The Gold-Headed Cane

“The Museum of Harvey, besides medical books, contained Treatises on Geometry, Geography, Astronomy, Music, Optics, Natural History, and Travels, and was under the following regulations:—It was to be open on Fridays, from two till five o’clock in the summer, but only till four in the winter season; also during all meetings of the College and whenever else the Custos being at leisure should choose to be present; but no books were allowed to be taken out. The old library room was henceforth appropriated to the Lectures, and 1654. the first public meeting of the College (in novo Triclinio) was held in March. Here also, as in a sort of state apartment, it was the custom to receive distinguished and illustrious visitors: for it was not uncommon in those days for the highest personages in the kingdom to attend our Lectures. When Charles the Second condescended to be present at the anatomical prælections of Dr. Ent, at the conclusion of the Lecture, the royal party retiring from the Theatre, was received in the Museum of Harvey, and on this occasion 1635. His Majesty was graciously pleased to confer the honour of knighthood upon the lecturer.

“This event took place the year before the fire of London, which, while it destroyed almost the whole of the City, consumed our College, and the greatest part of our Library[39].”

The mention of this memorable event occasioned a pause in the conversation, and one of our guests, not of the profession, but who, like all persons of an inquisitive turn of mind, was fond of medical subjects, begged to ask Dr. Mead a question connected with that great catastrophe. This is a kind of curiosity that has often struck me as something very amusing; to be sure there can be no considerations more interesting to all mankind than those which relate to the various conditions of health and disease; but it is astonishing to see the avidity with which people of cultivated understandings listen to the details of professional lore (provided they be not couched in terms too technical), and how much more easily they are satisfied with explanations, and convinced by specious arguments, than the verè adepti themselves.

“I beg your pardon,” said this gentleman to my master, “for interrupting your history of the College, but the mention of the great fire of London unavoidably suggests somehow or other the idea of the plague, from the visitations of which we have been free ever since the occurrence of that dreadful conflagration. How do you connect, Doctor, the fire of London with the disappearance of the plague; in short, what effect has the one had upon the other? The subject of the plague occupied your pen some three years ago, and I should like to hear your opinion upon this matter.”

Dr. Mead. 1666. “The fire began, as you know, upon the 2nd of September, and consumed about one-fifth of the town of London, burning an extent of about two miles in length, and one in breadth. But it was the wealthiest and the best part of the town that was destroyed; and it is even said, that had it not been for the opposition of some tenacious and avaricious men, aldermen particularly, who would not permit their houses to be blown up, in order to make a wide gap, the conflagration might have been stopped almost at its first breaking out. But this was thought too great a sacrifice, and the devouring element continued its ravages uncontrolled. A strong east wind drove the flames impetuously forward; the sky was like the top of a burning oven, and the light of the fire was seen for forty miles round about for many nights. The stones of St. Paul’s are represented as flying like granados, and the very pavements of the streets glowing with fiery redness; it was not till noon on the third day, nor till the fire had threatened to cross over towards the residence of the Court itself at Whitehall, that it was stopped, coming no farther westward than the Temple, nor towards the north than the entrance of Smithfield. Thus, you see, it spared the Borough, Wapping, Smithfield, and some other of the quarters and suburbs of the city, inhabited by the poorest classes, and consequently the abode of filth and wretchedness. The notion therefore advanced by some that the improvements in the rebuilding of the metropolis have been the cause of the disappearance of the plague is evidently unfounded. Besides, I may mention to you, that Bristol, the only town in England, except London, which had formerly much foreign trade, though it has been purified by no fire, has nevertheless remained equally free from that disease. On the other hand, dysentery and intermittents, two diseases which we all look upon as arising from filth and moisture, increased after the fire. Take my word for it, it is quarantine alone, and not any increased cleanliness on the part of the inhabitants, that has kept out the plague.”—Dr. Mead then returned to his history of the College, and mentioned that after the fire, on application being made to the Judges who were appointed to settle the differences which unavoidably arose out of that great national calamity, 1668. a new lease was obtained from the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s—the College undertaking to rebuild the premises. This scheme however was never carried into effect; the lease was resigned, and on the ground where once stood our College, three fair houses were erected, which are now the seats of the Residentiaries of St. Paul’s. In this interval the meetings of the Fellows were generally held at the house of the President; when shortly after a piece of ground having been purchased in Warwick Lane, our present College was begun to be built, in four years was completed, and 1674. was opened, as it would appear, without any particular ceremony, on the 25th of February, under the presidency of Sir George Ent, the physician, of whose visit to the immortal Harvey, Dr. Freind gave us a short time ago so interesting an account.

“In concluding this sketch of the various fortunes of our body, I beg only to remind you, that according to the custom of the early ages in England, Physicians united the clerical character with the medical, and being thus learned in Physic and Divinity, were not unfrequently called in to administer the comforts of both professions. But if, in more modern times, the alliance of the two faculties has ceased to exist in the persons of their professors, it is still amusing to observe the continuance of the affinity of locality, if I may so term it, for you cannot cross from the house of Linacre, to the spot where our present College stands, and thence to the site of our second building, without being struck with the sanctity of the ground. On your right you leave the magnificent structure of St. Paul’s, and traversing Creed Lane, Ave Maria Lane, Paternoster Row, you finally reach Amen Corner. All these places are within a stone’s throw of one another; whether the spirit of innovation, and the change of fashion, may at any future period overcome the genius loci, remains to be proved. I have often heard it observed, that though it is convenient to some of us, who live towards the east, yet upon the whole, it is a pity the College was built so near Newgate Prison, and in so obscure a hole; a fault in placing most of our public buildings and churches in the City, which is to be attributed to the avarice of some few men, and to His Majesty Charles the Second not over-ruling it when it was in his power, after the dreadful conflagration.”

The library of Dr. Mead never witnessed a more brilliant assembly than this; at least the conversation which I have endeavoured to relate made a great impression upon me.

I do not mean, as was said before, to dwell upon the details of the private practice of Dr. Mead; for, to tell the truth, I have long been (to use one of our new-fangled French words) rather blasé on the topic of medical cases. How, indeed, can it be otherwise with me, who have seen five generations of physicians; and must, therefore, have infinitely more experience than any doctor who ever existed? One hundred and thirty years have elapsed since I first became connected with physic; for I am almost coeval with the College in Warwick Lane, having made my first appearance fifteen years only after the completion of that building; and can only be said to have completely retired from the bustle of practice within the last two or three years. With the usual appearance of the symptoms of diseases, the ordinary remedies prescribed, and the common topics of consolation and advice, I soon became, even from the very commencement of my career, very familiar; it was therefore only by some very extraordinary case indeed, or by attending some very remarkable patient, that I felt much interested. Of the latter description was the illness of that great and good man Sir Isaac Newton. In 1726, early in the month of March, Mr. Conduitt called upon my master, and carried him, together with Mr. Cheselden[40], to Kensington, where Sir Isaac had shortly before taken a house for the benefit of his health.

It was my lot often to be in company with the eminent surgeon whose name I have now mentioned; for the public seemed universally to have adopted the sentiment of the popular poet of the day:

Consequently, in most complicated cases of importance, requiring the united skill and attendance of a physician and surgeon, these two celebrated practitioners were called in to consultation.

On our first interview, it was pronounced that the illness of Sir Isaac arose from stone in the bladder, and no hopes were given of his recovery; and yet, to look upon the great philosopher, though now in his eighty-fifth year, he had the bloom and colour of a young man, had never worn spectacles, nor lost more than one tooth during his whole life. Besides being blessed with a very happy and vigorous constitution, he had been very temperate in his diet, though we did not learn that he had ever observed any regimen. He was of middle stature, and at this time plump in his person; had a very lively and piercing eye, a comely and gracious aspect, and a fine head of hair, as white as silver, without any baldness, and when his peruke was off, he had truly a most venerable appearance. On inquiry we found, that for some years before his present illness, he had suffered so much from the same disorder, that he had put down his chariot, and had gone out always in a chair; had left off dining abroad, or with much company at home. He ate little flesh; lived chiefly upon broth, vegetables, and fruit, of which latter he always partook very heartily. Notwithstanding his present infirmities had been gradually increasing upon him, nothing could induce him to absent himself entirely from town, and he had continued to go occasionally to the Mint, although his nephew had for the last year transacted the business there for him. It appeared that on the last day of the preceding month he had gone to town, in order to be present at a meeting of the Royal Society: on the next day Mr. Conduitt told us that he had seen him, and thought he had not observed him in better health for many years; that Sir Isaac was sensible of it himself, for that he had told him, smiling, that he had slept the Sunday before, from eleven at night to eight in the morning, without waking; but that the great fatigue he had endured in going to the Society, in making and receiving visits, had brought on his old complaint violently upon him. He had returned to Kensington on the Saturday following. This was the statement we received; and we found him suffering great pain. But though the drops of sweat ran down from his face with anguish, he never complained, or cried out, or showed the least signs of peevishness or impatience. On the contrary, during the short intervals between these violent fits of torture, he smiled, and talked with my master with his usual cheerfulness. On Wednesday, the fifteenth of March, he seemed a little better; and some faint hopes were entertained of his recovery. On Saturday, the eighteenth, he read the newspapers, and held a pretty long discourse with Dr. Mead, and had all his senses perfect; but at six o’clock on that evening he became insensible, and remained so during the whole of Sunday; and died on Monday, the twentieth, between one and two o’clock in the morning.

To find a successor worthy of filling the chair of science, which Sir Isaac Newton had occupied for twenty-four years, was impossible; nor is it at any time an easy matter to select one able to perform all the duties of that distinguished station, and to fulfil the expectations and satisfy the claims of the public. Even to draw the beau ideal of such a one would be difficult. Perhaps he should be a man of literary and scientific attainments, and who, though not a labourer in the field of science himself, is so well acquainted with the history and progress of natural knowledge, as to be capable of judging of the value and importance of the contributions of others. Possessed of discrimination and tact in the selection of a council, which would be candid enough to aid him in the difficult task of appreciating the merit of others, he should himself be a man of fortune and character sufficient to be above the temptation of making his high office subservient to the purposes of private advancement, or the gratification of selfish ambition. To these solid advantages, he should certainly add such an acquaintance with at least one foreign language, as to be able in a becoming manner to do the honours of science to the distinguished strangers who, in their visits to this country, are likely to be recommended to his care. To find an individual uniting in his own person all these qualities is difficult, perhaps impossible; but it may be said, without fear of contradiction, that the study of medicine is likely to have bestowed a greater number of these attainments, than the discipline to which the mind is subject in the pursuit of any other profession. Among the very founders of the Royal Society, we find the names of many distinguished Physicians, as Ent, Glisson, Merret, Willis, Croone, Needham, Whistler; but the honour was reserved for Sir Hans Sloane to be the first Medical President. He had been chosen its Secretary, in 1693, when he revived the publication of the Transactions, which had been for some years suspended: the first act of his Presidency was to make a present of 100 guineas to the Society, and of a bust of their founder, Charles II. He continued in that office fourteen years, and did not resign the chair till the age of eighty: how fit he was to preside over the interests of science must appear from what has already been said of him: and if I might be allowed to anticipate some fifty years, and allude to another Physician who was raised to the same dignity, there will be no reason to blush for the reputation of physic.

Sir John Pringle was elected President of the Royal Society in 1772; in which office he continued only six years; but if the volumes of Transactions, published during that time, be examined, they will be found to contain many memorable papers: among others, Dr. Maskelyne’s experiments at Schehallien, with Dr. Hutton’s deductions from them—The experiments of Sir G. Shuckburgh Evelyn and of General Roy to establish correct formulas for measuring heights by the barometer—The report of the Committee to determine the proper method of graduating thermometers—Experiments to ascertain the freezing point of mercury. Pringle was the first President who made a set speech on the delivery of the Copley Medals, and his discourses, which were made on rather celebrated occasions, embrace many topics of interest, and show his acquaintance with the history of philosophy. They were six in number, the four first of which were,

To Priestley, for his Paper on different kinds of Air.

To Walsh, for his Experiments on Electricity.

To Maskelyne, for his Observations on Gravitation.

To Captain Cook, for his Paper on the Prevention of Scurvy amongst his Crew, during his voyage round the world.

But I beg pardon for this digression, and must return to my master. On the accession of George the Second, Dr. Mead was made one of the royal physicians, and was for many years engaged in the constant hurry of an extensive and successful practice. By his singular humanity and goodness of heart he conquered even envy itself; and it was acknowledged by all who knew him, that few princes have shown themselves equally generous and liberal in promoting science, and encouraging learned men. He threw open his gallery in the morning for the benefit of students in painting and sculpture; and was in the habit of even lending the best of his pictures to artists to copy. If any literary work was going on, he contributed all in his power to its perfection. For instance, he accommodated the learned Dr. Zachary Grey with the loan of his original picture of Butler, the author of Hudibras, (by Mr. Soest, a famous Dutch painter), for the use of the engraver. He constantly kept in his pay a number of artists and scholars, and scarcely a curious undertaking appeared during the period of his success, that did not find a patron in Mead.

Knowing that Mr. Carte (who was accused of high treason, and for whose apprehension a thousand pounds had been offered) had fled to Paris, resided there under the borrowed name of Phillips, and was employed in collecting materials for an English translation of Thuanus, my master perceived that his plan might be enlarged; and satisfying Mr. Carte for the pains he had already taken (pretio haud exiguo, as our librarian Mr. Hocker used to say), he employed Mr. Buckley to complete the work. In the first French edition, passages offensive to the nobility of that nation had been omitted; but these were now restored, and a splendid and complete edition printed at Mead’s expense.

He was also one of the first subscribers to the Foundling Hospital; that noble institution, which will for ever endear the name of Captain Coram to this country. Guy, the wealthy citizen, was also persuaded by my master to lay out his immense fortune in building that hospital in the Borough which bears his name.

With respect to science, no discovery was made in which he did not take a lively interest. In the year 1746, the experiments tending to illustrate the nature and properties of electricity were made by Mr. afterwards Sir William Watson; and he was present on a remarkable occasion, to witness the effects of the Leyden phial, then newly invented. It was in the house of the ingenious philosopher whose name has just been mentioned, in Aldersgate Street; and here, amongst a large concourse of people, I saw the Duke of Cumberland, recently returned from Scotland, take the shock with the point of the sword with which he had fought the battle of Culloden.

Two or three years after this I witnessed the famous experiments made on the Thames and at Shooter’s-hill, in the presence of the President and several of the Fellows of the Royal Society; in one of which the electrical circuit was made to extend four miles, and the result of the experiment was, that the velocity of electricity seemed to be instantaneous.

The hospitality of Mead was unbounded; and consequently his housekeeping expenses were very great: for, not content with the reception of his own friends and acquaintances, he kept also a very handsome second table, to which persons of inferior quality were invited. The consequence of this was, that notwithstanding the considerable gains derived from his profession (for several years he made between £5000 and £6000, and during one year he received £7000), he did not die so rich as might have been expected. The total amount left at his death, including the receipts of the sale of his library, pictures, statues, &c. (which were between £15,000 and £16,000) was about £50,000: but this sum was materially diminished by the payment of his debts.

With respect to his manner of living, when not engaged at home, he generally spent his evenings at Batson’s Coffee-House; and in the forenoons, apothecaries used to come to him, at Tom’s, near Covent Garden, with written or verbal reports of cases, for which he prescribed without seeing the patient, and took half-guinea fees.

The last work he published, which was in 1751, was entitled Medical Precepts and Cautions; in which, with great candour and simplicity, he enumerated all the discoveries that long practice and experience had opened to him concerning diseases and their cures; and concluded with many salutary directions for preserving the body and mind perfect and entire to a good old age. This he attained himself; and preserved till within three years of his death his intellectual powers in a state of perfection. Then he became very corpulent, and his faculties were visibly impaired. But his kindness of heart never deserted him. I shall never forget a piece of insolence on the part of one of his servants, who doubtless presumed on his master’s known good nature and forgiving disposition. Dr. Watson was sitting with Mead in his library, when the latter wishing to read something, looked about for his spectacles, for his eyesight had become very bad; and not readily finding them, asked his servant for them: upon which the man gave them to him with great rudeness, saying at the time, “You are always losing your things.” How I longed to have knocked the fellow down for his brutality!

Dr. Mead died on the 16th of February, 1754, in his eighty-first year, and was buried in the Temple Church.

After his death, it was said of him, that of all physicians who had ever flourished, he gained the most, spent the most, and enjoyed the highest fame during his lifetime, not only in his own but in foreign countries.

CHAPTER III.

Dr. Askew had been in his youth a great traveller; at least he was so considered in those days, for he had been absent from England three years, and had, during that time, visited Hungary, and resided at Athens and Constantinople. To the latter place he had accompanied Sir James Porter, then ambassador to the Porte. In consequence of these peregrinations, he was regarded on his return to his native country as no ordinary person, but one who had enjoyed most unusual advantages, and very rare opportunities of acquiring knowledge. This will perhaps hardly be credited at the present moment, when it is scarcely possible to turn the corner of a street without meeting an Englishman recently arrived, either from the borders of the Dead Sea, the cataracts of the Nile, or the ruins of Palmyra. Interviews with the Beys and Pashas of the empire of Mahomet have now-a-days succeeded to the usual presentations at the courts of the Continent; and the camel, the firman, and the Tartar, have been substituted for the ordinary facilities of the poste, the passports, and couriers of the beaten roads of civilized Europe. Nor is this spirit of enterprise confined to the gentlemen of England, but pervades alike the softer sex. One lady of rank and great talent has taken up her permanent abode at the convent of Mar Elias, on Mount Lebanon; another has accompanied her husband and family of young children, nurse-maids and all, across the dreary desert, from Cairo to Jerusalem; while a third, of still more adventurous spirit, has climbed, by the help of a ladder of ropes, to the summit of Pompey’s pillar. A few years only have elapsed since an English lady of fashion was confined at Athens, gave to her infant son the name of Atticus, and, when sufficiently recovered, resumed with her husband her journey through the enchanting scenery of Greece; the child occupying one side of a pair of panniers, while a favourite dog reposed on the other. But these prodigies were reserved for modern days.

One of the immediate results of the travels of Dr. Askew was the excellent opportunity it afforded him of gratifying the favourite pursuit for which he was early distinguished, of collecting books, manuscripts, and inscriptions. At Paris, on his way home from his eastern expedition, he laid the foundation of his library, which became afterwards so celebrated: for, in the love of books, he resembled Dr. Mead, for whom he entertained a sort of filial veneration, and to whom he had, when a very young man, and while studying physic at the university of Leyden, dedicated his specimen of an edition of Æschylus. At the sale of my late master’s library, he had been one of the most distinguished of the emptores literarii, and, even during his lifetime, had purchased all his Greek manuscripts, for which he paid the sum of five hundred pounds.

Not content with possessing himself as much as possible of his books, statues, and other curiosities, he did all he could to preserve the lineaments, and perpetuate the memory of the person of his deceased friend. For this purpose he procured Roubiliac to make a bust of him, which he presented to the College of Physicians.

No one could be better acquainted with the real features of Dr. Mead than myself; and I pronounce this bust of him to be so like, that, whenever it is before me, it suggests the strongest idea of the original; and, indeed, when the marble came home, Dr. Askew was so highly pleased with its execution, that though he had previously agreed with the sculptor for £50, he offered him £100 as the reward of his successful talent; when, to his astonishment, the sordid Frenchman exclaimed it was not enough, and actually sent in a bill for £108. 2s.! The demand, even to the odd shillings, was paid, and Dr. Askew enclosed the receipt to Hogarth, to produce at the next meeting of artists.

My present master never practised any where but in London: but his father, Dr. Adam Askew, was a celebrated physician at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he enjoyed a great provincial reputation, and lived to a good old age. With reference to him, a conversation which occurred at a literary party in the metropolis excited a laugh at the time, and was to the following effect: Some one of the company having remarked that my master, Dr. Askew, looked very ill—but indeed, from his advanced age (whereas he was not then fifty) he could not be expected to last a long time—“Possibly not,” replied a gentleman with a smile, “but I dined with his father about a fortnight since at Newcastle, and he appeared to be in perfect health.”

From the Library of Dr. Mead, in Ormond Street, I had removed but a short distance, and could scarcely be said to be sensible of any change in the scholastic air of my present abode.

Our house in Queen Square was crammed full of books. We could dispense with no more. Our passages were full; even our very garrets overflowed; and the wags of the day used to say, that the half of the square itself would have done so, before the book appetite of Dr. Askew would have been satiated.

We saw a great deal of company, attracted as well by the abundant luxuries with which my master’s table was furnished, as by the classical conversations and learned accounts of curiosities which he had brought with him from his very interesting travels in Greece.—Among the literary people who were most frequently there, I may mention Archbishop Markham, Sir William Jones, Dr. Farmer, Demosthenes Taylor, and Dr. Parr. By these distinguished persons Dr. Askew was considered as a scholar of refined taste, sound knowledge, and indefatigable research into every thing connected with Grecian and Roman learning. Indeed, from his youth upwards, he had been distinguished for his love of letters, and had received the early part of his education under Richard Dawes the critic. His father, on presenting him to the schoolmaster, marked those parts of his back which Dawes, who was celebrated for his unsparing use of the birch, might scourge at his pleasure, excepting only his head from this discipline; and my master was wont to relate with some humour, the terror with which he surveyed for the first time this redoubted pedagogue. As a collector of books Dr. Askew was the first who brought bibliomania into fashion; and no one exhibited his various treasures better than himself. The eager delight with which he produced his rare editions, his large-paper copies, his glistering gems and covetable tomes, would have raised him high in the estimation of the Roxburgh Club. Some, indeed, were of such great rarity, that he would not suffer them to be touched, but would show them to his visitors through the glass cases of the cabinets of his Library, or, standing on a ladder, would himself read aloud different portions of these inestimable volumes[41]. As specimens of his wealth in this line, I may enumerate—

His Platonis Opera, apud Aldum, 2 vol. fol. 1513, Edit Prin. on spotless vellum; the ink of which was of the finest lustre, and the whole typographical arrangement a master-piece of printing.

His Boccacio, la Teseide, Ferar. 1475, Prima Edizione, which was then considered an unique copy, and was sold after his death for £85. What it would have fetched under the sceptre of Mr. Evans cannot even be conjectured!

His Ciceronis Opera omnia, Oliveti, 9 vol. quarto, 1740; charta maxima.

These were amongst many others which I cannot now specify, but which were then regarded as rare, magnificent, giants, imperial, atlas, elephant, princes of editions!!

As no one had enjoyed greater opportunities, possessed more sufficient means to gratify his taste, or had an acuter discrimination, the Bibliotheca Askeviana was well known to all, both at home and abroad, who were in the least eminent for bibliographical research. And as he had expressed a wish that his books might be unreservedly submitted to sale after his decease, the public became ultimately benefited by his pursuits, and many a collection was afterwards enriched by an Exemplar Askevianum. The sale (apud S. Baker et G. Leigh, in vico dicto York Street, Covent Garden, Februar. 1775) occupied twenty days.

But the library of my present master was not, as I have said before, the only attraction which our house afforded: to many of his guests, the recital of his adventures during his travels abroad was a constant source of amusement; and we saw most foreigners who came to London. Dr. Askew had been in the East, and so vague and magnificent was the opinion formed at that time of an oriental traveller, that I verily believe he was supposed to have been able to speak all the languages of that quarter of the globe. It was from some such notion as this that they brought to him a Chinese, by name Chequa, who (however imperfect their oral communication might be) seemed so grateful for the attention and kindness he had received, that he requested before his departure from England to be permitted to make a model of the Doctor in his robes; which being readily granted, we sat to the stranger: and this is the specimen of his ingenuity, rendered with Chinese fidelity.

From what has been said of the pursuits of Dr. Askew, it may be inferred that much of his time was employed in his library, and dedicated to the conversation of literary men; but he was not entirely inattentive to professional engagements, and I took of course no small interest in watching the progress of medicine, and becoming acquainted with the rising and eminent physicians of the day. Amongst others, there was one who had settled in London two years before Dr. Askew, and who rapidly got into great business, which he followed with unremitting attention above thirty years, for he lived many years after the death of the former. Previous to his coming to town, Dr. Heberden had been established at Cambridge, where he gave Lectures on the Materia Medica for about ten years: among his pupils were students who afterwards greatly distinguished themselves, as Sir George Baker, Dr. Gisborne, and Dr. Glynn; the latter of whom was a character long known and valued in Cambridge, both for his virtues and his eccentricities. Of his method of lecturing, a specimen is preserved in his Essay on Mithridatium and Theriaca, published in 1745, three years before he quitted the university. Treating of this famous medicine, which had recently been expunged from our public dispensatory, Dr. Heberden proves, that the only poisons known to the ancients were hemlock, monk’s-hood, and those of venomous beasts; and that to these few they knew of no antidotes. That the farrago called after the celebrated King of Pontus, which, in the time of Celsus, consisted of thirty-eight simples, had changed its composition every hundred years, and that therefore what had been for so many ages called Mithridatium, was quite different from the true medicine found in the cabinet of that Prince. This, he states, was a very trivial one, composed of twenty leaves of rue, one grain of salt, two nuts, and two dried figs; and he infers that, even supposing Mithridates had ever used the compound (which is doubtful), his not being able to despatch himself was less owing to the strength of his antidote than to the weakness of his poison. The first accounts of subtle poisons that might be concealed under the stone of a seal or ring, as well as the stories of poisons by vapours arising from perfumed gloves and letters, he pronounces to be evidently the idle inventions of ignorance and superstition.

The learning and good sense which characterize the whole of this little Essay, will enable the reader to form a judgment of the manner in which he conveyed instruction to his class, and of the loss which the university must have suffered by his removal; but he would probably have settled in London earlier than he actually did, had the encouragement held out to him, to come to the metropolis, not been most unfairly kept from his knowledge. The circumstances attending this want of good faith will be best explained by the following letter from Sir Edward Hulse to Dr. Heberden, then residing at Cambridge, and Dr. H.’s reply:—

He settled in London the following Christmas. The name of the person alluded to in Sir Edward Hulse’s letter does not appear, for it was effectually erased from the original letter, though it shows something indicative of a superior mind to be told, that Dr. Heberden afterwards lived on terms of friendship with the author of so base a transaction. Not long after he came to reside in town, he met Dr. Mead in consultation at the Duke of Leeds’, and observed his faculties to be so impaired, that he then determined within himself, that if he ever lived to the same age of seventy-eight, he would give up practice. And this resolution he strictly adhered to, saying that people’s friends were not forward to tell them of their decay, and that he would rather retire from business several years too soon, than follow it one hour too long.

“Plutarch,” said he, “has told us that the life of a vestal virgin was divided into three portions; in the first of which she learned the duties of her profession, in the second she practised them, and in the third she taught them to others.” This, he maintained, was no bad model for the life of a physician; and when he had passed through the two first of these periods, he addressed himself diligently to the work of teaching others. The motto prefixed to his commentaries was expressive of this his favourite maxim—

But while in the enjoyment of health, he lived much with scholars and men of science, among whom may be reckoned Gray, Bryant, Wray, Cavendish, Hurd, Kennicott, Lowth, Jenyns, Tyrwhitt, Jortin, and most of the distinguished men of his time. Of the amusements of this literary coterie, take this as an example. Mr. Stuart, best known by the name of Athenian Stuart, having presented Dr. Heberden with a tea-chest made of olive wood from Athens, Mr. Tyrwhitt, who soon after dined with him, inspired by so classical a subject, sent him the next day the following copy of verses.

Sir William Jones[42] afterwards rendered the same into Greek, and Jacob Bryant, Esq. author of the Ancient Mythology, into Latin. The chest speaks its own native language the best, but should it imitate my example, and, inspired by the flattering notice of such distinguished men, begin to talk again, and procure, as an amanuensis, the elegant scholar in whose possession it now is, let it speak whatever tongue it may, I am afraid my memoirs would soon be consigned to neglect.

Dr. Heberden was always exceedingly liberal and charitable, therefore as soon as he found he could support himself in London, he voluntarily relinquished a fellowship which he held in St. John’s College for the benefit of some poorer scholar to whom it might be of use. He was forward in encouraging all objects of science and literature, and promoting all useful institutions. There was scarcely a public charity to which he did not subscribe, or any work of merit to which he did not give his support. He recommended to the College of Physicians the first design of their Medical Transactions; was the author of several papers in them, also of some in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, as well as of Commentaries on the History and Cure of Diseases.