A Book About Doctors

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 the middle ages has induced the popular and erroneous belief that the barber-surgeon had in olden times a contemptible social status. Unquestionably his art has been elevated during late generations to a dignity it did not possess in feudal 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 Elizabeth and her three predecessors in sovereign power abounded in medical and surgical amateurs. Amongst the fashionable empirics Bulleyn mentions Sir Thomas Elliot, Sir Philip Paris, Sir William Gasgoyne, Lady Taylor and Lady Darrel, and especially that "goodly hurtlesse Gentleman, Sir Andrew Haveningham, who learned water to kill a canker of his own mother." 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 IV. 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 counsel in all their proceedings." The only art which fashionable people now-a-days care much to meddle with is literature. In estimating the difference between the position of an eminent surgeon now, and that which he would have occupied in earlier times, we must remember that life and hereditary 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 Ayliffe 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 Willielmus Holme Sirurgicus Regis pro vitâ suâ possit, fugare, capere, et asportare 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 profession 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 always stuck out for a price, and in some form or other made the demand which was imprinted on the pillboxes of Lilly's successor, John Case,

But the true physician always left his reward to be measured by the gratitude and justice of the benefited. He extorted nothing, but freely received 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 physicians 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 pleasantly 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 brothers 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 resemble the charitable Cilician brothers, was the cause of physicians preferring a system of gratuities 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 impotent anxiety to propitiate the mysterious functionary 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 crowns 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 "cacoethes donandi" is a manifestation of enfeebled powers which a high-minded physician is often called upon to resist, and an unprincipled 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 frame of mind disappears. When the devil was sick he was a very different character from what he was on getting well. '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 becoming convalescent, grows irritable, suspicious, and distant,—and by the time he can resume his customary occupations, looks on his dear benefactor and saviour as a designing rascal, bent on plundering him of his worldly possessions. Euricus 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:—

Illustrative of the same truth is a story told of Bouvart. On entering one morning the chamber of a French Marquis, whom he had attended through a very dangerous illness, he was accosted by his noble patient in the following terms:—

"Good day to you, Mr. Bouvart; I 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 convinced 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 physician is very like the love a candidate for a 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 themselves 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 pay," save at the Imperial court, where the physicians 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 between 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 offered, and were not too proud to accept, fees as well. Coursus de Gungeland, Edward the Third's apothecary, had a pension of sixpence a-day—a considerable sum at that time; and Ricardus 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 vitâ." 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 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 £1—but this was at least double what a commoner 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 London scorned "to touch any metal but gold."

It is no matter of uncertainty what the physician's ordinary fee was at the close of the sixteenth and the commencement of the seventeenth century. 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 6s. 8d., Pearls being dear since our clipt money was bought. The Specific Bolus, 4s. 6d., I never reckon less; my master in Leadenhall Street never set down less, be it what it would. The Antihysterick Application 3s. 6d. (a common one is but 2s. 6d.), and the Anodyne Draught 3s. 4d.—that's all, sir; a small matter and please you, sir, for your lady. My fee is what you please, sir. All the bill is but 18s.

"Trueman—Faith, then, d'ye make a but at it? 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 advised her to have forebore 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 object was to hold up physicians as models of learning 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 10s. 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 Dispensarians are the Patriots of Britain," published in 1708, represents the humbler physicians 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 their industry to prescribe the larger abundance to all 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, was physician to Henry IV. and Louis XIII. of France, and subsequently to James I., Charles I., and Charles II. of England. As a physician, who had the honour of attending many crowned heads, he ranks above Caius, who was physician to Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth—Ambrose Paré, the inventor of ligatures for severed arteries, who was physician and surgeon to Henry II., Francis II., Charles IX., and Henry III. of France—and Sir Henry Halford, who attended successively George III., George IV., William IV., and Victoria. It is told of Sir Theodore, that when a friend, after consulting 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, 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 all relish the sight of its being netted. His countenance, if not his tongue, made his mortification manifest. "Sir," said Sir Theodore, "I made my will this morning; and if it should appear that I refused a fee, I might be deemed non compos."

The "Levamen Infirmi," published in 1700, shows that a century had not, at that date, made much difference in the scale of remuneration accorded to surgeons and physicians. "To a graduate in physick," this authority states, "his due is about ten shillings, though he commonly expects or demands 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 surgeons 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 attended Queen Caroline had five hundred guineas, and the surgeons three hundred guineas each; and that Dr. Willis was rewarded for his successful attendance on his Majesty King George III., by £1500 per annum for twenty years, and £650 per annum to his son for life. The other physicians, 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 relates—"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 his bloud (having his lancet in his pocket), his Majesty had certainly died that moment, which might have ben of direful consequence, there being nobody else present with the king save this doctor and one more, as I am assured. It was a mark of the extraordinary 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 regular pardon, as they tell me." For this promptitude and courage the Privy-Council ordered £1000 to be given to Dr. King—but he never obtained the money.

In a more humourous, but not less agreeable manner, Dr. Hunter (John Hunter's brother), was disappointed of payment for his professional services. On a certain occasion he was suffering under such 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 resistance 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?" 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 sufferings, implored the professional man he addressed 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 embarrassment, "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 pecuniary 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 altogether. 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.

"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 word 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 hundred pounds. But the time came when the patients stood for hours in his ante-rooms waiting to have an interview with the great surgeon, and after all, their patients were dismissed without being 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 disappointed applicants, in a tone of magnificent patronage, when they reappeared the next morning after their effectless visit, "I am not at all sure that we shall be able to attend to-day to you, gentlemen, for we are excessively busy, and our list is perfectly full 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, however, 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 smaller sum than five guineas. After Sir Astley moved to the West End he had a more numerous and at the same time more aristocratic practice; but his receipts were never so much as they were when he dwelt within the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction. His more distinguished patients 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 principally made to Mr. Cole's seat near Croydon. Another "City man," who consulted the surgeon in Broad Street, and departed without putting down any honorarium whatever, sent a cheque for £63 10s., with the following characteristic note:—

"Dear Sir—When I had first the pleasure of seeing 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 compliment by accepting the enclosed draft as an act of friendship. It is the profit on £2000 of the ensuing 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 undergo a painful and perilous operation, was attended by Drs. Lettsom and Nelson as physicians, and Sir Astley as chirurgeon. The wealthy patient, his treatment having resulted most successfully, 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 speaking to his surgeon, "shall have something better. There, sir—take that." The that was the convalescent's night-cap, which he flung at the dexterous 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 1000 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 more munificent than the West Indian planter. When Dr. Dimsdale, for many years a Hertford physician, and subsequently the parliamentary representative 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 £500 per annum, and the rank of Baron of the Empire. But if Catherine paid thus handsomely 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 £2000 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 Fuller's "English Worthies") more pleasure in "presents 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 Ward, the Thames Street drysalter, who made a fortune by his "Drop and 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; and 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 obtained, the privilege of driving his carriage through St. James's Park.

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 would have roused them to an onward march by "A guinea!" Sometimes patients object to pay the extra shilling over the sovereign, not less than their medical advisers insist on having it. "We surgeons do 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 regarded "that shilling" as sheer humbug, and he would not pay it. A contest ensued, which terminated in the eccentric patient paying, not the shilling, but an additional sovereign. 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 Mr. Alexander Kellet, who died at his lodgings in Bath, in the year 1788 is our authority. A certain French surgeon residing in Georgia was taken prisoner by some Indians, who having acquired 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.

If full reliance may be placed on the following humorous verses, it is not unknown for a physician to be paid in commodities, without the intervention of the circulating medium, or the receipt of such creature comforts as Johnson's friendly apothecary was wont to accept in lieu of cash:—

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.

CHAPTER X.

PEDAGOGUES TURNED DOCTORS.

In the church of St. Mary Magdalen, Taunton, is a monumental stone engraved with the following inscription:—

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 Taunton Grammar-school in the year 1579. For many years he presided over that seminary with great efficiency, and sent out into the world several eminent scholars. On arriving, however, at the middle age of life, he relinquished the mastership of the school, and turned his attention to the practice of medicine. His reputation and success as a physician were great—the worthy people of Taunton honouring him as "a wise man." He died August 3, 1612.

More than a century later than John Bond, schoolmaster and physician, appeared a greater celebrity in the person of James Jurin, who, from the position of a provincial pedagogue, raised himself to be regarded as first of the London physicians, 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 Bluecoat school. After graduating in arts at Cambridge, he obtained the mastership of the grammar-school of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, January, 1710. In the following year he acquired 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 Transactions the essays which involved him in controversies 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," added to Smith's "System of Optics." Voltaire 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 laid by 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, became a Fellow of the College of Physicians, a Fellow of the Royal Society (to which distinguished body he became secretary on the resignation of Dr. Halley 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 acquired 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 Gentleman's Magazine calls "a dead palsy," leaving by his will a considerable legacy to Christ's Hospital.

One might make a long list of Doctors Pedagogic, including poor Oliver Goldsmith, who used to wince and redden with shame and anger 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 wit, 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, Arbuthnot had all the best qualities that are to be ordinarily found in a child of North Britain. Everybody 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 was—one of the handsomest men about town. (Of course, in appearance he did not approach that magnificent gentleman, Beau Fielding). In conversation 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 enjoyed 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 in arm with him that the Dean used to peer about St. James's, jesting, snarling, laughing, 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 impromptu 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; cringing, fawning, 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 battles of the 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.

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 accompanied 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 periwig, powdered to the whiteness of snow, the long coat cut like a coachman's, the waistcoat flapped and faced, 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 returned 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, prudent, 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 disbelieve this assurance at the same time.

Arbuthnot owed his success in no degree whatever to the influence of his family, and only in a very slight degree to his professional knowledge. His father was only a poor episcopalian clergyman, and his M.D. degree 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 endeavoured 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 "Peckham" 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 "Examination of Dr Woodward's Account of the Deluge," elicited by Woodward's "Essay towards a Natural History of the Earth," instead of frightening the sick from him, brought them to him. Accidentally called in to Prince George of Denmark, when his Royal Highness was suddenly taken ill at Epsom, he made himself so agreeable that the casual introduction became a permanent connection. In 1709, on the illness of Hannes (a physician who also understood the art of rising in spite of obstacles) he 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 devotion to her as a queen. The fall of Radcliffe warned him that he had need of caution in dealing 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," answered 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 acquaintance 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:—

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 melancholy. 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 philosophic equanimity, and displayed his old unvarying consideration for all who surrounded him.

Arbuthnot's epitaph on Colonel Chartres (almost 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 primæval meanness when possessed of
Ten thousand a-year:
And having duly 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 reputation is here embalmed is interesting. Beginning life as an ensign in the army, he was drummed out of his regiment, banished Brussels, and ignominiously 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 indignant 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!

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:
Who came into England,
Not to bite us, like most of his countrymen,
But to gain an honest livelihood:
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:
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 Phi losopher,
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 retired
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 inscribed
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 dog.

These epitaphs put the writer in mind of the literary ambition of the eminent Dr. James Gregory of Edinburgh. His great aim was to be the Inscriptor (as he styled it) of his age. No distinguished 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 himself warmly to have it adopted. Amongst the public monuments on which his compositions may be found are the Nelson Monument at Edinburgh, and the Duke of Wellington's shield at Gibraltar. On King Robert Bruce, Charles Edward Stuart, his mother, Sir James Foulis de Collington, and Robertson the historian, he also produced commemorative inscriptions of great excellence. As a very fair specimen of his style the inscription on the Seott Flagon is transcribed:—

"Gualterum Scott,
De Abbotsford,
Virum summi Ingenii
Scriptorem Elegantem
Poetarum sui seculi facile Principem
Patriæ Decus
Ob varia ergo ipsam merita
In civium suorum 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 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 Sydenham as to what authors he ought to read. "Don Quixote," replied 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, responded, "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. Industrious, honourable, and cordially liked by his personal friends, he was by no means the paltry fellow that Dryden and Pope represented him. Johnson, in his brilliant memoir, treated him very unfairly, and clearly was annoyed that his conscience would not allow him to treat him worse. On altogether insufficient grounds the doctor argued that his knowledge 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 admissions, complete in themselves, is more than counterbalanced by the sarcasms (and some of them vulgar sarcasms too) which the biographer, 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 constituted the light literature of the eighteenth 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, which should elevate and instruct, not vitiate and deprave youthful readers. In this spirit "Prince Arthur" was composed and published in 1695, when 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 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 intention. What a list there is of them, in Swift's inscription, "to be put under Sir Richard's picture!"