tried it twice in Dublin, and it would not stay on my stomach either time." Jebb's stomach would have gone on tranquilly, even when entertaining an emetic. It may not be thought, however, that doctors have been all so enamoured of the pleasures of the table as to want wine or venison whenever they happened to meet together. Jebb, with all his bluntness, was a mean lover of the atmosphere of the Court. His income was subject to great fluctuations, as the whims of his fashionable employers ran for or against him. Sir Edward Wilmot's receipts sank o2 196 AN ABSTEMIOUS CLUB. from 3000Z. to 300^., in consequence of his having lost two ladies of quality at the Court. Jebb's revenue never varied so much as this, but the 15,000/. (the greatest sum he ever made in one year) often fell off by thousands. This fact didn't tend to lessen his mortification at the loss of a great patient. When George the Third dismissed him, and took Sir George Baker in his place, he nearly died of chagrin. And when he was recalled to attend the royal family in the measles, he nearly died of delight. This ruling passion exhibited itself strongly in death. When he was on his death-bed, the Queen, by the hand of a German lady, wrote to inquire after his condition. So elated was the poor man with this act of royal benignity, that he grasped the letter, and never let go his hold of it till the breath of life quitted his attenuated body. This chapter has been for the most part on the feasting of physicians. We'll conclude it with a few words on their fasts. In the house of a Strand grocer there used to be a scientific club, of which the principal members were — W. Heberden, M.D., J. Turton, M.D., G. Baker, M.D., Sir John Pringle, Sir William Watson, and Lord C. Caven- dish, who officiated as president. Each member paid sixpence per evening for the use of the grocer's dining-room. The club took in one newspaper, and the only refreshment allowed to Handel's muffin and pudder. 197 be taken at the place of meeting was — water. The most abstemious of eminent physicians was Sir Hans Sloane, the president of the Koyal Society and of the College of Physicians, and (in a certain sense) the founder of the British Mu- seum. A love of money made him a hater of all good things, except money and his museum. He gave up his winter soirees in Bloomsbury Square, in order to save his tea and bread and butter. At one of these scientific entertainments Handel oflfended the scientific knight deeply by laying a muffin on one of his books. " To be sure it was a gareless trick," said the composer, when telling the story, "bud it tid no monsdrous mischief; pode it but the old poog-vorm treadfully oud of sorts. I offered my best apologies, but the old miser would not have done with it. If it had been a biscuit, it would not have mattered ; but muffin and pudler. And I said, ^ Ah mine Gotd, that is the rub ! — it is the pudder! Now, mine worthy friend. Sir Hans Sloane, you have a nodable excuse, you may save your doast and pudder, and lay it to that unfeeling gormandizing German ; and den I knows it will add something to your life by sparing your hurseP The eccentric Dr. Glyn, of Cambridge, rarely dined, but used to satisfy his hunger at chance times by cutting slices off a cold joint (a constant ornament of the side-table in his study), and eat- 198 CALOMEL SANDWICHES. ing them while standing. To eat such a dinner in such an attitude would be to fare little better than the ascetic physician who used twice a week to dine off two Abernethy biscuits, consumed as he walked at the pace of four miles an hour. However wholesome they may be, the hard bis- cuits, known as Abernethies (but in the construc- tion of which, by-the-by, Abernethy was no more concerned than were Wellington and Blucher in making the boots that bear their names), are not convivial cates, though one would rather have to consume them than the calomel sandwiches which Dr. Curry (popularly called Dr. Calomel Curry) used to give his patients. 199 CHAPTER IX. FEES. From the earliest times the Leech (Leighis), or healer, has found, in the exercise of his art, not only a pleasant sense of being a public benefactor, but also the means of private advancement. The use the churchmen made of their medical position throughout Christendom (both before and after that decree of the council of Tours, a.d. 1163, which forbade priests and deacons to perform surgical operations in which cauteries and inci- sions were employed) is attested by the broad acres they extracted, for their religious corpora- tions, as much from the gratitude as from the superstition of their patients. And since the Reformation, from which period the vocations of the spu'itual and the bodily physician have been almost entirely kept apart, the practitioners of medicine have had cause to bless the powers of 200 ARBUTHNOT AT DORCHESTEE. sickness. A good story is told of Arbuthnot. When he was a young man (ere he had won the patronage of Queen Anne, and the friendship of Swift and Pope), he settled at Dorchester, and endeavoured to get practice in that salubrious town. Nature obviated his good intentions : he wished to minister to the afflicted, if they were rich enough to pay for his ministrations, but the place was so healthy that it contained scarce half- a-dozen sick inhabitants. Arbuthnot determined to quit a field so ill-adapted for a display of his philanthropy. " Where are you off to?" cried a friend, who met him riding post towards London. '^ To leave your confounded place," was the an- swer, " for a man can neither live nor die there." But to arrive at wealth was not amongst Arbuth- not's faculties ; he was unable to use his profession as a trade ; and only a few weeks before his death he wrote, " I am as well as a man can be who is gasping for breath, and has a house full of men and women unprovided for." Arbuthnot's ill-luck, however, was quite out of the ordinary rule. Fuller says (1662), " Physic hath promoted many more, and that since the reign of King Henry VIII. Indeed, before his time, I find a doctor of physic, father to Reginald, first and last Lord Bray. But this faculty hath flourished much the three last fifty years; it being true of physic, what is said of Sylla, ^ suos OPULENT PHYSICIANS. 201 cllvltiis explevit.' Sir William Butts, physician to King Henry VIII., Doctor Thomas Wendy, and Doctor Hatcher, Queen Elizabeth's Physi- cian, raised worshipful families in Norfolk, Cam- bridge, and Lincolnshire, having borne the office of Sheriff in this county." Sir William Butts was rewarded for his professional services by Henry YIII. \N-ith the honour of knighthood, and he attended that sovereign when the royal confir- mation was given, in 1512, to the charter of the barber-surgeons of London. Another eminent physician of the same period, who also arrived at the dignity of knighthood, was John Ayliffe, a sheriff of London, and merchant of Blackwell-Hall. His epitaph records : — " In surgery brought up in youth, A knight here lieth dead ; A knight and eke a surgeon, such - As England seld' hath bred. " For which so sovereign gift of God, Wherein he did excell, King Henry YIII. called him to court, "Who loved him dearly weU. " King Edward, for his service sake, Bade him rise up a knight ; A name of praise, and ever since He Sir John Aylife hight." This mode of rewarding medical services was not unfrequent in those days, and long before. Ignorance as to the true position of the barber in 202 AMATEUES. the middle ages has induced the popular and erroneous belief that the barber-surgeon had in olden times a contemptible social status. Un- questionably his art has been elevated during late generations to a dignity it did not possess in feu- dal life ; but it might be argued with much force, that the reverse has been the case with regard to his rank. Surgery and medicine were arts that nobles were proud to practise for honour, and not unfrequently for emolument. The reigns of Eli- zabeth and her three predecessors in sovereign power abounded in medical and surgical amateurs. Amongst the fashionable empirics Bulleyn men- tions Sir Thomas Elliot, Sir Philip Parris, Sir William Gasgoyne, Lady Taylor and Lady Darrel, and especially that ^^ goodly hurt- lesse Gentleman, Sir Andrew Haveningham, who learned water to kill a canker of his own mo- ther." Even an Earl of Derby, about this time, was celebrated for his skill in chirurgerie and bone- setting, as also was the Earl of Herfurth. The Scots nobility were enthusiastic dabblers in such matters ; and we have the evidence of Buchanan and Lindsay as to James lY of Scotland, " quod vulnera scientissime tractaret," to use the former authority's words, and, in the language of the latter, that he was " such a cunning chirurgeon, that none in his realm who used that craft but would take his counselinalltheirproceedings." The KNIGHTHOOD. 203 only art whicli fashionable people now-a-days care much to meddle with is literature. In estimating the difference between the position of an eminent sur- geon now, and that which he would have occupied in earlier times, we must remember that life and here- ditary knighthood are the highest dignities to which he is now permitted to aspire ; although since this honour was first accorded to him it has so fallen in public estimation, that it has almost ceased to be an honour at all. It can scarcely be questioned that if Sir Benjamin Brodie were to be elevated to the rank of a Baron of the realm, he would still not occupy a better position, in regard to the rest of society, than that which Sir William Butts and Sir John Ay life did after they were knighted. A fact that definitely fixes the high esteem in which Edward III. held his medical officers, is one of his grants — " Quod AYillielmus Holme Sirurgicus Regis pro vita su4 possit, fugare, capere, et aspor- tare omnimodas feras in quibuscunque forestis, chaccis parcis et warrennis regis." Indeed, at a time when the highest dignitaries of the Church, the proudest bishops and the wealthiest abbots, practised as physicians, it followed, as a matter of course, that everything pertaining to their profes- sion was respected. From remote antiquity the fee of the healer has been regarded as a voluntary offering for services gratuitously rendered. The pretender to the art 204 THE CILICIAN BROTHERS. always stuck out for a price, and in some form or other made the demand which was imprinted on the pill-boxes of Lilly's successor, John Case, " Here's fourteen pills for thirteen pence, Enough in any man's own con-sci-ence." But the true physician always left his reward to be measured by the gratitude and justice of the benefited. He extorted nothing, but freely re- ceived that which was freely given. Dr. Doran, with his characteristic erudition, says, " Now there is a religious reason why fees are supposed not to be taken by physicians. Amongst the Christian martyrs are reckoned the two eastern brothers, Damian and Cosmas. They practised as physi- cians in Cilicia, and they were the first mortal practitioners who refused to take recompense for their work. Hence they were called Anargyri, or ^ without money.' All physicians are plea- santly supposed to follow this example. They never take fees, like Damian and Cosmas ; but they meekly receive what they know will be given out of Christian humility, and with a certain or uncertain reluctance, which is the nearest approach that can be made in these times to the two bro- thers who were in partnership at Egea in Cilicia." But, with all due respect to our learned writer, there is a much better reason for the phenomenon. Self-interest, and not a Christian ambition to THE CACOETHES DONANDI. 205 resemble the charitable Cilician brothers, was the cause of physicians preferring a system of gra- tnities to a system of legal rights. They could scarcely have put in a claim, without defining the amount claimed; and they soon discovered that a rich patient, left to his generosity, folly, and impo- tent anxiety to propitiate the mysterious func- tionary who presided over his life, would, in a great majority of cases, give ten, or even a hundred times as much as they in the wildest audacity of avarice would ever dare to ask for, Seleucus, for having his son Antiochus restored to health, was fool enough to give sixty thousand crowds to Erasistratus ; and for their attendance on the Emperor Augustus, and his two next successors, no less than four physicians received annual pensions of two hundred and fifty thousand sesterces apiece. Indeed, there is no saying what a sick man will not give his doctor. The " ca- coethes donandi" is a manifestation of enfeebled powers which a high-minded physician is often called upon to resist, and an unpi'incipled one often basely turns to his advantage. Alluding to this feature of the sick, a deservedly successful and honourable practitioner, using the language of one of our Oriental pro-consuls, said, with a laugh to the writer of these pages, " I wonder at my moderation." But directly health approaches, this desirable 206 EURICUS CORDUS. frame of mind disappears. When the devil was sick he was a very different character from what he was on getting w^ell. 'Tis so with ordinary patients, not less than satanic ones. The man who, when he is in his agonies, gives his medical attendant double fees three times a-day (and vows, please God he recover, to make his fortune by trumpeting his praises to the world) on be- coming convalescent, grows irritable, suspicious, and distant, — and by the time he can resume his customary occupations, looks on his dear benefac- tor and saviour as a designing rascal, bent on plundering him of his worldly possessions, Euri- cus Cordus, who died in 1535, seems to have taken the worst possible time for getting his payment ; but it cannot be regretted that he did so, as his experiences inspired him to write the following excellent epigram : — " Tres medicus facies habet ; unam quando rogatur, Angelicam ; mox est, cum juvat, ipse Deus. Post ubi curato, poscit sua proemia, morbo, Horridus apparet, terribilisque Sathan." " Three faces wears the doctor : when first sought, An angel's — and a God's, the cure half wrought : But, when that cure complete, he seeks his fee, The Devil looks then less terrible than he." Illustrative of the same truth is a story told of Bouvart. On entering one morning the cham- ber of a French Marquis, whom he had attended DEAREST BOUVART. 207 through a very dangerous illness, he was accosted by his noble patient in the folloA^dng terms : — " Good day to you, Mr. Bouvart ; 1 feel quite in spirits, and think my fever has left me." "I am sure it has," replied Bouvart, dryly. " The very first expression you used convinces me of it." " Pray, explain yourself." " Nothing is easier. In the first days of your illness, when your life was in danger, I was your dearest friend ; as you began to get better, I was your good Bouvart ; and now I am Mr. Bouvart ; depend upon it, you are quite recovered." In fact, the affection of a patient for his phy- sician is very like the love a candidate for a rotten borough has for an individual elector — he is very grateful to him, till he has got all he wants out of him. The medical practitioner is unwise not to recognize this fact. Common prudence enjoins him to act as much as possible on the maxim of " accipe dum dolet " — ^' take your fee while your patient is in pain." But though physicians have always held them- selves open to take as much as they can get, their ordinary remuneration has been fixed in divers times by custom, according to the locality of their practice, the rank of their patients, the nature of the particular services rendered, and such other circumstances. In China the rule is " no cure, no 208 EARLY STIPENDS. pay," save at the Imperial court, where the phy- sicians have salaries that are cut off during the continuance of royal indisposition. For their sakes it is to be hoped that the Emperor is a temperate man, and does not follow the example of George the Fourth, who used to drink Maraschino be- tween midnight and four o'clock in the morning ; and then, when he awoke with a furred tongue, from disturbed sleep, used to put himself under the hands of his doctors. Formerly the medical officers of the English monarch were paid by salary, though doubtless they were oifered, and were not too proud to accept, fees as well. Cour- sus de Gungeland, Edward the Third's apothe- cary, had a pension of sixpence a-day — a consider- able sum at that time ; and Eicardus Wye, the surgeon of the same king, had twelve-pence a-day, and eight marks per annum. " Duodecim denarios per diem, et octo marcas per annum, pro vadiis suis pro vita." In the royal courts of Wales, also, the fees of surgeons and physicians were fixed by law — a surgeon receiving, as payment for curing a slight wound, only the blood-stained garments of the injured person ; but for healing a dangerous wound, he had the bloody apparel, his board and lodging during the time his services were required, and one hundred and eighty pence. At a very early period in England a doctor looked for his palm to be crossed with gold, if his PHYSICK LIES A-BLEEDING. 209 patient happened to be a man of condition. In Henry VIII.'s reign a Cambridge physician was presented by the Earl of Cumberland with a fee of IZ. — but this was at least double what a com- moner would then have paid. Stow complains that while in Holland half-a-crown was looked upon as a proper remuneration for a single visit paid by a skilled physician, the medical practitioners of Lon- don scorned " to touch any metal but gold." It is no matter of uncertainty what the physi- cian's ordinary fee was at the close of the sixteenth and the commencement of the seventeenth cen- tury. It was ten shillings, as is certified by the following extract from " Physick lies a-bleeding : the Apothecary turned Doctor" — published in 1697:— '' Gallipot — -Good sir, be not so unreasonably passionate and I'll tell you. Sir, the Pearl Julep will be 65. 8(i., Pearls being dear since our dipt money was bought. The Specific Bolus 4s. 6c?. I never reckon less; my master in Leadenhall Street never set down less, be it what it would. The Anti- hysterick Application 3s. 6c?. (a common one is but 2s. 6c?.), and the Anodyne Draught 3s. 4c?. — that's all, sir ; a small matter and please you, sir, for your lady. My fee is what you please, sir. All the biU is hut 18s. " Jrueman — Faith, then, d'ye make a hut at it ? VOL. I. p 210 THE PATRIOT DISPENSARIANS. I do suppose, to be very genteel, I must give you a crown. '' Gallipot — If your worship please ; I take it to be a fair and an honest bill. " Trueman — Do you indeed ? But I wish you had called a Doctor, perhaps he would have ad- vised her to have forbore taking anything, as yet at least, so I had saved 13s. in my pocket." " Physick lies a-bleeding" was written during the great Dispensarian War, which is touched upon in another part of these pages ; and its ob- ject was to hold up physicians as models of learn- ing and probity, and to expose the extortionate practices of the apothecaries. It must therefore be read with caution, and with due allowance for the license of satire, and the violence of a party statement. But the statement that IO5. was the customary fee is clearly one that may be accepted as truthful. Indeed, the unknown and needy doctors were glad to accept less. The author of '' The Dispensarlans are the Patriots of Britain," published in 1708, represents the humbler phy- sicians being nothing better than the slaves of the opulent apothecaries, accepting half their right fee, and taking instead 25 or 50 per cent, of the amount paid for drugs to the apothecary. " They (the powerful traders), " says the writer, " offered the Physicians 5s. and 10s. in the pound, to excite MISPLACED CONFIDENCE. 211 their industry to prescribe the larger abimdance to aU the disorders." But physicians daily received more than their ten shillings at a time. In confirmation of this, a good anecdote may be related of Sir Theodore Mayerne. Sir Theodore Mayerne, a native of Geneva, vraa physician to Henry TV. and Louis XIII. of France, and subsequently to James I., Charles I., and Charles II. of England. As a phy- sician, who had the honour of attending many crowned heads, he ranks above Caius, who was phy- sician to Edward YI., Mary, and Elizabeth — Am- brose Pare, the inventor of ligatures for severed arteries, who was physician and surgeon to Henry IL, Francis II., Charles IX., and Henry HI. of France — and Sir Henry Ilalford, who attended successively George HI., George lY., William IV., and Victoria. It is told of Sir Theodore, that when a friend, after consult- ing him, foolishly put two broad gold pieces (six- and-thirty shillings each) on the table, he quietly pocketed them. The patient who, as a friend, had expected to have his fee refused, and therefore (deeming it well to indulge in the magnificence of generosity when it would cost him nothing) had absurdly exhibited so large a sum, did not at aU relish the sight of its being netted. His counte- nance, if not his tongue, made his mortification manifest. " Sir," said Sir Theodore, " I made my p2 212 will this morning ; and if it should appear that I refused a fee, I might be deemed non compost The " Levamen Infirmi," published in 1700, shows that a century had not, at that date, made much difference in the scale of remuneration ac- corded to surgeons and physicians. "To a graduate in physick," this authority states, " his due is about ten shillings, though he commonly expects or de- mands twenty. Those that are only licensed physicians, their due is no more than six shillings and eight-pence, though they commonly demand ten shillings. A surgeon's fee is twelve-pence a mile, be his journey far or near ; ten groats to set a bone broke, or out of joint ; and for letting blood one shilling ; the cutting off or amputation of any limb is five pounds, but there is no settled price for the cure." These charges are much the same as those made at the present day by country sur- geons to their less wealthy patients, with the exception of a fee for setting a bone, or reducing a dislocation, which is absurdly out of proportion to the rest of the sums mentioned. Mr. William Wadd, in his very interesting " Memorabilia," states, that the physicians who at- tended Queen Caroline had five hundred guineas, and the surgeons three hundred guineas each ; and that Dr. Willis was rewarded for his success- ful attendance on his Majesty King George III., by 1500Z. per annum for twenty years, and 650/. DR. king's unpaid FEE. 213 per annum to his son for life. The other physi- cians, however, had only thirty guineas each visit to Windsor, and ten guineas each visit to Kew. These large fees put us in mind of one that ought to have been paid to Dr. King for his attendance on Charles the Second. Evelyn re- lates — " 1685, Feb. 4, I went to London, hearing his Majesty had ben, the Monday before (2 Feb.), surprised in his bed-chamber with an apoplectic fit; so that if, by God's providence. Dr. King (that excellent chirurgeon as well as physitian) had not been actually present, to let him bloud (having his lancet in his pocket), his jSIajesty had certainly died that moment, which might have ben of direful consequence, there being nobody else present wdth the king save this doctor and one more, as I am assured. It was a mark of the extra-ordinary dexterity, resolution, and presence of mind, in the Dr., to let him bloud in the very paroxysm, without staying the coming of other physicians, which regularly should have ben done, and for want of which he must have a re- gular pardon, as they tell me." For this promp- titude and courage the Privy-Council ordered 1,000/. to be given to Dr. King — but he never ob- tained the money. As Charles the Second, in due course, paid the debt of nature, in all proba- bility the conservators of the national honour 214 THE REWARD OP DELICACY. thought that enough had been sacrificed to honesty. In a more humorous, but not less agreeable manner, Dr. Hunter (John Hunter's brother) was disappointed of payment for his professional ser- vices. On a certain occasion he was suiFering under such a severe indisposition that he was compelled to keep his bed, when a lady called and implored to be admitted to his chamber for the benefit of his advice. After considerable resist- ance on the part of the servants, she obtained her request; and the sick physician, sitting up in his bed, attended to her case, and prescribed for it. " What is your fee, sir f the lady asked when the work was done. The doctor, with the prudent delicacy of his order, informed his patient that it was a rule with him never to fix his fee; and, on repeated entreaty that he would depart from his custom, refused to do so. On this the lady rose from her seat, and, courteously thanking the doctor, left him — not a little annoyed at the result of his squeamishness or artifice. This puts us in mind of the manner in which an eminent surgeon not long since was defrauded of a fee, under circumstances that must rouse the indignation of every honourable man against the delinquent. Mr. received, in his consulting room, a gentleman of military and prepossessing exterior, who, after detailing the history of his ^^ THE SIMPLE RULE." 215 sufferings, implored the professional man he ad- dressed to perform for him a certain difficult and important operation. The surgeon consented, and on being asked what remuneration he would require, said that his fee was a hundred guineas. " Sir," replied the visitor with some embarrass- ment, " I am very sorry to hear you say so. I feel sure my case without you will terminate fatally; but I am a poor half-pay officer, in pecu- niary difficulties, and I could not, even if it were to save my soul, raise half the sum you mention." " My dear sir," responded the surgeon frankly, and with the generosity which is more frequently found amongst medical practitioners than any other class of men, " don't then disturb yourself. I cannot take a less fee than I have stated, for my character demands that I should not have two charges, but I am at liberty to remit my fee alto- gether. Allow me, then, the very great pleasure of attending a retired officer of the British army gratuitously." This kindly offer was accepted. Mr. not only performed the operation, but visited his patient daily for more than three weeks without ever accepting a guinea — and three months after he had restored the sick man to health, discovered that, instead of being in necessitous circumstances, he was a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant for his county, and owner of a fine landed estate. 216 SIR ASTLEY AND ^' CHARLES." ^' And, by !" exclaimed the fine-hearted surgeon — when he narrated this disgraceful affair, " I'll act exactly in the same way to the next poor man who gives me his ivord of honour that he is not rich enough to pay me!" The success of Sir Astley Cooper was beyond that of any medical practitioner of modern times ; but it came very gradually. His earnings for the first nine years of his professional career progressed thus : — In the first year he netted five guineas ; in the second, twenty-six pounds ; in the third, sixty-four pounds; in the fourth, ninety-six pounds ; in the fifth, a hundred pounds ; in the sixth, two hundred pounds ; in the seventh, four hundred pounds ; in the eighth, six hundred and ten pounds ; and in the ninth, the year in which he secured his hospital appointment, eleven hun- dred pounds. But the time came when the pa- tients stood for hours in his ante-rooms waiting to have an interview with the great surgeon, and after all their patience were dismissed without be- ing admitted to the consulting-room. Sir Astley' s man, Charles, with all the dignity that became so eminent a man's servant, used to say to these dis- appointed applicants, in a tone of magnificent pa- tronage, when they reappeared the next morning, after their effectless visit, " I am not at all sure that ive shall be able to attend to-day to you, gen- tlemen, for we are excessively busy, and our list is CITY PRIDE. 217 perfectly Ml for the day ; but if you'll wait I will see what can be done for you ! " The highest amount that Sir Astley received in any one year was 21,000?. This splendid income was an exceptional one. For many years, how- ever, he achieved more than 15,000/. per annum. As long as he lived in the City after becoming celebrated he made an enormous, but fluctuating revenue, the state of the money-market having an almost laughable effect on the size of the fees paid him. The capitalists who visited the surgeon in Broad Street, in three cases out of four, paid in cheques, and felt it beneath their dignity to put pen to paper for a smellier sum than Ave guineas. After Sir Astley moved to the West End he had a more numerous and at the same time more aristo- cratic practice ; but his receipts were never so much as they v/ere when he dwelt within the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction. His more distinguished pa- tients invariably paid their guineas in cash, and many of them did not consider it inconsistent with patrician position to give single fees. The citizens were the fellows to pay. Mr. William Coles, of Mincing Lane, for a long period paid Sir Astley 600/. a year, the visits of the latter being princi- pally made to Mr. Coles's seat near Croydon. An- other ^' City man," who consulted the surgeon in Broad Street, and departed without putting down any honorarium whatever, sent a cheque for 63Z, 218 A FAT FEE. 10s., with the following characteristic note : — "Dear Sir —When I had first the pleasure of see- ing you, you requested, as a favour, that I would consider your visit on the occasion as a friend. I now, sir, must request you will return the compli- ment by accepting the enclosed draft as an act of friendship. It is the profit on 2,000^. of the ensu- ing loan, out of a small sum Sir F. Baring had given, of appropriating for your chance." The largest fee Sir Astley Cooper ever received was paid him by a West Indian millionaire named Hyatt. This gentleman having occasion to un- dergo a painful and perilous operation, was at- tended by Drs. Lettsom and Nelson as physicians, and Sir Astley as chirurgeon. The wealthy pa- tient, his treatment having resulted most success- fully, was so delighted that he fee'd his physicians with 300 guineas each. " But you, sir," cried the grateful old man, sitting up in his bed, and speak- ing to his surgeon, " shall have something better. There, sir — take that^ The that was the con- valescent's night-cap, which he flung at the dexte- rous operator. " Sir," replied Sir Astley, picking up the cap, '* I'll pocket the affront." It was well he did so, for on reaching home he found in the cap a draft for 1,000 guineas. This story has been told in various ways, but all its tellers agree as to the amount of the prize. Catherine, the Empress of Russia, was even IMPERIAL GENEROSITY. 219 more munificent than the West Indian planter. When Dr. Dimsdale, for many years a Hertford physician, and subsequently the parliamentary re- presentative of that borough, went over to Russia and inoculated the Empress and her son, in the year 1768, he was rewarded with a fee of 12,000/., a pension for life of 5001. per annum, and the rank of Baron of the Empire. But if Catherine paid thus hansomely for increased security of life, a modern emperor of Austria put down a yet more royal fee for his death-warrant. When on his death-bed the Emperor Joseph asked Quarin his opinion of his case, the physician told the monarch that he could not possibly live forty- eight hours. In acknowledgment of this frank declaration of the truth, the Emperor . created Quarin a Baron, and gave him a pension of more than 2,000Z. per annum to support the rank with. A goodly collection might be made of eccentric fees given to the practitioners of the healing art. William Butler, who, in his moroseness of manner, was the prototype of Abernethy, found (vide Ful- ler's "English Worthies") more pleasure in '^pre- sents than money ; loved what was pretty rather than what was costly ; and preferred rarities to riches." The number of physicians is large who have won the hands of heiresses in the discharge of their professional avocations. But of them we purpose to speak at length hereafter. Joshua 220 JOSHUA ward's fee. Ward, the Thames Street drysalter, who made a fortune by his " Drop and Pill," " Of late, without the least pretence to skill. Ward's grown a fam'd physician by a pill," was so successfully puffed by Lord Chief Baron Reynolds and General Churchill, that he was called, in to prescribe for the king. The royal malady disappeared in consequence, or in spite, of the treatment. Ward was rewarded with a solemn vote of the House of Commons, protecting him from the interdictions of the College of Physicians; and, as an additional fee, he asked for, and ob- tained, the privilege of driving his carriage through St. James's Park. Ward was no chemist ; he was only a quack. The difference, however, is not great between a Charlotte-Anne (charlatan) and an Anne-Eliza (analyser). The pertinacity with which the members of the medical profession cling to the shilling of "the guinea" is amusing. When Erskine used to order " The Devil's Own" to charge, he would cry out " Six-and-eightpence!" instead of the ordinary word of command. Had his lordship been colonel of a volunteer corps of physicians, he w^ould have roused them to an onward march by " a guinea !" Sometimes patients object to pay the extra shil- linn; over the sovereio:n, not less than their medical advisers insist on having it, "We surgeons do A SURGEON LA.RDED. 221 things by guineas," we recollect a veteran hospital surgeon saying to a visitor who had put down the largest current gold piece of our present coinage. The patient (an irritable old gentleman) made it a question of principle; he hated humbug — he re- garded " that shilling" as sheer humbug, and he would not pay it. A contest ensued, which ter- minated in the eccentric patient paying, not the shillino; but an additional sovereiorn. And to this day he is a frequent visitor of our surgical ally, and is well content to pay his two sovereigns, though he would die rather than countenance " a sham" by putting down "a guinea." But of all the stories told of surgeons who have grown fat at the expense of the public, the best is the following one, for which j\Ir. Alexander Kellet, who died at his lodoinors in Bath, in the year 1788, is our authority. A certain French surgeon residing in Georgia was taken prisoner by some Indians, who, having ac- quired from the French the art of larding their provisions, determined to lard this particular Frenchman, and then roast him alive. During the culinary process, when the man was half larded, the operators were surprised by the enemy, and their victim, making his escape, lived many days in the woods on the bacon he had in his skin. Abbe Raynal swallowed this story, bacon and all, and published it in his works. Our readers can- 222 PAYMENT IN KIND. not do better than follow the Abbe's example. If full reliance may be placed on the following humorous verses, it is not unknown for a phy- sician to be paid in commodities, without the in- tervention of the circulating medium, or the receipt of such creature comforts as Johnson's friendly apothecary was wont to accept in lieu of cash from his patients: — " An adept in the sister arts, Painter, poet, and musician, Employed a doctor of all parts. Druggist, surgeon, and physician. "•The artist \vith M.D. agrees, If he'd attend him when he grew sick, FuUy to liquidate his fees With painting, poetry, and music. " The druggist, surgeon, and physician, So often physicked, bled, prescribed. That painter, poet, and musician (Alas ! poor artist !) sunk — and died. " But ere death's stroke, ' Doctor,' cried he, ' In honour of your skill and charge, Accept from my professions three — A hatchment^ epitaph^ and dirge.'' " A double fee for good news has long been a rule in the profession. A father just presented with an heir, or a lucky fellow just made one, is expected to bleed freely for the benefit of the Faculty. A GHASTLY CONSOLATION. 223 • Madam scolded one day so long, . She sudden lost all use of tongue ! The doctor came — with hum and haw, Pronounced th' affection a lock'd jaw ! 'What hopes, good sir?' — ' Small, small, I see!' The husband slips a double fee ; ' What, no hopes, doctor?' — ' None, I fear,' Another fee for isstie clear. • Madam deceased — ' Pray, sir, don't grieve ! ' ' My friends, one comfort I receive — A locked jaw was the only case From which my wife could die — in peace. ' " 224 CHAPTER X. PEDAGOGUES TUENED DOCTORS. In the church of St. Mary Magdalen, Taunton, ia a monumental stone engraved with the following inscription :— - " Qui medicus doctus, prudentis nomine clarus, Eloquii splendor, Pieridumque decus, Virtutis cultor, pietatis vixit amicus ; Hoc jacet in tumulo, spiritus alta tenet." It is in memory of John Bond, M.A., the learned commentator on Horace and Persius. Educated at Winchester school, and then at New College, Oxford, he was elected master of the Taun- ton Grammar-school in the year 1579. For many years he presided over that seminary with great efficiency, and sent out into the world several emi- nent scholars. On arriving, however, at the mid- dle age of life, he relinquished the mastership of JAMES JURIN. 225 the school, and turned his attention to the prac- tice of medicine. His reputation and success as a physician were great — the worthy people of Taun- ton honouring him as " a wise man." He died Augusts, 1612. More than a century later than John Bond, schoolaiaster and physician, appeared a greater celebrity in the person of James Jurin, who, from the position of a provincial pedagogue, raised him- self to be regarded as first of the London physi- cians, and conspicuous amongst the philosophers of Europe. Jurin was born in 1684, and received his early education at Christ's Hospital — better known to the public as the Blue-coat school. After graduating in arts at Cambridge, he obtained the partnership of the grammar-school of Newcastle- upon-Tyne, January, 1710. In the following year he obtained the high academic distinction of a fellowship on the foundation of Trinity College ; and the year after (1712) he published, through the University press, his edition of Varenius's Geography, dedicated to Bentley. In 1718 and 1719 he contributed to the Philosophical Transac- tions the essays which involved him in contro- versies with Keill and Senac, and were in the year 1732 reprinted in a collected form, under the title of '^ Physico-Mathematical Dissertations." Another of his important contributions to science was " An Essay on Distinct and Indistinct Vision," VOL. I. Q 226 SECRETARY TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY. added to Smith's " System of Optics." Yoltaire was not without good reason for styling him, in the Journal de Savans, " the famous Jurin." Besides working zealously in his school, Jurin delivered lectures at Newcastle on Experimental Philosophy. He worked very hard, his immediate object being to get and save money. As soon as he had acquired a clear thousand pounds, he left Newcastle, and returning to his University devoted himself to the study of medicine. From that time his course was a prosperous one. Having taken his M.D. degree, he settled in London, be- came a Fellow of the College of Physicians, a Fellow of the Royal Society (to which distin- guished body he became secretary on the resigna- tion of Dr. Flalley in 1721), and a Physician of Guy's Hospital, as well as governor of St. Thomas's. The friend of Sir Isaac Newton and Bentley did not lack patients. The consulting- rooms and ante-chambers of his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields received many visitors ; so that he ac- quired considerable wealth, and had an estate and an imposing establishment at Clapton. Nichols speaks of him in one of his volumes as " James Jurin, M.D., sometime of Clapton in Hackney." It was, however, at his town residence that he died March 22, 1750, of what the Gentlemari s Magazine calls " a dead palsy," leaving by his will a considerable legacy to Christ's Hospital. A CONTRAST. 227 One might make alongllst of Doctors Pedagogic, including poor Oliver Goldsmith, who used to wince and redden with shame and anorer when the cant phrase, " It's all a holiday at Peckham," saluted his ears. Between Bond and Jurin, however, there were two tutors turned physicians, who may not be passed over without especial attention. Only a little prior to Jurin they knew many of his friends, and doubtless met him often in consultation. They were both authors — one of rare w^t, and the other (as he himself boasted) of no wit ; and they hated each other, as literary men know how to hate. In every respect, even down to the quarters of town which they inhabited, they were opposed to each other. One was a brilliant talker and frequented St. James's ; the other was a pompous drone, and haunted the Mansion-house : a Jacobite the one, a Whig the other. The reader sees that these two worthies can be none other than Arbuthnot and Blackmore. A wily, courtly, mirth-loving Scotchman, Ar- buthnot had all the best qualities that are to be ordinarily found in a child of North Britain. Every body knew him — nearly every one liked him. His satire, that was only rarely tinctured with bitterness — his tongue, powerful to mimic, flatter, or persuade — his polished manners and cordial bearing, would alone have made him a favourite with the ladies, had he not been what he q2 228 THE DOCTOK AND THE DEAN was — one of the handsomest men about town. (Of course, in appearance he did not approach that magnificent gentleman, Beau Fielding). In con- versation he was frank without being noisy ; and there hung about him — tavern-haunting wit though he was — an air of simplicity, tempering his reckless fun, that was very pleasant and very winning. Pope, Parnell, Garth, Gay were society much more to his taste than the stately big-wigs of Warwick Hall. And next to drinking wine with such men, the good-humoured doctor en- joyed flirting with the maids of honour, and taking part in a political intrigue. No wonder that Swift valued him as a priceless treasure — " loved him," as he wrote to Stella, " ten times as much" as jolly, tippling Dr. Freind. It was arm-and-arm with him that the Dean used to peer about St. James's, jesting, snarling, laugh- ing, causing dowagers to smile at ^' that dear Mr. Dean," and young girls, up for their first year at Court — green and unsophisticated — to blush with annoyance at his coarse, shameless badinage; bowing to this great man (from whom he hoped for countenance), staring insolently at that one (from whom he was sure of nothing but enmity), quoting Martial to a mitred courtier (because the prelate couldn't understand Latin), whispering French to a youthful diplomatist (because the boy knew no tongue but English), preparing im- ABOUT TOWN. 229 promptu compliments for " royal Anna" (as our dear worthy ancestors used to call Mrs. Masham's intimate friend), or with his glorious blue eyes sending a glance eloquent of admiration and homage at a fair and influential supporter ; cring- ing, fa^vning, flattering — in fact, angling for the bishopric he was never to get. With Arbuthnot it was that Swift tried the dinners and wine of every hotel round Covent Garden or in the city. From Arbuthnot it was that the Dean, during his periods of official exile, received his best and surest information of the battle of cliques, the scandals of the Court, the contentions of parties, the prospects of ministers, and (most important subject by far) the health of the Queen, — all which topics kept the Londoners fighting and fretting, as at this present day they fight and fret. Some of the most pleasant pictures in the " Journal to Stella" are those in which the kindly presence of the Doctor softens the asperity of the Dean. Most readers of these pages have accom- panied the two " brothers" in their excursion to the course the day before the horse-races, when they overtook Miss Forrester, the pretty maid of honour, and made her accompany them. The lady was taking the air on her palfrey, habited in the piquant riding-dress of the period — the natty three-cornered cocked hat, ornamented with gold lace, and perched on the top of a long flowing 230 A BOW FROM A LADY. periwig, powdered to the whiteness of snow, the long coat cut like a coachman's, the waistcoat flapped and laced, and lastly the habit-skirt. One sees the belle at this time smiling archly, with all the power of beauty, and shaking the handle of her whip at the divine and the physician. So they took her with them (and they weren't wrong in doing so). Then the old Queen came by, gouty and hypochondriac. Off went the hats of the two courtiers in the presence of her Majesty. The beauty, too, raised her little three-cornered cock- boat (rising on her stirrup as she did so), and re- turned it to the summit of the flowing wig, with a knowing side-glance, as much as to say, " See, sirs, we women can do that sort of thing quite as gracefully as the lords of the creation." (Oh^ Mr. Spectator, how could you find it in you to quarrel with that costume ?) Swift was charmed, and described enough of the scene to make that foolish Stella frantically jealous ; and then, pru- dent, canny love-tyrant that he was, added with a sneer — ^^I did not like her, though she be a toast, and was dressed like a man." And you may be sure that poor little Stella was both fool enough and wise enough both to believe and dis- believe this assurance at the same time. Arbuthnot owed his success in no degree what- ever to the Influence of his family, and only in a very slight degree to his professional knowledge. PECKHAM SENSIBILITY. 231 His father was only an episcopalian clergyman — allied, of course (he was a Scotchman), to the noble family of Arbuthnot, but deprived by the Revolution of his deo;ree. His M.D. deo;ree was only an Aberdeen one. He rose by his wit, rare conversational powers, and fascinating address, achieving eminence at Court because he was the greatest master of fence with the weapon that is most used in courts — the tongue. He failed to get a living amongst rustic boors, who appreciated no effort of the human voice but a fox-hunter's whoop. Dorchester, where as a young man he en- deavoured to establish himself in practice, refused to give him an income, but it doubtless maintained more than one dull empiric in opulence. In London he met with a different reception. For a time he was very poor, and resorted to the most hateful of all occupations — the personal instruction of the ignorant. How long he was so engaged is uncertain. Something of Goldsmith's " Peck- ham" sensibility made him not care in after-life to talk of the days when he was a teacher of mathematics — starving on pupils until he should be permitted to grow fat on patients. The patients were not long in coming. The literary reputation he obtained by his "Examina- tion of Dr. Woodward's Account of the Deluge," elicited by Woodward's "Essay towards a Na- tural History of the Earth," instead of fright- 232 THE TIME OF DAY. ening the sick from him, brought them to him. Accidentally called in to Prince George of Den- mark, when his royal highness was suddenly taken ill at Epsom, he made himself so agreeable, that the casual introduction became a permanent con- nection. In 1709, he, on the illness of Hannes (a physician who also understood the art of rising in spite of obstacles), was appointed physician-in- ordinary to Queen Anne. To secure the good graces of his Royal patient, and rise yet higher in them, he adopted a tone of affection for her as a person, as well as loyal de- votion to her as a queen. The fall of Eadcliffe warned him that he had need of caution in deal- ing with the weak-minded, querulous, crotchety, self-indulgent invalid. " What's the time ? " asked the Queen of him one day. " Whatever it may please your majesty," an- swered the court-physician, with a graceful bow. After all, the best testimony of a man's merit is the opinion held of him by those of his acquaint- ance who know him intimately — at home as well as abroad. By all who came within the circle of Arbuthnot's privacy he was respected as much as loved. And his associates were no common men. Pope, addressing him as " the friend of his life," says : — arbuthnot's death. 233 " Why did I write? what sin, to me unknown, Dipp'd me in ink ? — my parents' or my own ? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came. I left no calling for this idle trade, No duty broke, no father disobeyed. The muse but served to ease some friend, not wife, To help me through this long disease, my life, To second, Arbuthnot ! thy art and care. And teach the being you preserved to bear." Pope's concluding wish — " Oh, friend ! may each domestic bliss be thine," was ineffectual. Arbuthnot's health failed under his habits of intemperance, and during his latter years he was a terrible sufferer from asthma and melan- choly. After the Queen's death he went for the benefit of his health on the continent, and visited his brother, a Paris banker. Returning to London he took a house in Dover Street, from which he moved to the residence in Cork Street, Burlington Gardens, where he died Feb. 27, 1734 — 5. He died in straitened circumstances ; for unlike his fellow-countryman. Colonel Chartres, he had not the faculty of saving. But with failing energies, an excruciated frame, and the heart-burden of a family unprovided for, he maintained a philoso- phic equanimity, and displayed his old unvarying consideration for all who surrounded him. Arbuthnot's epitaph on Colonel Chartres (almost 234 A NICE MAN. as well known as Martinus Scriblerus) is a good specimen of his humour ; — " Here continueth to rot, The Body of Francis Chartres, Who, with an indefatigable constancy. And inimitable Uniformity of Life, Persisted, In spite of Age and Infirmities, In the practice of every Human Vice, Excepting Prodigality and Hypocrisy : His insatiable Avarice exempting him from the First, His matchless impudence from the Second. Nor was he more singular in the Undeviating Pravity Of his manners, than successful In accumulating Wealth : For, without Trade or Profession, Without trust of public money, And without bribe-worthy service. He acquired, or more properly created, A ministerial estate. He was the only person of this time Who could cheat without the Mask of Honesty, Retain his primaeval meanness when possessed of Ten thousand a -year : And having daily deserved the Gibbet for what he did. Was at last condemned to it for what he could not do. Oh, indignant reader ! Think not his life useless to mankind : Providence connived at his execrable designs, To give to After-age a conspicuous Proof and Example Of how small estimation is exorbitant Wealth In the sight of God, by his bestowing it on The most unworthy of Mortals." The history of the worthy person whose repu- FUNEREAL HONOURS. 235 tation is here embalmed is interesting. Begin- ning life as an ensign in the army, he was drummed out of his regiment, banished Brussels, and igno- miniously expelled from Ghent, for cheating. As a miser he saved, and as a usurer he increased, the money which he won as a blackleg and card- sharper. Twice was he condemned to death for heinous offences, but contrived to purchase pardon; and, after all, he was fortunate enough to die in his own bed, in his native country, Scotland, a.d. 1731, aged sixty-two. At his funeral the indig- nant mob, feeling that justice had not been done to the dear departed, raised a riot, insulted the mourners, and, when the coffin was lowered into the grave, threw upon it a magnificent collection of dead dogs I In a similar and scarcely less magnificent vein of humour, Arbuthnot wrote another epitaph — on a greyhound : — ' ' To the memory of Signor Fido, An Italian of Good Extraction ; Wlio came into England, Not to bite us, like most of his countrymen, But to gain an honest hvelihood : He hunted not after fame, Yet acquired it : Regardless of the Praise of his Friends, But most sensible of their love : Tho' he liv'd amongst the great, He neither learn'd nor flatter'd any vice : 236 AN INSCRIPTOE. He was no Bigot, Tho' he doubted of none of the thirty-nine articles ; And if to follow Nature, And to respect the laws of Society, Be Philosophy, He was a perfect Philosopher, A faithful Friend, An agreeable Companion, A loving Husband, Distinguished by a numerous Offspring, All of which he lived to see take good courses ; In his old age he retir'd To the House of a Clergyman in the Country, Where he finished his earthly Race, And died an Honour and an Example to the whole Species. Reader, This stone is guiltless of Flattery, For he to whom it is inscrib'd Was not a man. But a Greyhound." In the concluding lines there is a touch of Sterne. They also call to mind Byron's epitaph on his do^. These epitaphs put the writer in mind of the literary ambition of the eminent Dr. James Gre- gory of Edinburgh. His great aim was to be the Inscriptor (as he styled it) of his age. No distin- guished person died without the doctor promptly striking off his characteristics in a mural legend. For every statue erected to heroes, real or sham, he composed an inscription, and interested him- self warmly to have it adopted. Amongst the A WOETHT MAN. 237 public monuments on which his compositions may be found are the Nelson Monument at Edinburgh, and the Duke of WelUngton's shield at Gibraltar. On King Kobert Bruce, Charles Edward Stuart, his mother. Sir James Foulis de Collington, and Robertson the historian, he also produced comme- morative inscriptions of great excellence. As a very fair specimen of his style the inscription on the Scott Flagon is transcribed : — " Gualteriim Scott, De Abbotsford, Vinim summi Ingenii Soriptorem Elegantem Poetarum sui seculi facile Principem Patriae Decus Ob varia ergo ipsam merita In civium suoriun numerum Grata adscripsit Civitas Edinburgensis Et hoc Cantharo donavit A.D. MDCCCXIII." Sir Richard Blackmore, the other pedagogue physician, was one of those good, injudicious mortals who always either praise or blame too much — usually the latter. The son of a Wiltshire attorney, he was educated at Westminster School and Oxford, taking his degree of M.A. June, 1676, and residing, in all, thirteen years in the university, during a portion of which protracted period of residence he was (though Dr. Johnson erroneously supposed the reverse) a laborious 238 Sadler's hall. student. On leaving Oxford, he passed through a course of searching poverty, and became a schoolmaster. In this earlier part of his life he travelled in France, Germany, the low countries, and Italy, and took his doctor's degree in the University of Padua. On turning his attention to medicine, he consulted Heberden as to what authors he ought to read. " Don Quixote," re- plied the veteran. A similar answer has been attributed to Lord Erskine on being asked by a law student the best literary sources for acquiring legal knowledge and success. The scepticism of the reply reminds one of Garth, who, to an anxious patient inquiring what physician he had best call in in case of his (Garth's) death, re- sponded " One is e'en as good as t'other, and surgeons are not less knowing." As a poet Blackmore failed, but as a physician he was for many years one of the most successful men in his profession. Living at Sadler's Hall, Cheapside, he was the oracle of all the wealthiest citizens, and was blessed with an affluence that allowed him to drive about town in a handsome equipage, and make an imposing figure to the world. Honest, industrious, honourable, and cor- dially liked by his personal friends, he was by no means the paltry fellow that Dryden and Pope represented him to be. Johnson, in his brilliant memoir, treated him very unfairly, and clearly MOTIVE FOR TURNIXG AUTHOR. 239 was annoyed that his conscience would not allow liim to treat him worse. On altogether insuf- ficient grounds the doctor argued that his know- ledge of ancient authors was superficial, and for the most part derived from secondary sources. Passages indeed are introduced to show that the ridicule and contempt showered on the poet by his adversaries, and re-echoed by the laughing world, were unjust ; but the effect of these ad- missions, complete in themselves, is more than counterbalanced by the sarcasms (and some of them vulgar sarcasms too) which the bio- grapher, in imitation of Colonel Codrington, Sir Charles Sedley, and Colonel Blount, directs against the city knight. A sincerely religious man, Blackmore was offended with the gross licentiousness of the drama, and all those productions of the poets which con- stituted the lio^ht literature of the eis^hteenth century. To his eternal honour, Blackmore was the first man who had the courage to raise his voice against the evil, and give utterance to a manly indignation at the insults offered nightly in every theatre to public decency. Unskilled in the use of the pen, of an age when he could not hope to perfect himself in an art to which he had not in youth systematically trained himself, and immersed in the cares of an extensive practice, he set himself to work on the production of a poem, 240 PRINCE ARTHUR. whicK should elevate and instruct, and certainly should not vitiate and deprave youthful readers. In this spirit '* Prince Arthur" was composed and published in 1695, v^^hen the author was between forty and fifty years of age. It was written, as he frankly acknowledged, '^by such catches and starts, and in such occasional uncertain hours as his profession afforded, and for the greatest part in coffee-houses, or in passing up and down streets." The wits laughed at him for writing " to the rumbling of his chariot wheels," but at this date ridicule, thrown on a man for doing good at odd scraps of a busy day, has a close similarity to the laughter of fools. Let any reader compare the healthy gentlemanlike tone of the preface to " Prince Arthur," with the mean animosity of all the virulent abusive criticisms and sarcasms that were directed against the author and his works, and then decide on which side truth and good taste lie. Blackmore made the fatal error of writing too much. His long poems wearied the patience of those who sympathized with his goodness of in- tention. What a list there is of them, in Swift's inscription, "to be put under Sir Richard's picture !" " See, who ne'er was, or will be lialf read, Who first sung Arthur, then sung Alfred,^ ^ Two heroic Poems, folio, twenty books. INSCRIPTION FOR A PORTRAIT. 241 Praised great Eliza ^ in God's anger, Till all true Englishmen cried, hang her ! * * * • Then hissed from earth, grown heavenly quite, Made every reader curse the light. ' Mauled human wit in one thick satire ; * Next, in three books, spoiled human nature; * Ended Creation^ at a jerk, And of Redemption ' made damn'd work : Then took his muse at once, and dipped her Full in the middle of the Scripture. "VMiat wonders there the man grown old did ! Sternhold himself he out-sternholded ; Made David ^ seem so mad and freakish, All thought him just what thought king Achish. Ko mortal read his Solomon,^ But judged R'oboam his own son. Moses " he served, as Moses Pharaoh, And Deborah as she Sisera : Made Jeremy " full sore to cry, And Job ^2 himself curse God and die." Nor is this by any means a complete list of Sir Richard's works; for he was also a voluminous medical writer, and author of "History of the 2 An heroic Poem, in twelve books, ' Hymn to Light. * Satire against Wit. * Of the Nature of Man. 8 Creation, in seven books. ' Redemption, in six books. 8 Translation of all the' Psalms. » Canticles and Ecclesiastes. " Canticles of Moses, Deborah, &c. " The Lamentations. " The whole Book of Job, in foho. VOL. L R 242 "a piece of my mind." Conspiracy against tbe Person and Government of King William the Third, of glorious memory, in the year 1695." Dryden, unable to clear himself of the charge of pandering for gain to the licentious tastes of the age, responded to his accuser by calling him an " ass," a ^' pedant," a " quack," and a " canting preacher." " Quack Maurus, though he never took degrees In either of our universities, Yet to be shown by some kind wit he looks, Because he played the fool, and writ three books. But if he would be worth a poet's pen, He must be more a fool, and write again ; For all the former fustian stuff he wrote Was dead-born doggerel, or is quite forgot : His man of Uz, stript of his Hebrew robe. Is just the proverb, and ' as poor as Job.' One would have thought he could no longer jog ; But Arthur was a level. Job's a bog. There though he crept, yet still he kept in sight ; But here he founders in, and sinks downright. * ♦ * * At leisure hours in epic song he deals, Writes to the rumbling of his coach's wheels. * ' * * * Well, let him go— 'tis yet too early day To get himself a place in farce or play ; We know not by what name we should arraign him, For no one category can contain him. A pedant, canting preacher, and a quack. Are load enough to break an ass's back. At last, grown wanton, he presumed to write, Traduced two kings, their kindness to requite; One made the doctor, and one dubbed the knight."^ WILLIAM AND CHAELES. 243 The former of the kings alluded to is James the Second, Blackmore having obtained his fellowship of the College of Physicians, April 12, 1687, under the new charter granted to the college by that monarch; the latter being William the Third, who, in recognition of the doctor's zeal and in- fluence as a Whig, not less than of his eminence in his profession, made him a physician of the household, and knighted him. Pope says: — " The hero William, and the martyr Charles, One knighted Blackmore, and one pensioned Quarles." The bard of Twickenham had of course a few ill words for Blackmore. In the Dunciad he says: — " Ye critics, in whose heads, as equal scales, I weigh what author's heaviness prevails ; Which most conduce to soothe the soul in slumbers, My H ley's periods, or my Blackmore's numbers." Elsewhere, in the same poem, tbe little wasp of poetry continues his hissing song: — " But far o'er all, sonorous Blackmore's strain, Walls, steeples, skies, bray back to him again. In Tot'nham fields, the brethren, with amaze, Prick all their ears up, and forget to graze ; 'Long Chancery Lane retentive rolls the sound. And courts to courts return it round and round ; Thames wafts it thence to Rufus' roaring hall. And Hungerford re-echoes bawl for bawl ; All hail him victor in both gifts of song. Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long." e2 244 COMMENDATORY VERSES. Such being the tone of the generals, the reader can imagme that of the petty scribblers, the pro- fessional libellers, the coffee-house rakes, and lite- rary amateurs of the Temple, who formed the rabble of the vast army against which the doctor had pitted himself, in defence of public decency and domestic morality. Under the title of " Com- mendatory Yerses, on the author of the two Arthurs, and the Satyr against Wit, by some of his particular friends," were collected, in the year 1700, upwards of forty sets of ribald verses, taunting Sir Richard with his early poverty, with Iris having been a schoolmaster, with the unspeak- able baseness of — living in the city. The writers of these wretched dirty lampoons, that no kitchen- maid Could in our day read without blushing, little thought what they were doing. Their obscene stupidity has secured for them the lasting ignominy to which they imagined they were con- signing their antagonist. What a crew they are! — with chivalric Steele and kindly Garth, forgetting their better natures, and joining in the miserable riot! To "The City Quack;" " The Cheapside Knight ;" " The Illustrious Quack, Pedant, Bard;" " The Merry Poetaster of Sadler's Hall" — such are the titles by which they address the doctor, who had presumed to say that authors and men of wit ought to find a worthier exercise for their intel- lects than the manufacture of impure jests. THE COUNTESS OF SANDWICH. 245 Colonel Codrino^ton makes his shot thus — -&■ ■ By Nature meant, by Want a Pedant made, Blackmore at first jjrof ess'd the whipping trade ; ***** In vain his drugs an well as Birch he try'd — His boys grew blockheads, and his patients dy'd. Next he turned Bard, and, mounted on a cart, Whose hideous rumbling made Apollo start. Burlesqued the Bravest, Wisest son of Mars, In ballad rhymes, and all the pomp of Farce. The same dull sarcasms about killing patients and whipping boys into blockheads are repeated over and over again. As if to show, with the greatest possible force, the pitch to which the evil of the times had risen, the coarsest and most dis- gusting of all these lampoon-writers was a lady of rank — the Countess of Sandwich. By the side of her ladyship, Afra Behn and Mistress Manley become timid blushing maidens. A better de- fence of Sir Richard than the Countess's attack on him it w^ould be impossible to imagine. And after all — the slander and the maledictions — Sir Richard Blackmore gained the victory, and the wits who never wearied of calling him "a fool" were defeated. The preface to "Prince Arthur" provoked discussion ; the good sense and better taste of the country were roused, and took his side of the controversy. Pope and his myr- midons, it was true, were still able to make the 246 JEREMY COLLIER. heau monde merry about the city knight's pre- sumption — but they could not refute the city knight's arguments; and they themselves were compelled to shape their conduct, as writers, in deference to a new public feeling which he was an important instrument in calling into existence. "Prince Arthur" appeared in 1695, and to the commotion caused by its preface may be attributed much of the success of Jeremy Collier's " Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the St^ge," which was published some three years afterwards. As a poet Sir Richard Blackmore can command only that praise which the charitable bestow on goodness of intention. His muse was a pleasant, well-looking, right-minded young lady, but nothing more. But it must be remembered, before we measure out our criticisms on his productions, that he never arroojated to himself the hiohest honours of poesy. "I am a gentleman of taste and culture, and though I cannot ever hope to build up the nervous lines of Dryden, or attain the polish and brilliance of Congreve, I believe I can write what the generation sorely needs — works that intelligent men may study with im- provement, devout Christians may read without being offended, and pure-minded girls may peruse without blushing from shame. 'Tis true I am a hard- worked doctor, spending my days in coffee- "the creation." 247 houses, receiving apothecaries, or driving over the stones in my carriage, visiting my patients. Of course a man so circumstanced must fail to achieve artistic excellence, but still I'll do my best." Such was the language with which he introduced himself to the public. His best poem. The Creation, written when he could think nobly, and had also acquired facility and force in composition, had such merit that his carping biographer, Johnson, says, " This poem, if he had ^^Titten nothing else, would have transmitted him to posterity one of the first favourites of the English muse;" and Addison de- signated the same poem " one of the most useful and noble productions in our English verse." Of Sir Richard's private character Johnson remarks — " In some part of his life, it is not known when, his indigence compelled him to teach a school — a humiliation with which, though it cer- tainly lasted but a little while, his enemies did not forget to reproach him when he became con- spicuous enough to excite malevolence ; and let it be remembered, for his honour, that to have been a schoolmaster is the only reproach which all the perspicacity of malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private life." 248 CHAPTER XI. THE GENEROSITY AND THE PARSIMONY OF PHYSICIANS. Of the generosity of physicians one need say nothing, for there are few who have not expe- rienced or witnessed it ; and one had better say nothing, as no words could do justice to such a subject. This writer can speak for at least one poor scholar, to whose sick bed physicians have come from distant quarters of the town, day after day, never taking a coin for their precious services, and always in their graceful benevo- lence seeming to find positive enjoyment in their unpaid labour. In gratitude for kind- ness shown to himself, and yet more for benefi- cence to those whom he loves, and to whom similar ministrations have been lavishly and delicately rendered, that man of the goose- HUGO MORGAN. 249 quill and thumbed books would like to put on record the names of certain members of "the Faculty" to whom he is so deeply indebted. Ah, dear Dr. and Dr. and Dr. , do not start ! — your names shall not be put down on this cheap common page. Where they are engraved, you know ! Cynics have been found in plenty to rail at physicians for loving their fees ; and one might justly retort on the Cynics, that they love nothing hut their fees. Who doesn't love the sweet money earned by his labour — be it labour of hand or brain, or both ? One thing is sure — that doctors are underpaid. The most successful of them in our own time get far less than their predecessors of any reign from Harry the Eighth downwards. And for honours, though the present age has seen an author raised to the peerage, no precedent has as yet been established for ennobling eminent physicians and surgeons. Queen Elizabeth gave her physician-in-ordinary lOOZ. per annum, besides diet, wine, wax, and other perquisites. Her apothecary, Hugo Morgan, must too have made a good thing out of her. For a quarter's bill that gentleman was paid 83Z. 7s. 8(i., a large sum in those days ; but then it was for such good things. What Queen of Encrland could grudoje eleven shillino-s for '' a con- fection made like a manus Christi, with bezoar 250 A LOYAL SERVANT. stone and unicorn's horn"! — sixteen pence for "a royal sweetmeat with incised rhubarb " ? — twelve pence for ^' Rosewater for the King of Navarre's ambassador " ? — six shillings for " a conserve of barberries, with preserved damascene plums, and other things for Mr. Ralegh " ? — two shillings and sixpence for " sweet scent to be used at the christening of Sir Richard Knightley's son" ? Coytier, the physician of Charles the XI. of France, was better paid by far. The extent to which he fleeced that monarch is incredible. Favour after favour he wrung from him. When the royal patient resisted the modest demands of his physician, the latter threatened him with speedy dissolution. On this menace the king, succumbing to that fear of death which characte- rized more than one other of his family, was sure to make the required concession. Theodore Hook's valet, who was a good servant in the first year of his service, a sympathizing friend in the second, and a hard tyrant in the third, was a timid slave compared with Coytier. Charles, in or- der to be freed from his despotism, ordered him to be dispatched. The oflScer, entrusted with the task of carrying out the royal wishes, waited on Coytier, and said, in a most gentlemanlike and considerate manner, " I am very sorry, my dear fellow, but I must kill you. The king can't stand A SECOND RESOLUTION. 251 you any longer." " All right," said Coytier, with perfect unconcern, " whenever you like. What time would it be most convenient for you to kill me ? But still, I am deuced sorry for his majesty, for I know by occult science that he can't outlive me more than four days." The officer was so struck with the announcement, that he went away and forthwith imparted it to the king. " Liberate him instantly — don't hurt a hair of his head!" cried the terrified monarch. And Coytier was once again restored to his place in the king's confidence and pocket. Henry Atkins managed James the First with some dexterity. Atkins was sent for to Scotland, to attend Charles the First (then an infant), who was dangerously ill of a fever. The king gave him the handsome fee of 6,000/. Atkins invested the money in the purchase of the manor of Clap- ham. The fee was an irresistible one, more so than that which RadclifFe took after a struo^g-le. Rad- on cliife, with a rare effort of generosity, had attended a friend for a twelvemonth gratuitously. On making his last visit his friend said, " Doctor, here is a purse in which I have put every day's fee ; and your goodness must not get the better of my gratitude. Take your money." Radcliffe looked, made a resolve to persevere in benevolence, just touched the purse to reject it, heard the chink of the gold pieces in it, and put the bag into his 252 " ONLY THREE." pocket. " Singly, sir, I could have refused them for a twelvemonth ; but, all together, they are irre- sistible^^ said the doctor, walking off with a heavy- prize and a light heart. Louis XIV. gave his physician and his surgeon 75,000 crowns each, after successfully under- going a painful and at that time novel opera- tion. By the side of such munificence the fees paid by Napoleon I. to the Faculty who attended Marie Louise in March 1811, when the Emperor's son was born, seem insufficient, Dubois, Corvisart, Bourdier, and Ivan were the professional authorities employed, and they had amongst them a remuneration of 4,000Z., 2,000/. being the por- tion assigned to Dubois. Even more than fee gratefully paid does a hu- morous physician enjoy an extra fee adroitly drawn from the hand of a reluctant payer. Sir Richard Jebb was once paid three guineas by a nobleman from whom he had a right to expect five. Sir Richard dropped the coins on the car- pet, when a servant picked them up and restored them — three, and only three. Instead of walking off Sir Richard continued his search on the carpet. '^Are all the guineas found?" asked his lordship, looking round. " There must be two still on the floor," was the answer, ^' for I have only three." The hint of course was taken, and the right sum put down. An eminent Bristol doctor PROFESSIONAL CONFIDENCE. 253 accomplished a greater feat than this, and took a fee from — a dead commoner, not a live lord. Com- ing into his patient's bedroom immediately after death had taken place, he found the right hand of the deceased tightly clenched. Opening the fin- gers he discovered within them a guinea. " Ah, that was for me — clearly," said tlie doctor putting the piece into his pocket. There is an abundance of good stories of physi- cians fleecing their lambs. To those that are true the comment may be made — " Doubtless the lambs were all the better for being shorn." For the fol- lowing anecdote we are indebted to Dr. Moore, the author of " Zeluco." A wealthy tradesman, after drinking the Bath waters, took a fancy to try the effect of the Bristol hot wells. Armed with an introduction from a Bath physi- cian to a professional brother at Bristol, the invalid set out on his journey. On the road he gave way to his curiosity to read the doctor's let- ter of introduction, and cautiously prying into it read these instructive words : '^ Dear sir, the bearer is a fat Wiltshire clothier — make the most of him." Benevolence was not a virtue in old Monsey's line; but he could be generous at another's expense when the enjoyment his malignity experienced in paining one person counterbalanced his discom- fort at giving pleasure to another. Strolling 254 WIT MEET WIT. through Oxford market he heard a poor woman ask the price of a piece of meat that lay on a but- cher's stall. '^ A penny a pound !" growled the man to whom the question was put, disdaining to give a serious answer to such a poverty-stricken customer. "Just weigh that piece of beef, my friend/' said Monsey, stepping up. " Ten pounds and a half, sir," observed the butcher, after adjusting the scales and weights. " Here, my good woman," said Monsey, " out with your apron, and put the beef into it, and make haste home to your family." Blessing the benevolent heart of the eccentric old gentleman, the woman did as she was bid, took possession of her meat, and was speedily out of sight. " And there, ray man," said Monsey, turning to the butcher, " is tenpence halfpenny, the price of your beef." " What do you mean ?" demanded the man. " Simply that that's all I'll pay you. You said the meat was a penny a pound. At that price I bought it of you — to give the poor woman. Good morning !" A fee that Dr. Fotliergill took of Mr. Grenville was earned without much trouble. Fothergill, like Lettsom, was a quaker, and was warmly sup- ported by his brother sectarians. In the same A FEE FOR TALKING. 255 way Mead was brought into practice by the Non- conformists, to whom his father ministered spiri- tually. Indeed Mead's satirists affirmed that when his servant (acting on instructions) had called him out from divine service, the pastor took his part in the ^' dodge" by asking the congregation to pray for the bodily and ghostly welfare of the patient to whom his son had just been summoned. Dissenters are remarkable for giving staunch sup- port, thorough confidence, to a doctor of their own persuasion. At the outbreak of the American war, therefore, Grenville knew that he could not consult a better authority than the quaker doctor, Fothergill, on the state of feeling amongst the quaker colonists. Fothergill was consequently summoned to prescribe for the politician. The visit took the form of an animated discussion on American affairs, which was brought to a con- clusion by Grenville putting five guineas into the physician's hand, and saying — " Really, doctor, I am so much better, that I don't want you to pre- scribe for me." With a canny significant smile, Fothergill, keeping, like a true quaker, firm hold of the money, answered, " At this rate, friend, I will spare thee an hour now and then." Dr. Glynn, of Cambridge, was as benevolent as he was eccentric. His reputation in the fen dis- tricts as an ague doctor was great, and for some years he made a large professional income. On 256 glynn's magpie. one occasion a poor peasant woman, the widowed mother of an only son, trudged from the heart of the fens into Cambridge, to consult the doctor about her boy, who was ill of an ague. Her manner so interested the physician, that though it was during an inclement winter, and the roads were almost impassable to carriages, he ordered horses, and went out to see the sick lad. After a tedious attendance, and the exhibition of much port wine and bark (bought at the doctor's ex- pense), the patient recovered, and Glynn took his leave, A few days after the farewell visit, the poor woman again presented herself in the con- sulting-room. " I hope, my good woman," said Glynn, " your son is not ill again?" "No, sir, he was never better," answered the woman gratefully; ^^but we can't get no rest for thinking of all the trouble that you have had, and so my boy resolved this morning on sending you his favourite magpie." In the woman's hand was a large wicker basket? which she opened at the conclusion of the speech, affording means of egress to an enormous magpie, that hopped out into the room, demure as a saint and bold as a lord. It was a fee to be proud of ! The free-will offerings of the poor to their doctor are sometimes very droll, and yet more touching. They are presented with such fervour and sim- DR. GREGORY. 257 plicity, and such a sincere anxiety that they should be taken as an expression of gratitude for favours past, not for favours to come. The writer of these pages has known the humble toilers of agricultural districts retain for a score years the memory of kind services done to them in sickness. He could tell of several who, at the anniversary of a particular day (when a wife died, or child was saved from fever, or an accident crushed a finger or lacerated a limb), trudge for miles over the country to the doctor's house, and leave there a little present — a pot of honey, a basket of apples, a dish of the currants from the bush which " the doctor" once praised, and said was fit for a gentleman's garden. Of eminent physicians Dr. Gregory of Edin- burgh was as remarkable for his amiability as for his learning. It was his custom to receive from new pupils at his own house the fees for the pri- vilege of attending his lectures. Whilst thus engaged one day, he left a student in his consulting- room, and went into an adjoining apartment for a fresh supply of admission tickets. In a mirror the doctor saw the student rise from his seat, and sweep into his pocket some guineas from a heap of gold (the fees of other students) that lay on the consulting-room table. Without saying a word at the moment Dr. Gregory returned, dated the admission ticket, and gave it to the thief. He YOL. I. S 258 A TIMELY REPROOF. then politely attended him to the door, and on the threshold said to the young man, with deep emotion, " I saw what you did just now. Keep the money. I know what distress you must be in. But for God's sake never do it again — it can never succeed." The pupil implored Gregory to take back the money, but the doctor said, " Your pun- ishment is this, you must keep it — now you have taken it." The reproof had a salutary effect. The youth turned out a good and honest man. An even better anecdote can be told of this good physician's benevolence. A poor medical student, ill of typhus fever, sent for him. The summons was attended to, and the visit paid, when the invalid proffered the customary guinea fee. Dr. Gregory turned away, insulted and angry. "I beg your pardon. Dr. Gregory," exclaimed the student, apologetically, ^' I didn't know your rule. Dr. has always taken one." '^ Oh," answered Gregory, ^Mie has — has he? Look you, then, my young friend ; ask him to meet me in consultation, and then offer him a fee ; or stay — offer me the fee first." The directions were duly acted upon. The consultation took place, and the fee was of- fered. '^ Sir," exclaimed the benevolent doctor, " do you mean to insult me ? Is there a profes- sor who would in this University degrade himself so far as to take payment from one of his brother- hood — and a junior ? " The confusion of the man DR. BROCKLESBY. 259 on whom this reproof was really conferred can be imagined. He had the decency, ere the day closed, to send back to the student all the fees he had taken of him. Amongst charitable physicians a high place must be assigned to Brocklesby, of whom mention is made in another part of these pages. An ar- dent Whig, he was the friend of enthusiastic Tories as well as of the members of his own body. Burke on the one hand, and Johnson on the other, were amongst his intimate associates, and experienced his beneficence. To the latter he offered a hun- dred a-year for life. And when the Tory writer was struggling with the heavy burden of increas- ing disease, he attended him with affectionate so- licitude, taking no fee for his services — Dr. He- berden, Dr. Warren, Dr. Butler, and Mr. Cruik- shank the surgeon, displaying a similar liberality. It was Brocklesby who endeavoured to soothe the mental agitation of the aged scholar's death-bed, by repeating the passage from the Roman satirist, in which occurs the line : — " Fortem posce animum et mortis terrore carentem." Burke's pun on Brocklesby's name is a good in- stance of the elaborate ingenuity with which the ffreat Whio* orator adorned his conversation and his speeches. Pre-eminent amongst the advertising quacks of the day was Dr. Rock. It was there- s 2 260 ABERNETHY. , fore natural that Brocklesby should express some surprise at being accosted by Burke as Dr. Rock, a title at once infamous and ridiculous. " Don't be offended. Your name is Rock," said Burke, with a laugh; "I'll prove it algebraically : Brock — ^ = Boch ; or, Brock less h makes Rock." Abernethy is a by-word for rudeness and even brutality of manner ; but he was as tender and generous as a man ought to be, as a man of great intelligence usually is. The stories current about Abernethy are nearly all fictions of the imagina- tion ; or, where they have any foundation in fact, re- late to events that occurred long before the hero to whom they are tacked by anecdote-mongers had appeared on the stage. He was eccentric — but his eccentricities always took the direction of com- mon sense ; whereas the extravagances attributed to him by popular gossip are frequently those of a heartless buffoon. His time was precious, and he rightly considered that his business was to set his patients in the way of recovering their lost health — not to listen to their fatuous prosings about their maladies. He was therefore prompt and decided in checking the egotistic garrulity of valetudinarians. This candid expression of his dislike to unnecessary talk had one good result. People who came to consult him took care not to offend him by bootless prating. A lady on one occasion entered his consulting-room, and put be- A SENSIBLE WOMAN. 261 fore him an injured finger, without saying a word. In silence Abernethy dressed the wound, when instantly and silently the lady put the usual fee on the table, and retired. In a few days she called again, and offered the finger for inspection. ** Better?" asked the surgeon. " Better," answered the lady, speaking to him for the first time. Not another word followed during the rest of the in- terview. Three or four similar visits were made, at the last of which the patient held out her fin- ger free from bandages and perfectly healed. " Well 1 " was Abernethy's monosyllabic inquiry. " Well," was the lady's equally brief answer. " Upon my soul, madam," exclaimed the delighted surgeon, ''you are the most rational woman 1 ever met with f " To curb his tongue, however, out of respect to Abernethy's humour, was an iujpossibility to John Philpot Curran. Eight times Curran (personally unknown to Abernethy) had called on the great surgeon ; and eight limes Abernethy had looked at the orator's tongue (telling him, by-the-by, that it was the most unclean and utterly abominable tongue in the world), had curtly advised him to drink less, and not abuse his stomach with gor- mandizing, had taken a guinea, and had bowed him out of the room. On the ninth visit, just as he was about to be dismissed in the same summary fashion, Curran, with a flash of his dark eye, fixed 262 CURRAN. the surgeon, and said — " Mr. Abernethy, I have been here on eight different days, and I have paid you eight different guineas ; but you have never yet listened to the symptoms of my complaint. I am resolved, sir, not to leave the room till you satisfy me by doing so." With a goodnatured laugh, Abernethy, half suspecting that he had to deal with a madman, fell back in his chair and said — " Oh ! very well, sir ; I am ready to hear you out. Go on, give me the whole — your birth, parentage, and education. I wait your pleasure. Pray be as minute and tedious as you can." With perfect gravity Curran began — " Sir, my name is John Philpot Curran. My parents were poor, but I believe honest people, of the province of Muntiter, where also I was born, at Newmarket, in the county of Cork, in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty. My father being employed to collect the rents of a Protestant gentleman of small fortune, in that neighbourhood, procured my admis- sion into one of the Protestant free-schools, where I obtained the first rudiments of my education. I was next enabled to enter Trinity College, Dublin, in the humble sphere of a sizar — " And so he went steadily on, till he had thrown his auditor into convulsions of laughter. Abernethy was very careful not to take fees from patients if he suspected them to be in indi- gent circumstances. Mr. George Macilwain, in WHAT THE EIGHT HAND DID. 263 Kis instructive and agreeable "Memoirs of John Abernethy," mentions a case where an old officer of parsimonious habits, but not of impoverished condition, could not induce Abernethj to accept his fee, and consequently forbore from again con- sulting him. On another occasion, when a half- pay Heutenant wished to pay him for a long and laborious attendance, Abernethy replied, "Wait till you're a general ; then come and see me, and we'll talk about fees." To a gentleman of small means who consulted him, after having in vain had recourse to other surgeons, he said — " Your recovery will be slow. If you don't feel much pain, depend upon it you are gradually getting round ; if you do feel much pain, then come again? hut not else. I don't want your money." To a hospital student (of great promise and industry, but in narrow circumstances) w^ho became his dresser, he returned the customary fee of sixty guineas, and requested him to expend them in the purchase of books and securing other means of improvement. To a poor widow lady (who consulted him about her child) he, on saying good-bye in a friendly letter, returned all the fees he had taken from her under the impression that she was in good circumstances, and added 5QL to the sum, begging her to expend it in giving her child a daily ride in the fresh air. He was often brusque and harsh, and more than once was pro- 264 THE LADY WINS. perly reproved for his hastiness and want of con- sideration. " I have heard of your rudeness before I came, sir/' one lady said, taking his prescription, " but I was not prepared for such treatment. What am I to do with this!" " Anything you like," the surgeon roughly an- swered. " Put it on the fire if you please." Taking him at his word, the lady put her fee on the table, and the prescription on the fire; and, making a bow, left the room. Abernethy followed her into the hall, apologizing, and begging her to take back the fee or let him write another prescription; but the lady would not yield her vantage-ground. Of operations Abernethy had a most un-sur- geonlike horror — " like Cheselden and Hunter, re- garding them as the reproach of the profession." " I hope, sir, it will not be long," said a poor woman, suffering under the knife. ^' No, indeed," earnestly answered Abernethy, "that would be too horrible." This humanity, on a point on which surgeons are popularly regarded as being devoid of feeling, is very general in the profession. William Cooper (Sir Astley's uncle) was, like Abernethy, a most tender-hearted man. He was about to amputate a man's leg, in the hospital theatre, when the poor fellow, terrified at the dis- play of instruments and apparatus, suddenly UNDER ORDERS. 265 jumped off the table, and hobbled away. The students burst out laughing; and the surgeon, much pleased at being excused from the perform- ance of a painful duty, exclaimed, ^' By God, I am glad he's gone !" The treatment which one poor fellow received from Abernethy may at first sight seem to mili- tate ao;ainst our hi^h estimate of the surgeon's humanity, and dislike of inflicting physical pain. Dr. , an eminent physician still living and conferring lustre on his profession, sent a fa- vourite man-servant with a brief note, running — " Dear Abernethy, Will you do me the kindness to put a seton on this poor fellow's neck"? Yours sincerely, ." The man, who was accus- tomed and encouraged to indulge in considerable freedom of speech with his master's friends, not only delivered the note to Abernethy, but added, in an explanatory and confiding tone, "You see, sir, I don't get better, and as master thinks I ought to have a seton in my neck, I should be thankful if you'd put it in for me." It is not at all improbable that Abernethy resented the direc- tions of master and man. Anyhow he enquired into the invalid's case, and then taking out his needles did as he was requested. The operation was attended with a little pain, and the man howled, as only a coward can howl, under the temporary inconvenience. " Oh ! Lor' bless you ! 266 VERY OBLIGING. Oh, have mercy on me ! Yarrra — yarrra — yarrr! Oh, doctor — doctor — you'll kill me ! " In another minute the surgeon's work was accomplished, and the acute pain having passed away the man re- covered his self-possession and impudence. " Oh, well, sir, I do hope, now that it's done, it'll do me good. I do hope that." " But it won't do you a bit of good." " What, sir, no good ? " cried the fellow. " No more good," replied Abernethy, " than if I had spat upon it." " Then sir — why — oh, yarrr ! here's the pain again — why did you do it ? " " Confound you, man," answered the surgeon, testily, " Why did I do it ? — Why, didnt you ash me to put a seton in your neck f " Of course the surgical treatment employed by Abernethy in this case was the right one ; but he was so nettled with the fellow's impudence and un- manly lamentations, that he could not forbear playing off upon him a barbarous jest. If for this outbreak of vindictive humour the reader is inclined to call Abernethy a savage, let his gift of 50/. to the widow lady, to pay for her sick child's carriage exercise, be remem- bered. Apropos of 50/., Dr. Wilson of Bath sent a present of that sum to an indigent clergyman, against whom he had come in the course of prac- tice. The gentleman who had engaged to con- A PATIENT. 267 vey the gift to the unfortunate priest said, " Well, then, I'll take the money to him to-morrow." *^ Oh, my dear sir," said the doctor, ^^ take it to him to-night. Only think of the importance to a sick man of one good night's rest ! " Side by side with stories of the benevolence of " the Faculty," piquant anecdotes of their stingi- ness might be told. This writer knew formerly a grab-all-you-can-get surgeon, who was entertain- ing a few professional brethren at a Sunday morning's breakfast, when a patient was ushered into the ante-room of the surgeon's bachelor chambers, and the surgeon himself was called away to the visitor. Unfortunately he left the folding-doors between the breakfast-room and the ante-room ajar, and his friends sitting in the former apartment overheard the following conver- sation. " Well, my friend, what's the matter 1 " — the surgeon's voice. The visitor's voice — " Plaze, yer honner, Tm a pore Hirish labourer, but I can spill a bit, and I read o' yer honner's moighty foine cure in the midical jarnal — the Lancet. And I've walked up twilve modes to have yer honner cure me. My complaint is " Surgeon's voice, contemptuously, " Oh, my good man, you've made a mistake. You'd better go to the druggist's shop nearest your home, and 268 A LITTLE GRAIN OF CONSCIENCE. he'll do for you all you want. You couldn't pay me as I require to be paid." Visitor's voice, proudly and triumphantly — "Och, an' little ye know an Irish gintleman, dochter, if ye think he'd be beholden to the best of you for a feavor. Here's a bit o' gould — nocht liss nor a tin shillin' piece, but I've saved it up for ye, and ye'll heve the whole, tho' its every blissed farthinsr I hev." The surgeon's voice altered. The case was gone into. The prescription was written. The poor Irish drudge rose to go, when the surgeon, with that delicate quantity of conscience that rogues always have to make themselves comfortable upon, said, " Now, you say you have no more money, my friend. Well, the druggist will charge you eighteenpence for the medicine I have ordered there. So there's eighteenpence for you out of your half-sovereign." We may add that this surgeon was then, at a moderate computation, making three thousand a- year. We have heard of an Old Bailey barrister boasting how he wrung the shillings (to convert the sovereigns already paid with his brief into guineas) from the' grimed hands of a prisoner actually stand- ing in the dock for trial, ere he would engage to defend him. But compared with this surgeon the man of the long robe was a disinterested friend of the oppressed* A STARTLING DEMAND. 269 A better story yet of a surgeon who seized on his fee like a hawk. A clergyman, of shire, fell from a branch of a high pear-tree to the grass-plot of the little garden that surrounded his vicarage house, and sustained, besides being stunned, a compound fracture of the right arm. His wife, a young and lovely creature, of a noble but poor family, to whom he had been married only three or four years, was terribly alarmed, and, without regulating her conduct by considerations of her pecuniary means, dispatched a telegraphic message to an eminent London surgeon. In the course of three or four hours the surgeon made his appearance, and set the broken limb. " And what, sir," timidly asked the young wife of the surgeon, when he had come downstairs into her little drawing-room, " is your fee ? " " Oh, let's see — distance from town, hundred miles. Yes. Then my fee is a hundred guineas?" Turning deadly pale with fright (for the sum was ten times the highest amount the poor girl had thought of as a likely fee) she rose, and left the room, saying, " Will you be kind enough to wait for a few minutes." Luckily her brother (like her husband, a cler- gyman, mth very modest preferment) was in the hou>je, and he soon made his appearance in the drawing-room. " Sir," said he, addressing the operator, " my sister has just now been telling me 270 A LIBERAL PROPOSITION. the embarrassment she is in, and I think it best to repeat her story frankly. She is quite inexpe- rienced in money matters, and sent for you with- out ever asking what the ordinary fee to so distin- guished a surgeon as yourself, for coming so far from London, might be. Well, sir, it is right you should know her circumstances. My brother- in-law has no property but his small living, which does not yield him more than 400Z. per annum, and he has already two children. My sister has no private fortune whatever, at present, and all she has in prospect is the reversion of a trifling sum — at a distant period. Poverty is the only stigma that time has fixed upon my family. Now, sir, under the circumstances, if professional eti- quette would allow of your reducing your fee to the straitened finances of my sister, it really would — would be — " '^ Oh, my dear sir," returned the surgeon, in a rich unctuous voice of benevolence, "pray don't think I'm a shark. I am really deeply concerned for your poor sister. As for my demand of a hundred guineas^ since it would be beyond her means to satisfy it, why, my dear sir, I shall be only too dehghted to be allowed — to take a hundred pounds ! " The fee-loving propensities of doctors are well illustrated by the admirable touches of Froissart's notice of Guyllyam of Harseley, who was ap- GUYLLYAM OF HARSELEY. 271 pointed physician to Charles the Sixth, King of France, during his derangement. The writer's at- tention was first called to Froissart's sketch of the renowned mad-doctor by his friend Mr. Edgar — a gentleman whose valuable contributions to his- torical literature have endeared his name to both young and old. Of the measures adopted by Guyllyam for the king's cure the readers of Froissart are not particularly informed ; but it would appear, from the physician's parting address to the *^ dukes of Orlyance, Berrey, Burgoyne, and Burbone," that his system was in its enlightened humanity not far behind that adopted at the pre- sent day by Dr. Conolly and Dr. Forbes Wins- low. But, however this may be, Guyllyam's la- bours must be regarded as not less consonant with sound nosological views than those of the afflicted monarch's courtiers, until it can be shown that his treatment was worse than leaving Nature to herself. " They," says Froissart, " that were about the kynge sente the kynge's offrynge to a town called Aresneche, in the countie of Heynaulte, between Cambrey and Valancennes, in the whiche towne there was a churche parteyning to an Abbey of Saynt Waste in Arrasce, wherein there lyeth a saynte, called Saynt Acquayre, of whom there is a shrine of sylver, which pylgrimage is sought f arre and nere for the malady of the fransey ; thyder was sent a ^72 A MAD DOCTOR. man of waxe, representynge the Frenche Kynge, and was humbly oiFred to the Saynt, that he might be meane to God, to asswage the kynge's malady, and to sende him helthe. In lykewise the kynge's ofFrynge was sent to Saynt Hermyer in Romayes, which saynt had meryte to heal the fransey. And in lykewise oiFrynges were sent into other places for ye same entent." The conclusion of Guyllyam's attendance is thus described : — " Trewe it is this sycknesse that the kyng took in the voyage towards Bretagne greatly abated the ioye of the realme of France, and good cause why, for when the heed is sicke the body canne have no ioye. No man durste openly speke therof, but kepte it privy as moche as might be, and it was couertly kept fro the queene, for tyll she was delyuered and churched she knewe nothynge thereof, which tyme she had a doughter. The physician, mayster Guyllyam, who had the chefe charge of healynge of the kynge was styll aboute hym, and was ryght dyligent and well ac- quyted hymselfe, whereby he gate bothe honour and profyte ; for lytell and lytell he brought the kynge in good estate, and toke away the feuer and the heate, and made hym to haue taste and appe- tyte to eate and drinke, slope and rest, and know- ledge of every thynge ; howebeit, he was very feble, and lytell and lytell he made the kynge to ryde a huntynge and on haw kynge ; and whanne A PARTING ADDRESS. 273 tydynges was knowen through France howe the kynge was well mended, and had his memory again, every man was ioy full and thanked God. The kynge thus beyng at Crayell, desyred to se the queue his wyfe and the dolphyn his sonne ; so the queue came thyder to him, and the chylde was brought thyder, the kynge made them good chere, and so lyteil and lytell, through the helpe of God, the kynge recouered his helthe. And when mayster Guyllyam sawe the kynge in so good case he was ryght ioyfuU, as reasone was, for he hade done a fayrecure, and so delyuered him to the dukes of Orlyance, Berrey, Burgoyne, and Burbone, and sayd : ^ My lordes, thanked be God, the kynge is nowe in good state and helth, so I delyuer him, but beware lette no man dysplease hym, for as yet his spyrytes be no fully ferme nor stable, but lytell and lytell he shall waxe stronge ; reasonable dysporte, rest, and myrthe shall be moste profy table for hym ; and trouble hym as lytell as may be with any counsayles, for he hath been sharpely handeled with a bote malady.' Than it was consydred to retaygne this mayster Guyllyam, and to gyve hym that he shulde be content with all, whiche is the ende that all physicians requyre^ to haue gyftes and rewardes; he was desyred to abyde styll about the kynge, but he excused himselfe, and sayd howe he was an olde impotent man, and coulde note endure the maner of courte, wherfore he VOL. I. T 274 THE ROD OF PHYSICIANS. desyred to returne into his owne countrey. Whan the counsayle sawe he wolde none otherwyse do, they gave him leaue, and at his departing gaue him a thousand crownesy and retained hym in wages with four horses whansoeur he wolde resorte to the courte; howebeit, I beleve he never came there after, for whan he retourned to the cytie of Laon, there he contynued and dyed a ryche man : he left behynde him a xxx thousand frankes. All his dayes he was one of the greatest nygardes that ever was : all his pleasure was to get good and to spende nothynge, for in his howse he neuer spente past two souses of Parys in a day, but wolde eate and drinke in other mennes howses, where as he myght get it. With this rodde lyghtly all physicyons are heaten^* The humane advice given by Guyllyam coun- tenances the tradition that cards were invented for the amusement of his royal patient. * Froissart's Chronicles, translated by John Bourchier, Lord Berners. 275 CHAPTEE XII. BLEEDING. Fashion, capricious everywhere, is especially so in surgery and medicine. Smoking we are now taught to regard as a pernicious practice, to be abhorred as James the First abhorred it. Yet Dr. Archer, and Dr. Everard in his " Panacea, or a Universal Medicine, being a discovery of the wonderful virtues of Tobacco" (1659), warmly defended the habit, and for long it was held by the highest authorities as an efficacious preserva- tive against disease. What would schoolboys now say to being flogged for not smoking? Yet Thomas Hearne, in his diary (1720-21) writes — "Jan. 21, I have been told that in the last great plague at London none that kept tobacconists' shops had the plague. It is certain that smoaking was looked upon as a most excellent preservative. In so much, that even children were obliged to smoak. And I remember that I beard formerly T 2 276 SMOKE, BOYS, SMOKE. Tom Rogers, who was yeoman beadle, say, that when he was that year, when the plague raged, a school-boy at Eaton, all the boys of that school were obliged to smoak in the school every morn- ing, and that he was never whipped so much in his life as he was one morning for not smoaking." Blood-letting, so long a popular remedy with physicians, has, like tobacco smoking for medi- cinal purposes, fallen into disuse and contempt. From Hippocrates to Paracelsus, who, with cha- racteristic daring, raised some objections to the practice of venesection, doctors were in the habit of drawing disease from the body as vintners extract claret from a cask, in a ruddy stream. In the feudal aojes bleedino^ was in hio;h favour. Most of the abbeys had a " flebotomaria" or " bleeding- house," in which the sacred inmates underwent bleedings (or " minutions" as they were termed) at stated periods of the year, to the strains of psalmody. The brethren of the order of St. Victor underwent five minutions annually — in September, before Advent, before Lent, after Easter, and at Pentecost. There is a good general view of the supersti- tions and customs connected with venesection, in " The Salerne Schoole," a poem of which mention continually occurs in the writings of our old phy- sicians. The poem commences with the following stanza : — SCHOLA SALERNITINA. 277 ' The ' Salerne School ' doth by these lines impart All health to England's king, and doth advise From care his head to keepe, from wrath his hart. Drink not much wine, sup Mght and soone arise, When meat is gone long sitting breedeth smart ; And afternoone still waking keepe your eies. ****** Use three physitians still — first Doctor Quiet^ Next Doctor Merriman, and Doctor Dyet. Of bleeding many profits grow and great. The spirits and sences are renewed thereby, Thogh these mend slowly by the strength of meate. But these with wine restor'd are by-and-by ; By bleeding to the marrow commeth heate, It maketh cleane your braine, releeves your eie, It mends your appetite, restoreth sleepe. Correcting humors that do waking keep : AU inward parts a ad sences also clearing, It mends the voice, touch, smeU and taste, and hearing. Tliree special months^ September^ Aprill, May^ There are in which 'tis good to ope a vein — In these 3 months the moon beares greatest sway, Then old or young, that store of blood containe. May bleed now, though some elder wizards say, Some dales are ill in these, I hold it vaine ; September, ApriU, May, have dales apeece. That bleeding do forbid and eating geese. And those are they, forsooth, of INIay the first. Of t'other two, the last of each are worst. But yet those dales I graunt, and all the rest, Haue in some cases just impediment. As first, if nature be with cold opprest. Or if the Region, He, or Continent, Do scorch or freez, if stomach meat detest, If Baths you lately did frequent. 278 WADD. Nor old, nor young, nor drinkers great are fit, Nor in long sickness, nor in raging fit. Or in this case, if you will venture bleeding. The quantity must then be most exceeding. When you to bleed intend, you must prepare Some needful things both after and before : Warm water and sweet oyle both needfull are. And wine the fainting spirits to restore ; Fine binding cloths of linnen, and beware That all the morning you do sleepe no more ; Some gentle motion helpeth after bleeding. And on hght meals a spare and temperate feeding. To bleed doth cheare the pensive, and remove The raging furies bred by burning love. Make your incision large and not too deep. That blood have speedy yssue with the fume ; So that from sinnews you all hurt do keep. Nor may you (as I toucht before) presume In six ensuing houres at all to sleep. Lest some slight bruise in sleepe cause an apostume ; Eat not of milke, or aught of milke compounded. Nor let your brain with much drinke be confounded ; Eat no cold meats, for such the strength impayre. And shun all misty and unwholsome ayre. Besides the former rules for such as pleases, Of letting bloud to take more observation ; To old, to young, both letting blood displeases, By yeares and sickness make your computation. First in the spring for quantity you shall Of bloud take twice as much as in the fall ; In spring and summer let the right arme bloud. The fall and winter for left are good." Wadd mentions an old surgical writer who HARWARD AND GYER. 279 divides his chapter on bleeding under such heads as the following : — 1. What is to limit bleeding ; 2. Quahties of an able phlebotomist ; 3. Of the choice of instruments ; 4. Of the band and bolster ; 5. Of porringers ; 6. Circumstances to he considered at the bleeding of a Prince. Simon Harward's " Phlebotomy, or Treatise of Letting of Bloud; fitly serving, as well for an advertisement and remembrance to all well-minded chirurgians, as well also to give a caveat generally to all men to beware of the manifold dangers which may ensue upon rash and unadvised letting of bloud," published in the year 1601, contains much interesting matter on the subject of which it treats. But a yet more amusing work is one that Nicholas Gyer wrote and published in 1592, under the following title : — *' The English Phlebotomy ; or. Method and Way of Healing by Letting of Blood." On the title-page is a motto taken from the book of Proverbs — ^' The horse-leach hath two daughters, which crye, ' give, give.' " The work affords some valuable insight into the social status of the profession in the sixteenth century. In his dedicatory letter to Master Eeginald Scot, Esquire, the author says that phlebotomy "is greatly abused by vagabund horse-leaches and travailing tinkers, who find work almost in 280 AUNCIENT PAPER BOOKE. every village through whom it comes (having in truth neither knowledge, nor witte, nor honesty) the sober practitioner and cunning chirurgian liveth basely, is despised, and accounted a very abject amongst the vulgar sort." Of the medical skill of Sir Thomas Eliot, and Drs. BuUeyn, Turner, Penie, and Coldwel, the author speaks in terms of warm eulogy ; but as for the tinkers aforementioned, he would regard them as mur- derers, and " truss them up at Tyborne." Gyer, who indulges in continual reference to the " Schola Salerni," makes the following contribution to the printed metrical literature on Venesection: — " Certaine very old English verses, concerning the veines and letting of hloud, taken out of a very auncient paper booke of Phisicke notes: — " Ye maisters that usen bloud-letting, And therewith getten your living ; Here may you learn wisdome good, In what place ye shall let bloud. For man, in woman, or in child, For evils that he wood and wild. There beene veynes thirty-and-two, For wile is many, that must he undo. Sixteene in the head full right, And sixteene beneath I you plight. In what place they shall be found, I shall you teU in what stound. Beside the eares there beene two, That on a child mote beene undoe ; To keep his head from evil turning And from the scale withouten letting. SIMPLE DIRECTIONS. 281 And two at the temples miist bleede, For stopping and aking I reede ; And one is in the mid forehead, For Lepry or for sawcefleme that mote bleede. Above the nose forsooth is one, That for the frensie mote be undone. Also when the eien been sore. For the red gowt evermore. And two other be at the eien end, If they bieeden them to amend. And the arch that comes thorow smoking, 1 you tell withouten leasing. And at the whole of the throat, there beene two, That Lepry and straight breath will undoo. In the lips foure there beene. Able to bleede I teU it be deene, Tw^o beneath, and above also, I tell thee there beene two. For sorenes of the mouth to bleede, AVhen it is flawne as I thee reede. And two in the tongue withouten lie, I^Iote bleede for the q[uinancie. And when the tongue is aught aking, For aU manner of swelling. Now have I tolde of certaine, That longer for the head I weene. And of as many I will say. That else where there beene in fay. In every arme there beene fife, FuU good to bleede for man and wife, Ceplialica is one I wis, The head veyne he cleaped is, The body above and the head : He cleanseth for evil and qued. In the bought of the arme also, An order there must he undoo ; 282 MAY-DAY BLEEDINGS. Basilica his name is, Lowest he sitteth there ywis ; Forsooth he cleanseth the liver aright, And all other members beneath I twight. The middle is betweene the two, Corall he is clipped also That veine cleanseth withouten doubt ; Above and beneath, within and without. For Basilica that I of told, One braunched veine ety up full bold. To the thomb goeth that one braunch ; The cardiacle he wil staunch. That there braunch full right goeth. To the little finger withouten oth ; Saliiatell is his name. He is a veine of noble fame ; There is no veine that cleanseth so clene, • The stopping of the liver and splene. Above the knuckles of the feet. With two veines may thou meet. Within sitteth Domestica, And without Saluatica. All the veines thee have I told. That cleanseth man both yong and old. If thou use them at thy need, These foresaid evils they dare not dread ; So that our Lord be them helping. That all hath in his governing. So mote it be, so say all wee, Amen, amen, for charitee." To bleed on May-day is still the custom with ignorant people in a few remote districts. The system of vernal minutions probably arose from that tendency in most men to repeat an act FORCE OF HABIT. 283 (simply because they have done it once) until it has become a habit, and then superstitiously to persevere in the habit, simply because it is a habit. How many aged people read certain antiquated journals, as they wear exploded garments, for no other reason than that they read the same sort of twaddle, and wore the same sort of habiliments, when young. To miss for once the performance of a periodically recurring duty, and so to break a series of achievements, would worry many per- sons, as the intermitted post caused Dr. Johnson discomfort till he had returned and touched it. As early as the sixteenth century, we have Gyer combating the folly of people having recourse to periodic venesections. "There cometh to my minde," he says, " a common opinion among the ignorant people, which do certainly beleeve that, if any person be let bloud one year, he must be let bloud every yere, or else he is (I cannot tell, nor they neither) in how great danger. Which fonde opinion of theirs, whereof soever the same sprong first, it is no more like to be true, than if I should say : when a man hath received a great wound by chaunce in any part of his body, where- by he loseth much bloud ; yet after it is healed, he must needs have the like wounde againe there the next yeare, to avoid as much bloud, or els he is in daunger of great sickness, yea, and also in hazard to lose his life." 284 A NOBLE PHLEBOTOMIST. The practitioners of phlebotomy, and the fees paid for the operation, have differed widely. In the middle of the last century a woman used the lancet with great benefit to her own pocket, if not to her patients, in Marshland, in the county of Norfolk. What her charge was is unknown, probably, however, only a few pence. A distin- guished personage of the same period (Lord Radnor) had a great fondness for letting the blood (at the point of an amicable lancet — not a hostile sword) of his friends. But his lordship, far from accepting a fee, was willing to remunerate those who had the courage to submit to his surgical care. Lord Chesterfield, wanting an additional vote for a coming division in the House of Peers, called on Lord Kadnor, and, after a little introductory con- versation, complained of a distressing headache. " You ought to lose blood then," said Lord Radnor. ^' Gad — do you indeed think so ? Then, my dear lord, do add to the service of your advice by performing the operation. I know you are a most skilful surgeon," Delighted at the compliment. Lord Radnor, in a trice pulled out his lancet-case, and opened a vein in his friend's arm. " By-the-by," asked the patient, as his arm was being adroitly bound up, " do you go down to the House to-day?" BLEEDING FOR ONE's COUNTRY. 285 ^'I had not intended going," answered the noble operator, "not being sufficiently informed on the question which is to be debated ; but you, that have considered it, which side will you vote on In reply. Lord Chesterfield unfolded his view of the case ; and Lord Kadnor was so delighted with the reasoning of the man (who had held his surgical powers in such high estimation), that he forthwith promised to support the wily earl's side in the division. "I have shed my blood for the good of my country," said Lord Chesterfield that evening to a party of friends, who, on hearing the story, were convulsed with laughter. Steele tells of a phlebotomist who advertised, for the good of mankind, to bleed at '^ threepence per head." Trade competition has, however, induced practitioners to perform the operation even with- out " the threepence." In the Stamford Mercury for March 28, 1716, the following announcement was made : — " Whereas the majority of apothe- caries in Boston have agreed to pull down the price of bleeding to sixpence, let these certifie that Mr. Clarke, apothecary, will bleed anybody at his shop gratis^ The readers of Smollett may remember in one of his novels the story of a gentleman who, falling down in his club in an apoplectic fit, was imme- 286 A LEGACY. ^ diately made the subject of a bet between two friendly bystanders. The odds were given and accepted against the sick man's recovery, and the wager was duly registered, when a suggestion was made by a humane spectator that a surgeon ought to be sent for. " Stay," exclaimed the good fellow interested in having a fatal result to the attack, " if he is let blood, or interfered with in any way, the bet doesn't hold good." This humorous anecdote may be found related as an actual occurrence in Horace Walpole's works. It was doubtless one of the "good stories" current in society, M^hich was sc completely public pro- perty, that the novelist deemed himself entitled to use it as he liked. In certain recent books of ^'ana" the incident is fixed on Sheridan and the Prince Regent, who are represented as the parties to the bet. Elsewhere mention has been made of a thousand pounds ordered to be paid Sir Edmund King for promptly bleeding Charles the Second. A nobler fee was given by a French lady to a surgeon, who used his lancet so clumsily that he cut an artery instead of a vein, in consequence of which the lady died. On her death-bed she, with charming huma- nity and irony, made a will, bequeathing the opera- tor a life-annuity of eight hundred livres, on con- dition " that he never again bled anybody so long as he lived." In the Journal Encyclo'pedique of A BUNGLING OPERATOR. 287 Jan. 15, 1773, a similar story is told of a Polish princess, who lost her life in the same way. In her will, made in extremis^ there was the following clause: — " Convinced of the injury that my unfor- tunate accident will occasion to the unhappy surgeon who is the cause of my death, I bequeath to him a life annuity of two hundred ducats, secured by my estate, and forgive his mi.