A Book About Doctors

Whether he was a good shot we cannot say; but he was sufficiently adroit as a squire of dames, for he secured as his wife a wealthy lady, over whose property he had unfettered control. Against the money, however, there were two important points figuring under the head of "set-off"—the bride was old and querulous. Of course such a woman was unfitted to live happily with an eminent physician, on whom bevies of court ladies smiled whenever he went west of Charing Cross. After spending a few months in alternate fits of jealous hate and jealous fondness, the poor creature conceived the terrible fancy that her husband was bent on destroying her with poison, and so ridding his life of her execrable temper. One day, when surrounded by her friends, and in the presence of her lord and master, she fell on her back in a state of hysterical spasms, exclaiming:—

"Ah! he has killed me at last. I am poisoned!"

"Poisoned!" cried the lady-friends, turning up the whites of their eyes. "Oh! gracious goodness!—you have done it, doctor!"

"What do you accuse me of?" asked the doctor, with surprise.

"I accuse you—of—killing me—ee," responded the wife, doing her best to imitate a death-struggle.

"Ladies," answered the doctor, with admirable nonchalance, bowing to Mrs. Cadogan's bosom associates, "it is perfectly false. You are quite welcome to open her at once, and then you'll discover the calumny."

John Hunter administered a scarcely less startling reproof to his wife, who, though devoted in her attachment to him, and in every respect a lady worthy of esteem, caused her husband at times no little vexation by her fondness for society. She was in the habit of giving enormous routs, at which authors and artists, of all shades of merit and demerit, used to assemble to render homage to her literary powers, which were very far from common-place. A lasting popularity has attested the excellence of her song:—

John Hunter had no sympathy with his wife's poetical aspirations, still less with the society which those aspirations led her to cultivate. Grudging the time which the labours of practice prevented him from devoting to the pursuits of his museum and laboratory he could not restrain his too irritable temper when Mrs. Hunter's frivolous amusements deprived him of the quiet requisite for study. Even the fee of a patient who called him from his dissecting instruments could not reconcile him to the interruption. "I must go," he would say reluctantly to his friend Lynn, when the living summoned him from his investigations among the dead, "and earn this d——d guinea, or I shall be sure to want it to-morrow." Imagine the wrath of such a man, finding, on his return from a long day's work, his house full of musical professors, connoisseurs, and fashionable idlers—in fact, all the confusion and hubbub and heat of a grand party, which his lady had forgotten to inform him was that evening to come off! Walking straight into the middle of the principal reception-room, he faced round and surveyed his unwelcome guests, who were not a little surprised to see him—dusty, toilworn, and grim—so unlike what "the man of the house" ought to be on such an occasion.

"I knew nothing," was his brief address to the astounded crowd—"I knew nothing of this kick-up, and I ought to have been informed of it beforehand; but, as I have now returned home to study, I hope the present company will retire."

Mrs Hunter's drawing-rooms were speedily empty.

One of the drollest love stories in medical ana is that which relates to Dr. Thomas Dawson, a century since alike admired by the inhabitants of Hackney as a pulpit orator and a physician. Dawson was originally a Suffolk worthy, unconnected, however, with the eccentric John Dawson, who, in the reign of Charles the Second, was an apothecary in the pleasant old town of Framlingham, in that county. His father, a dissenting minister, had seven sons, and educated six of them for the Nonconformist pulpit. Of these six, certainly three joined the Established Church, and became rectors—two of the said three, Benjamin and Abraham, being controversial writers of considerable merit. Thomas Dawson adhered to the tenets of his father, and, combining the vocations of divine and physic-man, preached on Sundays, and doctored during the rest of the week. He was Mead and Mead's father in one: though the conditions of human existence, which render it impossible for one person to be in two places at the same time, prevented him from leaving chapel to visit his patients, and the next minute urging the congregation to offer up a prayer for the welfare of the unfortunate sufferers. Amongst the doctor's circle of acquaintance Miss Corbett of Hackney was at the same time the richest, the most devout, and the most afflicted in bodily health. Ministering to her body and soul, Dr. Dawson had frequent occasions for visiting her. One day he found her alone, sitting with the large family Bible before her, meditating on perhaps the grandest chapter in all the Old Testament. The doctor read the words to which the forefinger of her right hand pointed—the words of Nathan to David: "Thou art the man." The doctor took the hint; and on the 29th of May, 1758, he found a wife—and the pious lady won a husband. The only offspring of this strange match was one son, a Mr. Dawson, who still resides at a very advanced age of life in the charming village of Botesdale, in Suffolk. When the writer of these pages was a happy little boy, making his first acquaintance with Latin and Greek, at the Botesdale Grammar School, then presided over by the pious, manly, and gentle ——, he was an especial pet with Mr. Dawson. The worthy gentleman's little house was in the centre of a large garden, densely stocked with apple and other fruit trees; and in it he led a very retired life, visited by only a very few friends, and tended by two or three servants—of whom one, an ancient serving man, acted as a valet, gardener, and groom to an antique horse which constituted Mr. Dawson's entire stud. The small urchin before-mentioned had free access at all times to the venerable gentleman, and used to bring him the gossip of the town and school, in exchange for apples and other substantial gifts. Thin and attenuated, diminutive, so as to be little more than a dwarf, with vagrant eager eye, hooked as to his nose, and with a long beard, snowy-white, streaming over his waistcoat, the octogenarian used to receive his fair-haired child-visitor. May he be happy—as may all old gentlemen be, who are kind to little schoolboys, and give them apples and "tips!"

The day that Abernethy was married he went down to the lecture-room to deliver his customary instruction to his pupils. His selection of a wife was as judicious as his marriage was happy; and the funny stories for long current about the mode in which he made his offer are known to be those most delusive of fabrications, fearless and extreme exaggerations of a little particle of the truth. The brutality of procedure attributed to the great surgeon by current rumour was altogether foreign to his nature. The Abernethy biscuit was not more audaciously pinned upon his reputation, than was the absurd falsehood that when he made his offer to his future wife he had only seen her once, and then wrote saying he should like to marry her, but as he was too busy to "make love," she must entertain his proposal without further preliminaries, and let him know her decision by the end of the week.

Of Sir John Eliot the fortunate, mention has already been made in this chapter. Let us now speak of John Eliot, the luckless hero of a biography published in 1787, under the title of "A Narrative of the Life and Death of John Eliot, M.D., containing an account of the Rise, Progress, and Catastrophe of his unhappy passion for Miss Mary Boydell." A native of Somersetshire, John Elliot wrote a tragedy when only twelve years of age, and after serving an apprenticeship to a London apothecary, fell in love with one Miss Mary Boydell, a niece of a city alderman. The course of this gentleman's love ran smoothly till he chanced, by evil fortune, to read an announcement in a newspaper, that a Miss Boydell had, on the previous day, been led to the altar by some gentleman—not called Dr. John Elliot, certainly not himself. Never doubting that the Miss Boydell of the newspaper was his Miss Boydell, the doctor, without making any further inquiries after the perfidious fair one, sold his shop and fixtures, and ran off from the evil city of heartless women, to commune with beasts of the field and birds of the air in sylvan retirement. Not a little chagrined was Miss Boydell at the sudden disappearance of her ideal apothecary, whom her uncle, the alderman, stigmatized in round, honest, indignant language, as a big blackguard. After twelve years spent in wandering, "a forlorn wretch, over the kingdom," Dr. Elliott returned to London, set up once more in business, and began, for a second time, to drive a thriving trade, when Delilah again crossed his path. "One day," he says, telling his own story, "entering my shop (for I had commenced again the business of apothecary) I found two ladies sitting there, one of whom I thought I could recognize. As soon as she observed me, she cried out, 'Mr. Elliot! Mr. Elliot!' and fell back in a swoon. The well-known voice struck me like a shock of electricity—my affections instantly gushed forth—I fell senseless at her feet. When I came to myself, I found Miss Boydell sitting by my side." And his Miss Boydell was Miss Boydell still—innocent of wedlock.

Imogene being proved true, and Alonzo having come to life, the youthful couple renewed the engagement entered into more than twelve years before. The wedding-day was fixed, the wedding-clothes were provided, when uncle (the alderman), distrustful that his niece's scranny lover would make a good husband, induced her at the last moment to jilt him, and marry Mr. Nicols, an opulent bookseller. The farce was now to wear an aspect of tragedy. Infuriated at being, after all, really deceived, Dr. Elliot bought two brace of pistols, and bound them together in pairs. One pair he loaded only with powder; into the other he put the proper quantum of lead, as well as the pernicious dust. Armed with these weapons, he lay in wait for the destroyer of his peace. After some days of watching he saw her in Prince's Street, walking with the triumphant Nicols. Rushing up, he fired at her the two pistols (not loaded with ball), and then snatching the other brace from his pocket, was proceeding to commit suicide, when he was seized by the bystanders and disarmed.

The next scene in the drama was the principal court of the Old Bailey, with Dr. Elliot in the dock, charged with an attempt to murder Miss Boydell. The jury, being satisfied that the pistols were not loaded with ball, and that the prisoner only intended to create a startling impression on Miss Boydell's mind, acquitted him of that charge, and he was remanded to prison to take his trial for a common assault. Before this second inquiry, however, could come off, the poor man died in Newgate, July 22, 1787, of a broken heart—or jail fever. Ere his death, he took a cruel revenge of the lady, by writing an autobiographic account of his love experiences, in which appeared the following passage:—"Fascinated as I was by the charms of this faithless woman, I had long ceased to be sensible to these defects, or rather my impassioned imagination had converted them into perfections. But those who did not labour under the power of this magic were struck by her ungraceful exterior, and mine ears have not unfrequently been shocked to hear the tongue of indifference pronounce that the object of my passion was ugly and deformed. Add to this, that Miss Boydell has long since ceased to boast the bloom of youth, and then let any person, impartial and unprejudiced, decide whether a passion for her, so violent as that I have manifested, could be the produce of a slight and recent acquaintance, or whether it must not rather be the consequence of a long habit and inveterate intimacy." Such was the absurd sad story of John Elliot, author of "The Medical Almanack," "Elements of the Branches of Natural Philosophy," and "Experiments and Observations on Light and Colours."

The mournful love-story of Dr. John Elliot made a deep impression on the popular mind. It is found alluded to in ballads and chap-books, and more than one penny romance was framed upon it. Not improbably it suggested the composition of the following parody of Monk Lewis's "Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene," which appeared at the close of the last century, during the first run of popularity which that familiar ballad obtained:—

"GILES BOLUS THE KNAVE AND BROWN SALLY GREEN.

"A ROMANCE BY M. G. LEWIS.

In the court of love, Dr. Van Buchell, the empiric, may pass muster as a physician. When that droll charlatan lost his first wife, in 1775, he paid her the compliment of preserving her body with great care. Dr. Hunter, with the assistance of Mr. Cruikshank, injected the blood-vessels of the corpse with a carmine fluid, so that the cheeks and lips had the hue of healthy life; the cavities of the body were artistically packed with the antiseptics used by modern embalmers; and glass eyes were substituted in place of the filmy balls which Death had made his own. Decked in a dainty apparel of lace and finest linen, the body was then placed in a bed of thin paste of plaster of Paris, which, crystallizing, made a most ornamental couch. The case containing this fantastic horror had a glass lid, covered with a curtain; and as Van Buchell kept it in his ordinary sitting-room, he had the pleasure of introducing his visitors to the lifeless form of his "dear departed." For several years the doctor lived very happily with this slough of an immortal soul—never quarrelling with it, never being scolded by it—on the whole, enjoying an amount of domestic tranquility that rarely falls to one man's lot. Unwisely he made in advanced years a new alliance, and manifested a desire to be on with the new and the old love at the same time. To this Mrs. Van Buchell (No. 2) strongly objected, and insisted that the quaint coffin of Mrs. Van Buchell (No. 1) should be removed from the parlour in which she was expected to spend the greatest part of her days. The eccentric mode in which Buchell displayed his affection for his first wife was scarcely less repulsive than the devotion to the interests of anatomical science which induced Rondeletius to dissect the dead body of his own child in his theatre at Montpelier.

Are there no more loves to be mentioned? Yes; let these concluding pages tell an interesting story of the last generation.

Fifty years ago the picturesque, sunny town of Holmnook had for its physician one Dr. Kemp, a grave and reverend Æsculapius, punctilious in etiquette, with an imposing formality of manner, accurate in costume, in every respect a courtier of the old school. Holmnook is an antique market-town, square and compact, a capital in miniature, lying at the foot of an old feudal castle, in which the Bigods once held sway. That stronghold of moated towers was three centuries since the abode of a mighty Duke; Surrey, the poet earl, luckless and inspired, was born within its walls. The noble acres of the princely house fell into the hands of a parvenu—a rich, grasping lawyer;—that was bad. The lawyer died and went to his place, leaving the land to the poor;—that was better. And now the produce of the rich soil, which whilom sent forth a crop of mailed knights, supports a college of toil and time-worn peasants, saving their cold thin blood from the penury of the poor-house, and sheltering them from the contumelies of—Guardians of the Poor. Hard by the college, housing these ancient humble children of man, is a school, based on the same beneficent foundation, where the village lads are taught by as ripe a scholar and true a gentleman as ever came from the banks of Isis; and round which temple of learning they play their rough, noisy games, under the observation of the veterans of the bourg—the almsmen and almswomen who sit in the sun and on benches before their college, clad in the blue coats of the charity, and feeling no shame in them, though the armorial badge of that old lawyer is tacked upon them in red cloth.

Holmnook is unlike most other English towns of its size, abounding as it does in large antique mansions, formerly inhabited by the great officers and dependents on the ducal household, who in many cases were blood relations of the duke himself. Under the capacious windows of these old houses, in the streets, and round the market-square, run rows of limes, spreading their cool shade over the pinnacles of gabled roofs, and flinging back bars across the shining shingle which decorates the plaster walls of the older houses. In the centre of the town stands an enormous church, large enough to hold an entire army of Christians, and containing many imposing tombs of earls and leaders, long since gone to their account.

Think of this old town, its venerable dwellings—each by itself suggesting a romance. Hear the cooing and lazy flapping of pigeons, making continual holiday round the massive chimneys. Observe, without seeming to observe, the mayor's pretty daughter sitting at the open oriel window of the Guild-hall, merrily singing over her needle-work, and wondering if her bright ribbon has a good effect on passers below. Heed the jingle of a harpsichord in the rector's parlour. Be pleased to remember that the year is 1790—not 1860. Take a glass of stinging ale at "The Knight of Armour" hostelry—and own you enjoy it. Take another, creaming good-naturedly up under your lip, and confess you like it better than its predecessor. See the High Sheriff's carriage pass through the excited town, drawn by four enormous black horses, and having three Bacchic footmen hanging on behind. Do all this, and then you'll have a faint notion of Holmnook, its un-English picturesqueness, its placid joy, and experience of pomp.

Who is the gentleman emerging from the mansion on the causeway, in this year 1790—with white peruke and long pig-tail, snuff-coloured coat and velvet collar, tight dark nether garments, silk stockings, and shoes with buckles, volumes of white shirt-frill rising up under his chin? As he taps his shoes on his doorstep you can see he is proud of his leg, a pleasant pride, whether one has reason for it or not!

Seventy years of age, staid, decorous, and thoroughly versed in the social proprieties of the old world, now gone clean from us, like chivalry or chartism, Dr. Kemp was an important personage in Holmnook and its vicinity. An éclat was his that a country doctor does not usually possess. For he was of gentle blood, being a cadet of an old and wealthy family on the other side of the country, the representative of which hailed him "cousin," and treated him with the intimacy of kinship—the kinship of 1790.

Michael Kemp's youth had been spent away from Holmnook. Doubtless so polite and dignified a gentleman had once aimed at a brighter lot than a rural physician's. Doubtless he had a history, but he kept it to himself. He had never married! The rumour went that he had been disappointed—had undertaken the conquest of a high-born lady, who gave another ending to the game; and having conquered him, went off to conquer others. Ladies could do such things in the last century—when men had hearts.

Anyhow, Michael Kemp, M.D., was an old bachelor, of spotless honour, and a reputation that scandal never dared to trifle with.

A lady, much respected by the simple inhabitants of Holmsnook, kept his house.

Let us speak of her—fair and forty, comely, with matronly outlines, but graceful. Pleasant of voice, cheerful in manner, active in benevolence, Mistress Alice was a great favourite; no christening or wedding could go off without her for miles around. The doctor's grandest patients treated her as an equal; for apart from her personal claims to respect and good-will, she was, it was understood, of the doctor's blood—a poor relation, gentle by birth as she was by education. Mistress Alice was a great authority amongst the Holmnook ladies, on all matters pertaining to dress and taste. Her own ordinary costume was an artistic one. A large white kerchief, made so as to sit like a jacket, close and high round the throat, concealed her fair arms and shoulders, and reached down to the waist of her dress, which, in obedience to the fashion of the time, ran close beneath her arms. In 1790 a lady's waist at Holmnook occupied just about the same place where the drapery of a London belle's Mazeppa harness offers its first concealment to its wearer's charms. But it was on her foot-gear that Mistress Alice devoted especial care. The short skirts of that day encouraged a woman to set her feet off to the best advantage. Mistress Alice wore natty high-heeled shoes and clocked stockings—bright crimson stockings with yellow clocks.

Do you know what clocked stockings were, ladies? This writer is not deeply learned on such matters, but having seen a pair of Mistress Alice's stockings, he can tell you that they had on either side, extending from the heel upwards some six inches, flowers gracefully embroidered with a light yellow silk on the crimson ground. And these wreaths of broidery were by our ancestors called clocks. This writer could tell something else about Mistress Alice's apparel. She had for grand evenings of high festivity white kid gloves reaching up to the elbow, and having a slit at the tips of the forefinger and thumb of each hand. It was an ordinary fashion long syne. So, ladies could let out the tips of those digits to take a pinch of snuff!

One night Michael Kemp, M.D., Oxon., was called up to come with every possible haste to visit a sick lady, urgently in want of him. The night-bell was rung violently, and the messenger cried to the doctor over and over from the pavement below to make good speed. The doctor did his best to comply; but, as ill-luck would have it, after he had struck a light the candle illumined by it fell down, and left the doctor in darkness. This was very annoying to the good man, for he could not reconcile it to his conscience to consume time in lighting another, and yet it was hard for such a decorous man to make his hasty toilet in the dark.

He managed, however, better than he expected. His peruke came to hand all right; so did the tight inexpressibles; so did the snuff-coloured coat with high velvet collar; so did the buckled shoes. Bravo!

In another five minutes the active physician had groped his way down-stairs, emerged from his stately dwelling, and had run to his patient's house.

In a trice he was admitted; in a twinkle he was up the stairs; in another second he was by the sick lady's bedside, round which were seated a nurse and three eminent Holmnook gossips.

He was, however, little prepared for the reception he met with—the effect his appearance produced.

The sick lady, struggling though she was with severe pain, laughed outright.

The nurse said, "Oh my!—Doctor Kemp!"

Gossip No. 1 exclaimed, "Oh, you'll kill me!"

Gossip No. 2 cried, "I can't believe my eyes!"

Gossip No. 3 exploded with—"Oh, Doctor Kemp, do look at your stockings!"

And the doctor, obeying, did look at his stockings. One was of black silk—the other was a crimson one, with yellow clocks.

Was there not merry talk the next day at Holmnook! Didn't one hear blithe hearty laughter at every street corner—at every window under the limes?

What did they laugh about? What did they say?

Only this, fair reader—

"Honi soit qui mal y pense."

God bless thee, Holmnook! The bells of thy old church-tower are jangling in my ears though thou art a hundred miles away. I see the blue heavens kissing thy limes!

CHAPTER XXIV.

LITERATURE AND ART.

The old proverb says, "Every man is a physician or a fool by forty." Sir Henry Halford happening to quote the old saw to a circle of friends, Canning, with a pleasant humour smiling in his eyes, inquired, "Sir Henry, mayn't he be both?"

John Locke, according to academic registration, was not a physician till he was past forty. Born in 1632, he took his M.B. degree Feb. 6th, 1674. To what extent he exercised his profession is still a matter of dispute; but there is no doubt that he was for some period an active practitioner of it. Of his letters to Hans Sloane, that are still extant, the following is one:—

"Dear Sir,—

"I have a patient here sick of the fever at this season. It seems not violent; but I am told 'tis a sort that is not easily thrown off. I desire to know of you what your fevers in town are, and what methods you find most successful in them? I shall be obliged by your favour if you will give me a word or two by to-morrow's post, and direct it to me, to be left at Mr Harrison's, in the 'Crown,' at Harlow.

"I am, Sir,
"Your most humble servant,
"J Locke."

Popularly the name of Locke is as little associated with the profession of medicine as that of Sir James Mackintosh, who was a practising physician, till ambition and poverty made him select a more lucrative vocation, and turn his energies to the bar.

Distinguished amongst literary physicians was Andrew Borde, who studied Medicine at Oxford and Montpelier, and it is said acted as a physician in the service of Henry the Eighth. Borde's career has hitherto been a puzzle to antiquaries who, though interested in it, have been able to discover only little about it. It was his whim to sign himself Andrew Perforatus (his name really signifying "a cottage,"—"bordarius=a cottager"). In the same way after him Robert Fludd, the Rosicrucian doctor, adopted for his signature Robertus de Fluctibus. In his works he occasionally gives the reader a glimpse of his personal adventures; and from contemporary literature, as well as tradition, we learn enough to feel justified in believing that he created the cant term "Merry Andrew."

Of his freaks, about the most absurd was his conduct when acting as foreman of a jury in a small borough town. A prisoner was charged with stealing a pair of leather breeches, but though appearances were strongly against the accused (who was a notorious rogue), the evidence was so defective that to return a verdict of guilty on the charge was beyond the logic and conscience of the twelve good men and true. No course seemed open to them but to acquit the knave; when Andrew Borde prevailed on them, as the evidence of stealing the leather breeches was so defective, to bring him in guilty of manslaughter.

It is needless to say that the jurymen took Andrew's advice, and finding a verdict to the best of those abilities with which it had pleased God to bless them, astonished the judge and the public, not less than the prisoner, with the strange conclusion at which they had arrived.

Anthony à Wood and Hearne tell us the little that has hitherto been known of this eccentric physician. To that little an important addition may be made from the following letter, never before published, the original of which is in the State-Paper Office. The epistle is penned to Henry the Eighth's minister, Thomas Cromwell.

"Jesus.

"Offering humbly salutacyon with dew reverance. I certyffy yor mastershepp that I am now in Skotlonde in a lyttle universite or study namyd Glasko, where I study and practyce physyk as I have done in dyverse regyons and servyces for the sustentacyon off my lyvyng, assewring you that in ye parts that I am yn ye king's grace hath many hundred and in manner all men of presence (except some skolastycall men) that be hys adversarys. I resortt to ye Skotysh king's howse and to ye erle of Aryn, namyd Hamylton, and to ye Lord Evyndale, namyd Stuerd, and to many lords and lards as well spyrytuall as temporal, and truly I know their mynds, for they takyth me for a Skotysh man's sone, for I name my selff Karre, and so ye Karres kallyth me cosyn, thorow ye which I am in the more favor. Shortly to conclude; trust you no Skott for they wyll yowse flatterying wordes and all ys falshold. I suppose veryly that you have in Ynglond by hundred and thowsand Skotts and innumerable other alyons, which doth (specyally ye Skotts) much harme to the king's leege men throw their evyll wordes, for as I went thorow Ynglond I mett and was in company off many rurall felows, Englishmen that love nott our gracyose kyng. Wold to Jesu that some were ponyshed to geve others example. Wolde to Jesu also that you had never an alyen in yor realme, specyally Skotts, for I never knew alyen good for Ynglond except they knew proffytt and lucre should come to them so. In all parts of Chrystyndome that I have travylled in I know nott V Englishmen inhabytants except only scholers for learning. I pray to Jesu that alyens do in Ynglond no more harme to Ynglonde, and yff I myght do Ynglonde any servyce, specyally to my soveryn lord the kyng and to you, I would do ytt to spend and putt my lyfe in danger and jeberdy as far as any man. God be my judge. You have my hartt and shall be sure of me to the uttermost of my pore power. for I am never able to make you amends, for when I was in greatt thraldom, both bodyly and goastly, you of yor gentylnes sett me att liberte. Also I thank yor mastershepp for yor grett kyndnes that you have shewed me att Bysshopps Waltham, and that you gave me lycense to come to you ons in a qwarrtter. as sone as I come home I intende to come to you to submytt my selff to you to do with me what you wyll. for for lak of wytt paradventter I may in this wrettyng say that shall nott content you. but god be my judge I mene trewly both to my sovereyngne lord the kyng and to you. when I was kept in thrawldom in ye charterhouse and know neither ye kyngs noble acts nor you, then stultycyusly throw synstrall wordes I dyd as man of the others doth, butt after I was att lyberte manyfestly I aparsevyd ye ignorance and blyndnes that they and I wer yn. for I could never know no thynge of no maner of matter butt only by them, and they wolde cawse me wrett full incypyently to ye prior of London when he was in ye tower before he was putt to exicuyon. for ye which I trustt yor mastershepp hath pardonyd me, for god knoweth I was keppt in prison straytly, and glad I was to wrett att theyr request, but I wrott nothyng that I thought shold be agenst my prince nor you nor no other man. I pray god that you may provyde a good prior for that place of London, for truly there be many wylfull and obstynatt yowng men that stondeth to much in their owne consaytt and wyll nott be reformyd butt playth ye chyldryn, and a good prior wolde so serve them lyke chyldryn. News I have to wrett to you butt I yntende to be with ou shortly. for I am half wery off this baryn contry, as Jesu Chryst knowth, who ever keppe you in helthe and honor. a myle from Edynborough, the fyrst day off Apryll, by the hand of yor poer skoler and servantt,—Andrew Boorde Preest."

Literary physicians have, as a rule, not prospered as medical practitioners. The public harbour towards them the same suspicious and unfavourable prejudices as they do to literary barristers. A man, it is presumed, cannot be a master of two trades at the same time, and where he professes to carry on two it is usually concluded that he understands neither. To display the injustice of such views is no part of this writer's work, for the task is in better hands—time and experience, who are yearly adding to the cases that support the converse proposition that if a man is really a proficient in one subject, the fact is of itself a reason for believing him a master of a second.

Still, the number of brilliant writers who have enrolled themselves in the medical fraternity is remarkable. If they derived no benefit from their order, they have at least generously conferred lustre upon it. Goldsmith—though no one can say on what his claim to the title of doctor rested, and though in his luckless attempts to get medical employment he underwent even more humiliation and disgrace than fell to his lot as the drudge of Mrs. Griffiths—is one of the most pleasant associations that our countrymen have in connection with the history of "the Faculty." Smollett, like Goldsmith, tried ineffectually to escape from literary drudgery to the less irksome and more profitable duties that surround the pestle and mortar. Of Garth, Blackmore, Arbuthnot, and Akenside, notice has already been taken.

Anything like a complete enumeration of medical men who have made valuable contributions to belles lettres would fill a volume, by the writing of which very little good would be attained. By no means the least of them was Armstrong, whose portrait Thomson introduced into the "Castle of Indolence."

His medical writings, and his best known poem, "The Art of Health," had he written nothing else, would in all probability have brought him patients, but the licentiousness of "The Economy of Love" effectually precluded him from ever succeeding as a family physician. Amongst Armstrong's poet friends was Grainger, the amiable and scholarly physician who enjoyed the esteem of Percy and Samuel Johnson, Shenstone and Sir Joshua. Soon after the publication of his translation of the "Elegies of Tibullus," (1758), Grainger went to the island of St. Christopher's, and established himself there as a physician. The scenery and industrial occupations of the island inspired him to write his most important poem, "The Sugar-Cane," which, in escaping such derision as was poured on Blackmore's effusions, owed its good fortune to the personal popularity of the author rather than its intrinsic merits. The following sample is a fair one:—

When the poem was read in MS. at Sir Joshua's house, the lines printed in italics were not part of the production, but in their place stood—

"Now, Muse, let's sing of rats."

The immediate effect of such bathos was a burst of inextinguishable laughter from the auditors, whose sense of the ridiculous was by no means quieted by the fact that one of the company, slyly overlooking the reader, discovered that "the word had originally been mice, and had been altered to rats, as more dignified."

Above the crowd of minor medical litterateurs are conspicuous, Moore, the author of "Zeluco"; Dr. Aikin, one of whose many works has been already referred to; Erasmus Darwin, author of "The Botanic Garden"; Mason Good, the translator of "Lucretius," and author of the "Study of Medicine"; Dr. Ferriar, whose "Illustrations of Sterne" just doubled the value in the market of "Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy"; Cogan, the author of "Life and Opinions of John Buncle, jun."; Dr. Harrington, of Bath, editor of the "Nugæ Antiquæ"; Millingen, who wrote "The Curiosities of Medical Practice," and "The History of Duelling"; Dr. Paris, whose "Life of Sir Humphrey Davy," unsatisfactory as it is in many places, is still a useful book, and many of whose other writings will long remain of great value; Wadd, the humourous collector of "Medical Ana"; Dr. Merriman, the late contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine and Notes and Queries; and Pettigrew, the biographer of Lettsom. If the physicians and surgeons still living, who have openly or anonymously written with good effect on subjects not immediately connected with their profession, were placed before the reader, there would be found amongst them many of the most distinguished of their fraternity.

Apropos of the Dr. Harrington mentioned above, a writer says—"The Doctor for many years attended the Dowager Lady Trevor, relict of Lord Trevor, and last surviving daughter of Sir Richard Steele. He spoke of this lady as possessing all the wit, humour, and gaiety of her father, together with most of his faults. She was extravagant, and always in debt; but she was generous, charitable, and humane. She was particularly partial to young people, whom she frequently entertained most liberally, and delighted them with the pleasantry and volubility of her discourse. Her person was like that which her pleasant father described himself in the Spectator, with his short face, &c. A little before her death (which was in the month of December) she sent for her doctor, and, on his entering her chamber, he said, 'How fares your Ladyship!' She replied, 'Oh, my dear Doctor, ill fare! I am going to break up before the holidays!' This agreeable lady lived many years in Queen's Square, Bath, and, in the summer months, at St. Ann's Hill, Surrey, the late residence of Rt. Hon. Chas. James Fox."

Wolcot, better known as Peter Pindar, was a medical practitioner, his father and many of his ancestors having followed the same calling in Devonshire and Cornwall, under the names of Woolcot, Wolcott, Woolacot, Walcot, or Wolcot. After acquiring a knowledge of his profession in a somewhat irregular manner Wolcot found a patron in Sir William Trelawny, Bart., of Trelawny, co. Cornwall, who, on going out to assume the governorship of Jamaica, took the young surgeon with him to act as medical officer to his household. In Jamaica Wolcot figured in more characters than one. He was the governor's grand-master of the ceremonies, private secretary, and chaplain. When the King of the Mosquitoes waited on the new governor to express his loyal devotion to the King of England's representative, Wolcot had to entertain the royal guest—no difficult task as long as strong drink was in the way.

His Majesty—an enormously stout black brute—regarded intoxication as the condition of life most fit for kings.