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Title: Clergymen and Doctors
Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches.
Author: Anonymous
Release Date: February 23, 2015 [EBook #48343]
Language: English
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* * * * *
NIMMO'S SERIES OF COMMONPLACE BOOKS.
CLERGYMEN AND DOCTORS.
CLERGYMEN AND DOCTORS:
Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches.
Edinburgh: W. P. Nimmo.
CLERGYMEN AND DOCTORS:
Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches.
[Illustration: decoration]
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM P. NIMMO.
MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH,
PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Abernethy and the Duke of York, 61;
Anecdotes of, 83;
Conquered by Curran, 151
Abstinence, Precept and Example of, 21
Agricultural Defence of Bigotry, An, 138
André Boulanger, Father, 70
Angel-Worship, 110
Antics of the Fanatics, 66
Application, A Too Personal, 124
Archbishop's Installation Feast, An, 76
Archdeacon? What is an, 99
"Atterbury's Pad", 16
Awkward Association, An, 81
Baptism, A Sanitary View of, 40
Barrow, The Exhaustive, 15; his Rhymes with Reason, 63
Barrowby, Dr., Anecdotes of, 126
Baxter, Addison's Introduction to, 13;
Cromwell and, 131
Berkeley's (Bishop) Bermuda Scheme, 33
Bishops and the Poor, 150
Blomfield's Rebuke to Non-Resident Rectors, 85
Blood-Jewels, Queen Elizabeth's, 22
Bloodletters, Blunders of, 149
Bottle-Blind, 104
Bourdaloue, Bold Application of, 146
"Breaking-up" before the Holidays, 104
Bunyan's Successful and Persistent Preaching, 111
Burgess, Daniel, Pulpit Jokes of, 86
Burnet, Bishop, Against Pluralities, 151
Capacity of an Abbé, The, 100
Charles II. and his Chaplain, 30
Christian Names among the Puritans, 98
Civil to the Prince of Evil, 113
Clergy, Benefit of, 101
Commonwealth Preachers, South on the, 45
Cooper's (Sir Astley) Night-Cap Fee, 11
Crabbe, George, The Apothecary Poet, 144
Cucumber, How to Dress a, 18
Curate and the Duke, The, 23
Cure of Souls, A Desirable, 127
Dangers of Too Good Company, The, 82
Da Vinci a Great Anatomist, 77
Devotion of a Catholic Priest, 85
Diffidence in the Pulpit, 97
Donne's (Dr.) Prayerful Pun, 143
Drubbing-in Religious Feeling, 121
Fees, Ancient, of Magnitude, 89;
Early English, 89;
in the Reign of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, 90;
After the Revolution, 91;
Large Royal, in Later Times, 92;
For a Political Consultation, 94;
Generous Refusal of, 95;
Sticklers for, 95;
Collectively Irresistible, 96
Flavel's "Day of Heaven", 24
Footscrapers Reproved, The, 17
Garrick's Precepts for Preachers, 147
George II. as an Amateur Surgeon, 148
Gibbon's Retort on the Physician, 51
Gilpin and the Northumbrian Brawlers, 19
Gospel, The, A Novelty, 34
Gregory, Dr., Generosity of, 73
Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood, 35
Herrnhuters, the, Extravagances of, 78
Hill, The Rev. Rowland, 157
Hour-Glasses in Church, 49
How to be Kept in Health, 64
Hunter (William) and Cullen, The Partnership of, 14
Hunter, John, the Anatomist, 139; Routing the Rout, 65
Iconoclastic Zeal in the North, 137
Indian Commerce, Origin of our, 122
Intercessor for Himself, An, 71
Interpolation, A Significant, 27
Jebb, Sir Richard, 40
Jenner, the Discoverer of Vaccination, 107
Kennet, Bishop, on Late Repentance, 42
Kirwan, Dr., Dean of Killala, 55
Knox, John, Fearlessness of, 105
Leighton, Archbishop, on Time and Eternity, 159
Lettsom's Liberation of his Slaves, 112
Licenced Lay Preaching, 62
"Make the Most of Him", 158
Mal-apropos Quotation, A, 43
Masses Transferred, 21
Massillon, Eloquence of, 12
Mathews on his Deathbed, 32
Mayerne, Sir Theodore, 92
Medicine, A Royal, 25
Methodist Dog, The, 50
Mild Criticism, A, 48
Monsey, Messenger, his Dying Jests, 132
Nash's (Beau) Treatment of a Prescription, 128
Pacific She, A, 158
Paley's Career, Turning Point in, 81;
Economy of Conscience, 97
Perkins' "Tractors" Exposed, 113
Perversion of Scripture, A Clever, 136
Peter the Great as Dentist, 47
Physicians and their Fees, 86; and Clergymen, 159
Playing-Cards, Puritan Re-Christening of, 139
Pope's Last Epigram, 68
Prayer, A Loyal and Fata, 124
Preacher, A Popular, 16; A Witty French, 130
Preaching for a Crown, 54
Preaching to Purpose, Latimer's, 124
Preparing for the Worst and Best, 143
Prescription in Disguise, A, 18;
Prescription for Long Life, A, 61
Promotion, The Way to, 145
Pulteney's Cure by Small Beer, 128
Radcliffe's Enmity to Hannes, 30
Radcliffe and Kneller, 58
Revival of "Prophesying," Lord Bacon on the, 141
Revolution, The French, and the Bible, 107
Rude Truth for a Queen, 75
Saint's Bell, The, 39
Seaman Bishop, The, 27
Sermon Reading, Charles II. on, 44
Servant and Master, 126
Shedding his Blood for his Country, 54
Slaps for Sleepers in Church, 59
Sloane, Sir Hans, 154
Smith, Sydney, Bon-Mots of, 121
Sterne, A Home Thrust at, 34
Stillingfleet, Charles II. and Bishop, 123
Sunday Sports, James I. on, 37
Swift's (Dean) Contributory Dinner, 102
"Tapping" a Toper, 100
Tar-water, The Power of, 22
Taylor, Jeremy, on Marriage, 57
Tillotson, Archbishop, Charity of, 120
Transfusion of Blood, 68
Trump Cards, 52
Two-Edged Accusation, A, 58
Two Gates of Heaven, The, 51
Unconcern in Presence of Death, 137
Unlucky Coincidence, An, 61
Unmistakeable Identity, 134
Unpreaching Prelates, 28
Wasdale's (Dr.) Long Ride, 136
Wesley and Beau Nash, 106
Whately, Witticisms of Archbishop, 152
Whitfield, Persuasiveness of, 52;
his Influence on the Church, 72;
"Improving" an Execution in Edinburgh, 117;
Dr. Johnson's Opinion of, 118;
and the New York Sailors, 135;
and the Kingswood Colliers, 153
Wolcot, Dr. ("Peter Pindar") in Jamaica, 119
NOTE.
Clergymen and Doctors are so frequently associated, in connection with
the most pleasant and the most grave necessities and occurrences of
actual life, that if any apology is needed for uniting them on the
present occasion, it is only because the abundant fund of anecdote and
interest relating to both professions can therefore be drawn upon to
the smaller extent. In this, as in the other volumes of this little
series, the only plan followed has been that of striving to be brief
and interesting in each selection or summary. Much of the charm and
value of a collection of this kind consists in the large admixture of
personal incident, and liberal display of individual character--which
the nature and duties of the clerical and medical professions render so
easy. But it has also been sought to present, not of course in order or
in complete series, a number of such curious facts as throw a
side-light at once on professional and social history; and it is
confidently hoped that thus the collection will not only amuse, but
inform.
CLERGYMEN AND DOCTORS.
_CURIOUS FACTS AND CHARACTERISTIC SKETCHES._
SIR ASTLEY COOPER'S NIGHTCAP FEE.
Living as he long did in the City,--in Broad Street,--Sir Astley
Cooper, the most distinguished surgeon of his time, made a very large
income; which, however, naturally enough rose and fell somewhat in
sympathy with the state of the markets. In one year he made 20,000
guineas; and for many years his income was over £15,000. From one
Mincing Lane merchant, whom he usually visited at Croydon, Sir Astley
derived for a long period an annual revenue of £600. Large individual
fees, of course, were also paid by the wealthy traders and financiers
on special occasions; and once, and once only, Sir Astley received--and
received in a very whimsical fashion--the splendid _honorarium_ of a
thousand guineas. A West Indian millionaire, of the name of Hyatt,
during a painful and critical operation which he had to undergo, was
attended by Drs. Lettsom and Nelson as physicians, and by Sir Astley
Cooper as surgeon. The operation was successful, and the patient
speedily felt in himself the promise of recovered health and spirits.
He did not wait for his complete recovery to evince his sense of
gratitude and joy; but promptly rewarded his physicians with a fee of
300 guineas each. "As for you, Sir," the millionaire said, sitting up
in bed and addressing himself to Sir Astley,--"you, Sir, shall have
something better than that; there, Sir, take that!"--and he flung his
nightcap at the great surgeon. Sir Astley picked up the nightcap,
saying, "Sir, I pocket the affront;" and on reaching home he found in
the cap a cheque for 1000 guineas. In his younger days, however, Sir
Astley Cooper had sowed, by anxious and ill-rewarded waiting, the seeds
of his subsequent great renown and revenue: in his first year of
practice his profits were but five guineas; in his second, twenty-six
pounds; in his third, thirty-four; and only in the ninth year did his
income mount above a thousand pounds.
ELOQUENCE OF MASSILLON.
Jean Baptiste Massillon, born in 1663 at Hyères, was one of the
greatest pulpit orators of France. At the age of seventeen he entered
the congregation of the Oratory, at Paris, and won very high favour;
but, being enviously accused of some amours, he went into retirement
for a short time. The eloquence by which his funeral sermon, at his
retirement at St. Fonds, on the Archbishop de Villars was
characterized, led to his reluctant but triumphant return to Paris. The
applause with which his oratory met there, even at the Court, was
almost unparalleled. When he preached the first Advent sermon at
Versailles, Louis XIV. paid the following most happy and expressive
testimony to the power of his preaching: "Father, when I hear other
preachers, I am very well satisfied with them; when I hear you, I am
dissatisfied with myself." The effect of his first delivery of the
sermon "On the small number of the Elect," has been described as almost
miraculous. At a certain powerful passage in it, the entire auditory
was seized with such violent emotion, that almost every person half
rose from his seat, as if to endeavour to shake off the horror of being
one of those cast out into everlasting darkness. He spoke with that
strong, earnest simplicity which is the surest key to the hearts of all
but the utterly devoid of feeling. When asked once where a man like
him, whose life was dedicated to retirement, could borrow his admirable
descriptions of real life, he answered, "From the human heart; let us
examine it ever so slightly, we find in it the seeds of every passion.
When I compose a sermon, I imagine myself consulted upon some difficult
piece of business. I give my whole application to determine the person
who has recourse to me to act the good and proper part. I exhort him, I
urge him, and I quit him not until he has yielded to my persuasions."
ADDISON'S INTRODUCTION TO BAXTER.
Addison says that he once met with a page of Mr. Baxter under a
Christmas pie. "Whether or no the pastry-cook had made use of it
through chance or waggery, for the defence of that superstitious
_viande_, I know not; but, upon the perusal of it, I conceived so good
an idea of the author's piety that I bought the whole book."
THE PARTNERSHIP OF HUNTER AND CULLEN.
Dr. William Cullen, the celebrated physician and medical writer, and
Dr. William Hunter, the brother of the great anatomist, when young men
formed a copartnery of as singular and noble a nature as any to be
found in the records of their profession. They were both natives of the
neighbourhood of Glasgow, and Hunter studied for the church at that
university. But he accidentally became acquainted with Cullen, who was
some years his senior, and had settled in a medical practice at
Hamilton; and this friendship, strengthening his natural inclination,
drew Hunter away from the study of theology to that of medicine. He
went to reside with Cullen, and entered into partnership with
him--neither of the young men being well to do, and both stimulated by
the impulse of genius to take this step in order that they might the
better overcome the obstacles presented by the narrowness of their
fortunes to the prosecution of their studies. It was stipulated that
each partner alternately should be allowed to study during the winter
at what college he pleased, the other meantime conducting the joint
business for the common advantage. Cullen, as the senior partner, had
the first winter, and he went to Edinburgh. But next winter Hunter's
turn came: he preferred London to Edinburgh, went thither, and did not
return to Scotland. His excellence as a dissector, singular dexterity
in making anatomical preparations, assiduity in study, and agreeable
manners, won him the warm regard of Dr. Douglas, to whom he had an
introduction from Foulis the printer; and in two or three years Hunter
became a lecturer on anatomy, and laid the foundations of a great fame
and fortune. The scientific partnership was of course dissolved by
Hunter's success in London; but Cullen freely consented to renounce his
claim on his junior, and ever afterwards maintained a very cordial and
friendly correspondence with Hunter--though the two friends are
believed never afterwards to have seen each other.
THE EXHAUSTIVE BARROW.
Charles II., in his humorous fashion, was wont to say about his
chaplain--that distinguished philosopher and divine, Dr. Isaac
Barrow--that he was the most unfair preacher in England, because he
exhausted every subject, and left no room for others to come after him.
This was indeed too much the doctor's characteristic; when he had once
got hold of a topic, he knew not how to leave anything unsaid upon it.
One of his best discourses, on the duty and reward of bounty to the
poor, actually occupied between three and four hours in the delivery.
Although, however, his sermons are unusually long, they so abound in
matter, that his language sometimes labours in the utterance of his
thought; hence his style is at times involved and parenthetical, though
passages of sublime and simple eloquence frequently occur. It is
related that, in preaching the Spital sermon before the Lord Mayor and
Corporation, he consumed three hours and a half. Being asked, after he
came down from the pulpit, if he was not tired, he replied, "Yes,
indeed, I begin to be weary in standing so long."
A POPULAR PREACHER.
When Father Thomas Conecte, who was afterwards burnt at Rome, preached
in the great towns of Flanders and Artois, the churches were so filled
that he used to be hoisted in the middle of the church by a cord, in
order to be heard!
"ATTERBURY'S PAD."
During the debates on the Occasional Conformity and Schism Bills, in
the House of Lords, in December 1718, these measures were very warmly
opposed by Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester; who said "he had prophesied
last winter that this bill would be attempted in the next session, and
he was very sorry to find that he had turned out a true prophet." Lord
Coningsby, who always spoke in a passion, rose immediately after
Atterbury, and remarked that "one of the right reverends had set
himself forth as a prophet; but, for his part, he did not know what
prophet to liken him to, unless to that famous prophet Balaam, who was
reproved by his own ass." The Bishop, in reply, with great calmness and
wit met the attack of Lord Coningsby, thus concluding: "Since the noble
Lord has discovered in our manners such a similitude, I am well content
to be compared to the prophet Balaam; but, my Lords, I am at a loss to
make out the other part of the parallel. I am sure that I have been
_reproved by nobody but his Lordship_." From that day forward, Lord
Coningsby was known by the sobriquet of "Atterbury's Pad."
THE FOOT-SCRAPERS REPROVED.
When a preacher was very obnoxious to the students at Cambridge, it was
the custom for them to express disapprobation by scraping with their
feet on the floor. A very eloquent but intriguing preacher, Dr. James
Scott--known as a political partisan by the pamphleteer and newspaper
signatures of "Anti-Sejanus" and "Old Slyboots"--being one day saluted
thus, signified his intention to preach against the practice of
scraping; and fulfilled his promise very shortly afterwards, taking for
his text, "Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be
more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools; for they
consider not that they do evil." On the text being read out, the
galleries became one scene of confusion and uproar; but Dr. Scott
called to the proctors to preserve silence. This being effected, he
delivered a discourse so eloquent, as to extort universal approbation,
even from those at whom the text was aimed.
A PRESCRIPTION IN DISGUISE.
General D---- was more distinguished for gallantry in the field than
for the care he lavished upon his person. Complaining, on a certain
occasion, to Chief Justice Bushe, of Ireland, of the sufferings he
endured from rheumatism, that learned and humorous judge undertook to
prescribe a remedy. "You must desire your servant," he said to the
General, "to place every morning by your bedside a tub three-parts
filled with warm water. You will then get into the tub, and having
previously provided yourself with a pound of yellow soap, you must rub
your whole body with it, immersing yourself occasionally in the water,
and at the end of a quarter of an hour, the process concludes by wiping
yourself dry with towels, and scrubbing your person with a
flesh-brush." "Why," said the General, after reflecting for a minute or
two, "this seems to be neither more nor less than washing one's self."
"Well, I must confess," rejoined the judge, "_it is open to that
objection_."
HOW TO DRESS A CUCUMBER.
Dr. Glynn, of Cambridge, being one day in attendance on a lady, in the
quality of her physician, took occasion to lecture her on the
impropriety of eating cucumbers, of which she was immoderately fond;
and gave her the following humorous receipt for dressing them: "Peel
the cucumber with great care; then cut it into very thin slices; pepper
and salt it well--and then throw it away."
GILPIN AND THE NORTHUMBRIAN BRAWLERS.
Bernard Gilpin, the great Northern apostle, did not confine his labours
to the church of Houghton-le-Spring, of which he was minister; but at
his own expense, and with great risk and hardship, visited the then
desolate churches of Northumberland once every year, usually about
Christmas, to preach the gospel. The Northumbrians about that time
retained so much of the customs of our Saxon ancestors, as to decide
every dispute by the sword; they even went beyond them, and, not
content with a duel, each contending party used to muster what
adherents he could, and began a kind of petty war, so that a private
grudge would often occasion much bloodshed. In one of his annual tours,
Mr. Gilpin found a quarrel of this kind raging at Rothbury. During the
first two or three days of his preaching, the contending parties
observed some decorum, and never came to church both at the same time.
At last, however, they met; one party had come early, and just as Mr.
Gilpin began the sermon the other entered. They did not stand long
quiet, but, mutually enraged at the sight of each other, began to clash
their arms. Awed, however, by the sacredness of the place, the tumult
somewhat fell, and Mr. Gilpin could proceed with his sermon. In a short
time, however, the combatants anew brandished their weapons, and
approached each other. Mr. Gilpin now came down from the pulpit, went
between the two parties, and, appealing to the chiefs, stayed the
quarrel for the time, though he could not perfectly reconcile them.
They promised that until the sermon was over there should be no further
disturbance. Mr. Gilpin then remounted the pulpit, and devoted the rest
of the time to endeavour to make the combatants ashamed of their
behaviour; and his courage and earnestness so much affected them, that
at his further entreaty they agreed to abstain from all acts of
hostility while he continued in the country. Another time, when he
entered the church, Mr. Gilpin saw a glove hanging up, and was told by
the sexton that it was as a challenge to any one that should take it
down. The sexton refusing to take it down, because he "dared not," Mr.
Gilpin procured a long staff, took it down himself, and put it in his
breast. When the congregation assembled, he went into the pulpit, and
took occasion severely to rebuke these inhuman challenges, and
especially this fashion of hanging up the glove in church. "I hear,"
said he, "that there is one among you who even in this sacred place
hath hanged up a glove to this purpose, and threateneth to enter into
combat with whosoever shall take it down. Behold, I have taken it down
myself!" and, plucking the glove out of his breast, he held it up
before them all, and again proceeded to condemn such barbarous
fashions, and to commend the practice of love and charity. So much did
his faithfulness win for him respect, and soften the stern mood of the
country folk, that so often as he came into the parts where he had
administered these rebukes, if any man was in fear of a deadly foe, he
resorted usually where Mr. Gilpin was, supposing himself to be more
safe in his company than under an armed guard.
MASSES TRANSFERRED.
Bernal Diaz relates, that while Cortes was absent on his expedition
against Christoval d'Oli, his death was reported by men who assumed the
government at Mexico; they ordered ceremonies and masses for his soul,
and paid for them with his effects. When he returned in safety, Juan de
Caceres, "the rich," bought all these acts of devotion for his own
benefit--like some modern buyer of shares, expecting a regular entry of
the transfer to be made in the books of the concern in which he
invested.
PRECEPT AND EXAMPLE OF ABSTINENCE.
John Wesley having learned that a wealthy tradesman of his
neighbourhood indulged to excess in the pleasures of the table, paid
him a visit, and, discussing the subject with him, urged every argument
and every passage of Scripture he could against the sin of gluttony.
Observing the tradesman silent and thoughtful, Wesley flattered himself
that he had gained his point and produced the desired reformation. The
dinner cloth was by this time spread, and sumptuous elegance decorated
the board. Mr. Wesley was asked to dine; and having consented, was thus
addressed by his host: "Sir, your conversation has made such an
impression on me, that henceforward I shall live only on bread and
water; and to show you that I am in good earnest, I will begin
immediately." The dinner was then ordered to be removed, and bread and
water introduced; to the disappointment of the preacher, who, although
an abstemious man, wished for something better than an anchorite's fare.
QUEEN ELIZABETH'S BLOOD JEWELS.
In the _Parliamentary History_, under date of 1601, the Lord Keeper is
reported to say: "I have seen her Majesty wear at her girdle the price
of her blood; I mean, jewels which have been given to her physicians to
have done that unto her which I hope God will ever keep from her. But
she hath rather worn them in triumph, than for the price, which hath
not been greatly valuable."
THE POWER OF TAR-WATER.
Doctor Hill, a notorious wit, physician, and man of letters, having
quarrelled with the members of the Royal Society, who had refused to
admit him as an associate, resolved to avenge himself. At the time that
Bishop Berkeley had issued his work on the marvellous virtues of
tar-water, Hill addressed to their secretary a letter, purporting to be
from a country surgeon, and reciting the particulars of a cure which he
had effected. "A sailor," he wrote, "broke his leg, and applied to me
for help. I bound together the broken portions, and washed them with
the celebrated tar-water. Almost immediately the sailor felt the
beneficial effects of this remedy, and it was not long before his leg
was completely healed!" The letter was read and discussed at the
meetings of the Royal Society, and caused considerable difference of
opinion. Papers were written for and against the tar-water and the
restored leg, when a second letter arrived from the (pretended) country
practitioner: "In my last I omitted to mention that the broken limb of
the sailor was a wooden leg!"
THE CURATE AND THE DUKE.
The Duke of Grafton, when hunting, was thrown into a ditch; at the same
time a young curate, calling out, "Lie still, your Grace," leaped over
him, and pursued his sport. On being assisted to remount by his
attendants, the duke said, "That young man shall have the first good
living that falls to my disposal; had he stopped to have taken care of
me, I never would have patronised him"--being delighted with an ardour
similar to his own, and with a spirit that would not stoop to flatter.
A LOYAL AND FATAL PRAYER.
It is related by Thoresby that Mr. John Jackson, a good old Puritan,
and a member of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, "was yet so
zealously affected for King Charles I., when he heard of his being
brought before a pretended high court of justice, that he prayed
earnestly that God would please to prevent that horrid act, which would
be a perpetual shame to the nation, and a reproach to the Protestant
religion; or, at least, would be pleased to remove him, that he might
not see the woful day. His prayer was heard and answered as to himself,
for he was buried the week before" the execution of Charles took place.
FLAVEL'S "DAY OF HEAVEN."
This distinguished Nonconformist divine, who lived about the end of the
seventeenth century, in his _Treatise on the Soul of Man_ relates of
himself--so at least it is understood, though he speaks in the third
person--that for a day he was wrapt in such intimate spiritual
communion with heaven, as exhausted the powers of physical nature, and
for a time appeared to leave him on the brink of the grave. This
singular season of trance he used to style "one of the days of heaven;"
and he affirmed, that in that time there came to him more insight into
the heavenly life, than he had all his days gained from books or
sermons.
"Being on a journey, he set himself to improve his time by meditation;
when his mind grew intent, till at length he had such ravishing tastes
of heavenly joys, and such full assurance of his interest therein, that
he utterly lost the sight and sense of this world and all its concerns,
so that for hours he knew not where he was. At last, perceiving himself
faint through a great loss of blood from his nose, he alighted from his
horse, and sat down at a spring, where he washed and refreshed himself,
earnestly desiring, if it were the will of God, that he might then
leave the world. His spirits reviving, he finished his journey in the
same delightful frame. He passed all that night without a wink of
sleep, the joy of the Lord still overflowing him, so that he seemed an
inhabitant of the other world." It was taken by his religious friends
as a special promise of heavenly favour, that at the birth of Flavel a
pair of nightingales made their nest close to the chamber of his
mother, and welcomed him into the world with their delightful warble.
A ROYAL MEDICINE.
Even so late as the days of Queen Elizabeth, ignorance and superstition
continued prime regulating powers in the practice of physic;
accomplished as some of the physicians of the day were, it was, as Lord
Bacon has affirmed, in every department excepting those that
immediately touched their own profession. Sir William Bulleyn was not
one of the least prominent and enlightened; but some of the
prescriptions which he has left on record, attest a very deplorable
state of things, existing little more than half a century before Harvey
achieved his great discovery. Take for example this recipe for an
"_Electuarium de Gemmis._"
"Take two drachms of white perles; two little peeces of saphyre;
jacinth, corneline, emerauldes, granettes, of each an ounce; setwal,
the sweate roote doronike, the rind of pomecitron, mace, basel seede,
of each two drachms; of redde corall, amber, shaving of ivory, of each
two drachms; rootes both of white and red behen, ginger, long peper,
spicknard, folium indicum, saffron, cardamon, of each one drachm; of
troch. diarodon, lignum aloes, of each half a small handful; cinnamon,
galinga, zurubeth, which is a kind of setwal, of each one drachm and a
half; thin pieces of gold and sylver, of each half a scruple; of musk,
half a drachm. Make your electuary with honey emblici, which is the
fourth kind of mirobalans with roses, strained in equall partes, as
much as will suffice. This healeth cold diseases of ye braine, harte,
stomack. It is a medicine proved against the tremblynge of the harte,
faynting and souning, the weaknes of the stomacke, pensivenes,
solitarines. Kings and noble men have used this for their comfort. It
causeth them to be bold-spirited, the body to smell wel, and ingendreth
to the face good coloure."
A SIGNIFICANT INTERPOLATION.
The most celebrated wits and _bon vivants_ of the day graced the dinner
table of Dr. Kitchener, and _inter aliis_ George Colman, who was an
especial favourite. His interpolation of a little monosyllable in a
written admonition, which the Doctor caused to be placed on the
mantlepiece of the dining parlour, will never be forgotten, and was the
origin of such a drinking bout as was seldom permitted under his roof.
The caution ran thus: "Come at seven, go at eleven." Colman briefly
altered the sense of it; for, upon the Doctor's attention being
directed to the card, he read, to his astonishment, "Come at seven, _go
it_ at eleven!" which the guests did, and the claret was punished
accordingly.
THE SEAMAN-BISHOP.
Dr. Lyons, who was appointed to the Bishopric of Cork, Cloyne, and
Ross, towards the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, held the See for
twenty years, but only preached once--on the death of the Queen. His
aversion to preaching is ascribed to the fact that he was not educated
for the church. He was, indeed, captain of a ship, and distinguished
himself so gallantly in several actions with the Spaniards, that, on
his being introduced to the Queen, she told him that he should have the
first vacancy that offered. The simple captain understood the Queen
literally; and soon after, hearing of a vacancy in the See of Cork, he
immediately set out for Court, and claimed the fulfilment of the royal
promise. The Queen, astonished at the request, for a time remonstrated
against the impropriety of it, and said that she could never think it a
suitable office for him. It was, however, in vain; he pleaded the royal
promise, and relied on it. The Queen then said she would take a few
days to consider the matter; when, examining into his character, and
finding that he was a sober, moral man, as well as an intrepid
commander, she sent for him, and gave him the Bishopric, saying that
she "hoped he would take as good care of the Church, as he had done of
the State."
UNPREACHING PRELATES.
The appointment of bishops and other ecclesiastics to lay offices, and
more especially to places in the Mint, during the reign of Edward VI.,
was severely censured from the pulpit by the intrepid and venerable
Bishop Latimer. In his "Sermon of the Plough," he says, with equal
humour and vigour: "But now for the fault of unpreaching prelates,
methinks I could guess what might be said for excusing them. They are
so troubled with lordly living, they be so placed in palaces, couched
in courts, ruffling in their rents, dancing in their _dominions_,
burdened with embassages, pampering of their paunches, like a monk that
maketh his jubilee, munching in their mangers, and moiling in their gay
manors and mansions, and so troubled with loitering in their lordships,
that they cannot attend it. They are otherwise occupied, some in King's
matters, some are ambassadors, some of the Privy Council, some to
furnish the Court, some are lords of the Parliament, some are
presidents, comptrollers of Mints. Well, well, is this their duty? Is
this their office? Is this their calling? Should we have ministers of
the Church to be comptrollers of Mints? Is this a meet office for a
priest that hath the cure of souls? Is this his charge? I would here
ask one question: I would fain know who comptrolleth the devil at home
at his parish, while he comptrolleth the Mint? If the apostles might
not leave the office of preaching to be deacons, shall one leave it for
minting? I cannot tell you; but the saying is, that since priests have
been minters, money hath been worse than it was before." In another
part of this discourse the Bishop proceeds to ask, "Is there never a
nobleman to be a Lord President, but it must be a prelate? Is there
never a wise man in the realm to be a comptroller of the Mint? I speak
it to your shame, I speak it to your shame. If there be never a wise
man, make a water-bearer, a tinker, a cobbler, a slave, a page, the
comptrollers of the Mint. Make a mean gentleman, a groom, a yeoman;
make a poor beggar, Lord President. Thus I speak, not that I would have
it so, but to your shame, if there be never a gentleman meet nor able
to be Lord President. For why are not the noblemen and young gentlemen
of England so brought up in knowledge of God and in learning, that they
might be able to execute offices in the commonweal?"
CHARLES II. AND HIS CHAPLAIN.
Dr. Hickringal, who was one of King Charles the Second's chaplains,
whenever he preached before his Majesty, was sure to tell him of his
faults from the pulpit. One day his Majesty met the Doctor in the Mall,
and said to him, "Doctor, what have I done to you that you are always
quarrelling with me?" "I hope your Majesty is not angry with me," quoth
the Doctor, "for telling the truth." "No, no," says the king; "but I
would have us for the future be friends." "Well, well," quoth the
Doctor, "I will make it up with your Majesty on these terms: _as you
mend I'll mend_."
RADCLIFFE'S ENMITY TO HANNES.
John Radcliffe, the eccentric, niggardly, self-indulgent, ill-educated,
and intensely Jacobitish physician, who, at the end of the seventeenth
century, rose to an eminent place in the capital and at Court, was the
son of a comfortable Yorkshire yeoman. He resided for some years at
Oxford University, and afterwards practised there; but in 1684 he went
up to London, and speedily made himself a great name and income. As,
however, at Oxford he had found enemies who, as was the fashion of
these days, spoke very openly and bitterly against their rising
rival--so was it also in London: Gibbons, Blackmore, and others, were
hostile to the new-comer--the first expending his sarcasm on
Radcliffe's defects of scholarship. Radcliffe replied, by fixing on
Gibbons, as is well known the epithet of "_Nurse_;" ridiculing his mode
of treatment by slops and gruels, and so forth,--Radcliffe's faith
being placed in fresh air and exercise, generous nourishment, and the
use of cordials. Sir Edward Hannes was, like Radcliffe, an Oxford man;
and hence, perhaps, the peculiar jealousy and hatred with which he
regarded Radcliffe. Hannes started in London, whither he followed
Radcliffe, a splendid carriage and four, that drew upon it the eyes of
all the town, and provoked Radcliffe, when told by a friend that the
horses were the finest he had ever seen, to the savage reply, "Then
he'll be able to sell them for all the more!" Hannes employed a
stratagem that, in sundry shapes, has since been not quite unfamiliar
in medical practice. He instructed his livery servants to run about the
streets, and, putting their heads into every coach they met, to inquire
in tones of anxiety and alarm, whether Dr. Hannes was there. Once one
of these servants entered on this advertising errand Garraway's
Coffeehouse, in Exchange Alley--a great resort of the medical
profession; and called out, all breathless with haste, "Gentlemen, can
any of your honours tell me if Dr. Hannes is here?" "Who wants Dr.
Hannes, fellow?" asked Radcliffe, who was in the room. "Lord A----, and
Lord B----," was the assurance of the servant. "No, no, my man," said
Radcliffe, in a voice deliberate and full of enjoyment of the irony;
"no, no, you are mistaken; it isn't the Lords that want your master,
but he that wants them." Hannes was reputed the son of a basket-maker;
Blackmore had been a schoolmaster--circumstances which furnished
Radcliffe with material for a savage attack on both, when called in to
attend the young Duke of Gloucester, for whom they had prescribed until
the illness took a fatal turn. He accused them to their faces, and with
no particular gentleness of language, for having abominably mismanaged
a mere attack of rash; and said, "It would have been happy for this
nation had you, Sir, been bred up a basket-maker, and you, Sir,
remained a country schoolmaster, rather than have ventured out of your
reach, in the practice of an art to which you are an utter stranger,
and for your blunders in which you ought to be whipped with one of your
own rods."
MATHEWS OH HIS DEATHBED.
A friend attending on Charles Mathews the Elder, the celebrated
comedian, in his last illness, intending to give him his medicine, gave
in mistake some ink from a phial on a shelf. On discovering the error,
his friend exclaimed, "Good heavens! Mathews, I have given you ink."
"Never--never mind, my boy--never mind," said Mathews, faintly, "I'll
swallow a bit of _blotting-paper_."
BISHOP BERKELEY'S BERMUDA SCHEME.
Dr. George Berkeley, the Bishop of Cloyne--celebrated for his ideal
theory, and by the praise of Pope, his stedfast friend, who ascribes
"to Berkeley every virtue under heaven," as others ascribed to him all
learning--in 1824 conceived and published his benevolent proposal for
converting the American savages to Christianity, by means of a colony
to be established in the Bermudas. The proposal was published in 1723,
the year after he had been appointed Dean of Derry; and he offered to
resign that opulent preferment, worth £1100 a year, and to dedicate the
remainder of his life to the instruction of the Indians, on the
moderate allowance of £100 a-year. The project was very favourably
received, and persons of the highest rank raised considerable sums by
subscription in aid of it. Berkeley having resigned his preferment, set
sail for Rhode Island, to make arrangements for carrying out his views.
Such was the influence of his distinguished example, that three of the
junior Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, abandoned with him all their
flattering prospects in life in their own country, for a settlement in
the Atlantic Ocean at £40 a-year. The Dean, not meeting with the
support the ministry had promised him, and after spending nearly all
his private property and seven of the best years of his life in the
prosecution of his scheme, returned to Europe. This, however, he did
not do, until the Bishop of London had informed him, that on
application for funds to Sir Robert Walpole, he had received the
following honest answer: "If you put this question to me as a minister,
I must and I can assure you, that the money shall most undoubtedly be
paid as soon as suits with the public convenience; but if you ask me as
a friend, whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America, expecting
the payment of £10,000, advise him, by all means, to return home to
Europe, and give up his present expectations."
A HOME-THRUST AT STERNE.
Sterne, the reverend author of the _Sentimental Journey_, had the
credit of treating his wife very ill. He was one day talking to
Garrick, in a fine sentimental strain, in laudation of conjugal love
and fidelity. "The husband," said he, "who behaves unkindly to his
wife, deserves to have his house burnt over his head." "If you think
so," replied Garrick, "I hope _your_ house is insured."
THE GOSPEL A NOVELTY.
When Le Torneau preached the Lent sermon at St. Benoit, at Paris, Louis
XIV. inquired of Boileau, "if he knew anything of a preacher called Le
Tourneau, whom everybody was running after?" "Sire," replied the poet,
"your Majesty knows that people always run after novelties; this man
preaches the gospel." The King pressing him to speak seriously, Boileau
added: "When M. Le Tourneau first ascends the pulpit, his ugliness so
disgusts the congregation that they wish he would go down again; but
when he begins to speak, they dread the time of his descending."
Boileau's remark as to the "novelty" of preaching the gospel in his
time, brings to mind the candid confession of a Flemish preacher, who,
in a sermon delivered before an audience wholly of his own order, said:
"We are worse than Judas; he sold and delivered his Master; we sell Him
too, but deliver Him not." Somewhat akin was the remark, in an earlier
age, of Father Fulgentio, the friend and biographer of Paul Sarpi, and,
like him, a secret friend to the progress of religious reformation.
Preaching on Pilate's question, "What is truth?" he told the audience
that he had at last, after many searches, found it out; and, holding
forth the New Testament, said, "Here it is, my friends; but," he added
sorrowfully, as he returned it to his pocket, "it is _a sealed book_."
HARVEY AND THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.
The discovery of the circulation of the blood was the most important
ever made in the science of physiology, and led to a complete
revolution throughout the whole circle of medical knowledge and
practice. The renown of this splendid discovery, by all but universal
consent, has been attributed to William Harvey, an English physician,
who was born at Folkestone in 1578, and in 1593 went to Caius College,
Cambridge, where he remained four years. He then went abroad for
several years, studying in the most famous medical schools; and in
1604, having passed M.D. at Cambridge, he set up in practice in London.
In 1615 he was appointed Lecturer at the College of Physicians, on
Anatomy and Surgery; and it was in the performance of these duties that
he arrived at the important discovery that is inseparably associated
with his name. "The merit of Harvey," it has been justly observed, "is
enhanced by considering the degraded state of medical knowledge at that
time in England. While anatomical schools had been long established in
Italy, France, and Germany, and several teachers had rendered their
names illustrious by the successful pursuit of the science, anatomy was
still unknown in England, and dissection had hitherto hardly begun; yet
at this inauspicious period did Harvey make a discovery, which amply
justifies Haller in ranking him as only second to Hippocrates." In 1620
he promulgated his new doctrine of the circulation of the blood, in a
treatise entitled _Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in
Animalibus_; in the preface to which, addressed to the College of
Physicians, he states that frequently in his lectures he had declared
his opinion touching the motion of the heart and the circulation of the
blood, and had for more than nine years confirmed and illustrated that
discovery by reasons and arguments grounded on ocular demonstration.
The attention of all Europe, and the keen opposition of many of its
medical scholars, were at once aroused by Harvey's publication; but his
doctrine triumphed over all objections, and before he died he had the
happiness of seeing it fully established. Harvey was physician to James
I. and Charles I., the latter of whom had a high regard for him; and at
the outbreak of the civil war he adhered to the royal side, and quitted
London with the king, attending him at the battle of Edgehill, and
afterwards at Oxford. He died in 1658, it is said from the effects of
opium which he had taken with suicidal intent, while suffering under
the acute pangs of gout. Posterity has been more faithful and grateful
than his own age to the greatest modern discoverer in medical science;
for his discovery rather tended to push him back than to advance him in
professional position. It has been said that "perhaps his researches
took him out of the common road to popular eminence, and they seem to
have exposed him to the prejudice so commonly prevailing against an
innovator; for we find him complaining to a friend, that his practice
considerably declined after the publication of his discovery."
SUNDAY SPORTS.
Rushworth relates that King James, in 1618, in his _Declaration
concerning Lawful Sports_, said that in his progress through Lancashire
he did justly rebuke some Puritans and precise people for the
prohibiting and unlawful punishment of his good people for using their
lawful recreations and honest exercises upon Sundays and other
holidays, after the afternoon sermon or service. "With his own ears he
heard the general complaint of his people, that they were barred from
all lawful recreations and exercise upon the Sundays after noon;" which
must produce two great evils,--the first, the hindering the conversion
of many whom the clergy caused to believe that religion, and honest
mirth and recreation, were incompatible. "The other inconvenience is,
that this prohibition barreth the common and meaner sort of people from
using such exercises as may make their bodies more able for war when
his Majesty, or his successors, shall have occasion to use them; and in
place thereof, sets up tippling and filthy drunkenness, and breeds a
number of idle and discontented speeches in alehouses. For when shall
the common people have leave to exercise, if not upon the Sundays and
holidays, seeing they must apply their labour, and win their living, on
all working days? Therefore, the King said, his express pleasure was
that no lawful recreation should be barred to his good people which did
not tend to the breach of the laws of this kingdom and the canons of
the Church: that after the end of divine service his people be not
disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawful recreation, such as
dancing, either men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or
any other such harmless recreation; nor from having of May-games,
Whitson-ales, and Morice-dances; and the setting up of Maypoles, and
other sports therewith used, so as the same be had in due and
convenient time, without impediment or neglect of divine service. And
that women should have leave to carry rushes to the church for the
decoring of it, according to their old custom." But bull and bear
baiting, "interludes," and bowling (at all times prohibited to the
meaner sort), were forbidden; all known recusants who abstained from
coming to service were barred the liberty of recreation, "being
unworthy of any lawful recreation after the service, that would not
first come to the church and serve God;" as were also all who, though
conforming in religion, had not been present in church. Each person was
to go to church, and join the sports, in his own parish; and no weapons
of offence were to be carried or used.
Charles I., in 1633, gave command for the reading of the _Book of
Sports_ in the churches, which had not been done even by his father,
and which gave great offence and stirred up much display of bad
feeling. In London, after the reading, one clergyman went on
immediately to read the Ten Commandments, and said, "Dearly beloved
brethren, you have now heard the commandments of God and man; obey
which you please." Another minister followed up the reading of the
obnoxious ordinance by the delivery of a sermon on the Fourth
Commandment.
THE SAINT'S BELL.
In their description of Westmoreland, Nicholson and Burn relate, that
"in the old church at Ravenstonedale there was a small bell, called the
Saint's Bell, which was wont to be rung after the Nicene creed, to call
in the Dissenters to sermon. And to this day the Dissenters, besides
frequenting the meeting-house, oftentimes attend the sermon in church."
SIR RICHARD JEBB.
Sir Richard Jebb, the famous physician, who was very rough and harsh in
his manner, once observed to a patient to whom he had been extremely
rude, "Sir, it is my way." "Then," returned his indignant patient,
pointing to the door, "I beg you will make _that_ your way!" Sir
Richard being called to see a patient who fancied himself very ill,
told him ingenuously what he thought, and declined prescribing for him.
"Now you are here," said the patient, "I shall be obliged to you, Sir
Richard, if you will tell me how I must live--what I may eat, and what
I may not." "My directions as to that point," replied Sir Richard,
"will be few and simple! You must not eat the poker, shovel, or tongs,
for they are hard of digestion; nor the bellows, because they are
windy; but eat anything else you please!"
A SANITARY VIEW OF BAPTISM.
Crosby's _History of the English Baptists_ preserves the opinion of Sir
John Floyer, the physician, that immersion at baptism was of great
value in a sanitary point of view, and that its discontinuance, about
the year 1600, had been attended with ill effects on the physical
condition of the population. Dealing with the question purely in a
professional sense, he declared his belief that the English would
return to the practice of immersion, when the medical faculty or the
science of physic had plainly proved to them by experiment the safety
and utility of cold bathing. "They did great injury to their own
children and all posterity, who first introduced the alteration of this
truly ancient ceremony of immersion, and were the occasion of a
degenerate, sickly, tender race ever since. Instead of prejudicing the
health of their children, immersion would prevent many hereditary
diseases if it were still practised." He tells, in support of his
belief, that he had been assured by a man, eighty years old, whose
father lived while immersion was still the practice, that parents at
the baptism would ask the priest to dip well in the water that part of
the child in which any disease used to afflict themselves, to prevent
its descending to their posterity. And it had long been a proverbial
saying among old people, if any one complained of pain in their limbs,
that "surely that limb had not been dipt in the font." Immersion,
however, was far otherwise regarded in quarters where professional
animus of another kind militated against its revival by the powerful
dissenting body of the Baptists. Baxter vehemently and exaggeratedly
denounced it as a breach of the Sixth Commandment, which says, "Thou
shalt not kill;" and called on the civil magistrate to interfere for
its prevention, to save the lives of the lieges. "Covetous physicians,"
he thought, should not be much against the Anabaptists; for "catarrhs
and obstructions, which are the two great fountains of most mortal
diseases in man's body, could scarce have a more notable means to
produce them where they are not, or to increase them where they are.
Apoplexies, lethargies, palsies, and all comatous diseases, would be
promoted by it"--and then comes a long string of terrible maladies that
would follow on the dipping. "In a word, it is good for nothing but to
despatch men out of the world that are troublesome, and to ranken
churchyards." Again: "If murder be a sin, then dipping ordinarily in
cold water over head in England is a sin. And if those that would make
it men's religion to murder themselves, and urge it on their
consciences as their duty, are not to be suffered in a commonwealth,
any more than highway murderers; then judge how these Anabaptists, that
teach the necessity of such dippings, are to be suffered." Had Baxter
lived in these cold water days, tubbing would probably have taught him
a little more toleration.
BISHOP KENNET ON LATE REPENTANCE.
Doctor, afterwards Bishop, Kennet preached the funeral sermon of the
first Duke of Devonshire in 1707. The sentiments of the sermon gave
much umbrage; people complained that the preacher "had built a bridge
to heaven for men of wit and parts, but excluded the duller part of
mankind from any chance of passing it." The complaint was founded on
this passage, in speaking of a late repentance: "This rarely happens
but in men of distinguished sense and judgment. Ordinary abilities may
be altogether sunk by a long vicious course of life; the duller flame
is easily extinguished. The meaner sinful wretches are commonly given
up to a reprobate mind, and die as stupidly as they lived; while the
nobler and brighter parts have an advantage of understanding the worth
of their souls before they resign them. If they are allowed the benefit
of sickness, they commonly awake out of their dream of sin, and
reflect, and look upwards. They acknowledge an infinite being; they
feel their own immortal part; they recollect and relish the Holy
Scriptures; they call for the elders of the church; they think what to
answer at a judgment-seat. Not that God is a respecter of persons; but
the difference is in men; and the more intelligent the nature is, the
more susceptible of divine grace." The successor to the deceased Duke
did not think ill of the sermon; and recommended Kennet to the Deanery
of Peterborough, which he obtained in 1707.
A MAL APROPOS QUOTATION.
In one of the debates in the House of Lords, on the war with France in
1794, a speaker quoted the following lines from Bishop Porteous' _Poem
on War_:--
"One murder makes a villain,
Millions a hero! Princes are privileged To kill, and numbers sanctify
the crime. Ah! why will kings forget that they are men, And men that
they are brethren? Why delight In human sacrifice? Why burst the ties
Of nature, that should knit their souls together In one soft bond of
amity and love? They yet still breathe destruction, still go on,
Inhumanly ingenious to find out New pains for life; new terrors for the
grave; Artifices of Death! Still monarchs dream Of universal empire
growing up From universal ruin. Blast the design, Great God of Hosts!
nor let Thy creatures fall Unpitied victims at Ambition's shrine."
The Bishop, who was present, and who generally voted with the Ministry,
was asked by an independent nobleman, if he were really the author of
the lines that had been quoted. The Bishop replied, "Yes, my Lord;
but--they were not composed for the present war."
CHARLES II. ON SERMON-READING.
The practice of reading sermons, now so prevalent, was reproved by
Charles II., in the following ordinance on the subject, issued by the
Chancellor of the University of Cambridge:--
"_Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen_,--Whereas his Majesty is informed,
that the practice of reading sermons is generally taken up by the
preachers before the University, and therefore continues even before
himself; his Majesty hath commanded me to signify to you his pleasure,
that the said practice, which took its beginning from the disorders of
the late times, be wholly laid aside; and that the said preachers
deliver their sermons, both in Latin and English, by memory without
book; as being a way of preaching which his Majesty judgeth most
agreeable to the use of foreign Churches, to the custom of the
University heretofore, and to the nature of that holy exercise. And
that his Majesty's command in these premises may be duly regarded and
observed, his further pleasure is, that the names of all such
ecclesiastical persons as shall continue the present supine and
slothful way of preaching, be from time to time signified to me by the
Vice-Chancellor for the time being, on pain of his Majesty's
displeasure. October 8, 1674.
"MONMOUTH."
SOUTH ON THE COMMONWEALTH PREACHERS.
Dr. South, in one of his sermons, thus reflected on the untrained and
fanatical preachers of the time of the Commonwealth--many of whom but
too well deserved the strictures:--"It may not be amiss to take
occasion to utter a great truth, as both worthy to be now considered,
and never to be forgot,--namely, that if we reflect upon the late times
of confusion which passed upon the ministry, we shall find that the
grand design of the fanatic crew was to persuade the world that a
standing settled ministry was wholly useless. This, I say, was the main
point which they then drove at. And the great engine to effect this was
by engaging men of several callings (and those the meaner still the
better) to hold forth and harangue the multitude, sometimes in the
streets, sometimes in churches, sometimes in barns, and sometimes from
pulpits, and sometimes from tubs, and, in a word, wheresoever and
howsoever they could clock the senseless and unthinking babble about
them. And with this practice well followed, they (and their friends the
Jesuits) concluded, that in some time it would be no hard matter to
persuade the people, that if men of other professions were able to
teach and preach the word, then to what purpose should there be a
company of men brought up to it and maintained in it at the charge of a
public allowance? especially when at the same time the truly godly so
greedily gaped and grasped at it for their self-denying selves. So that
preaching, we see, was their prime engine. But now what was it, which
encouraged those men to set up for a work, which (if duly managed) was
so difficult in itself, and which they were never bred to? Why, no
doubt it was, that low, cheap, illiterate way, then commonly used, and
cried up for the only gospel soul-searching way (as the word then
went), and which the craftier set of them saw well enough, that with a
little exercise and much confidence, they might in a short time come to
equal, if not exceed; as it cannot be denied, but that some few of them
(with the help of a few friends in masquerade) accordingly did. But, on
the contrary, had preaching been made and reckoned a matter of solid
and true learning, of theological knowledge and long and severe study
(as the nature of it required it to be), assuredly no preaching cobbler
amongst them all would ever have ventured so far beyond his last, as to
undertake it. And consequently this their most powerful engine for
supplanting the church and clergy had never been attempted, nor perhaps
so much as thought on; and therefore of most singular benefit, no
question, would it be to the public, if those who have authority to
second their advice, would counsel the ignorant and the forward to
consider what divinity is, and what they themselves are, and so to put
up their preaching tools, their Medulla's note-books, their
melleficiums, concordances, and all, and betake themselves to some
useful trade, which nature had most particularly fitted them for."
PETER THE GREAT AS DENTIST.
The Czar Peter, impelled by natural curiosity and love of science, was
very fond of witnessing dissections and operations. He first made these
known in Russia, and gave orders to be informed when anything of the
kind was going on at the hospitals, that he might, if possible, be
present to gratify his love for such spectacles. He frequently aided
the operator, and was able to dissect properly, to bleed, draw teeth,
and perform other operations as well as one of the faculty. Along with
a case of mathematical instruments, he always carried about with him a
pouch furnished with surgical instruments. The wife of one of his
valets had once a disagreeable experience of his skill. She was
suspected of gallantry, and her husband vowed revenge. He sat in the
ante-chamber with a sad and pensive face, provoking the Czar to inquire
the occasion of his gloom. The valet said that nothing was wrong,
except that his wife refused to have a tooth drawn that caused her
great pain. The Czar desired that he should be allowed to cure her, and
was at once taken to her apartment, where he made her sit down that he
might examine her mouth, in spite of her earnest protestations that she
had no toothache. The husband, however, alleging that she always said
so when the physician was present, and renewed her lamentations when he
departed, the Czar ordered him to hold her head and arms; and, pulling
forth his instruments, promptly extracted the tooth which he supposed
to be the cause of the pain, disregarding the piteous cries of the
persecuted lady. But in a few days the Czar learned that the whole
affair was a trick of the valet to torment his wife; and his Majesty
thereupon, as his manner was, administered to him a very severe
chastisement with his own hands.
A MILD CRITICISM.
While Sir Busick Harwood was Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge, he was
called in, in a case of some difficulty, by the friends of a patient,
who were anxious for his opinion of the malady. Being told the name of
the medical man who had previously prescribed, Sir Busick exclaimed,
"He! if he were to descend into the patient's stomach with a candle and
lantern, when he ascended he would not be able to name the complaint!"
HOUR-GLASSES IN CHURCH.
To restrain over-eloquent or over-zealous preachers in the length of
their discourses, hour-glasses were introduced in churches about the
period of the Reformation. In the frontispiece prefixed to the Bible of
the Bishops' Translation, printed in 1569, Archbishop Parker is
represented with an hour-glass standing on his right hand. Clocks and
watches being then but rarely in use, the hour-glass was had recourse
to as the only convenient public remembrancer which the state of the
arts could then supply. The practice of using them became generally
prevalent, and continued till the period of the Revolution. The
hour-glass was placed either on the side of the pulpit, or on a stand
in front. "One whole houre-glasse," "one halfe houre-glasse," occur in
an inventory taken about 1632 of the properties of the church of All
Saints at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Daniel Burgess, a Nonconformist preacher
at the commencement of last century, alike famous for the length of his
pulpit harangues and the quaintness of his illustrations, was once
vehemently declaiming against the sin of drunkenness. Having exhausted
the customary time, he turned the hour-glass, and said, "Brethren, I
have somewhat more to say on the nature and consequences of
drunkenness; so let's have _the other glass and then_--" The jest,
however, seems to have been borrowed from the frontispiece of a small
book, entitled _England's Shame, or a Relation of the Life and Death of
Hugh Peters_, published in 1663; where Peters is represented preaching,
and holding an hour-glass in his left hand, in the act of saying, "I
know you are good fellows; so let's have another glass."
THE METHODIST DOG.
In the early days of Methodism, meetings for preaching and prayer were
held regularly about Bristol, and usually well attended. The people who
had frequented these meetings had repeatedly observed a dog that came
from a distance; and as at the house to which he belonged the
Methodists were not respected, he always came alone. At that time, the
preaching on Sunday began immediately after the church service ended;
and this singular animal, invariably attending on those occasions,
received the name of the "Methodist Dog." He was generally met by the
congregation returning from the church, and abused and pelted by the
boys belonging to that party. His regular attendance had often been the
subject of public debate; and, merely to prove the sagacity of the
animal, the meeting, for one evening, was removed to another house.
Surprising as it may seem, at the proper and exact time he made his
appearance. A few weeks after, his owner returning intoxicated from
Leeds market, was drowned in a narrow shallow stream; and from that day
the "Methodist Dog" ceased to attend the preaching. Concerning this odd
fact, a good Methodist (John Nelson) used to say, "The frequent
attendance of this dog at the meeting was designed to attract his
master's curiosity, and engage him thereby to visit the place; where,
hearing the gospel, he might have been enlightened, converted, and
eternally saved. But the end to be answered being frustrated by the
master's death, the means to secure it were no longer needful on the
dog's part."
THE TWO GATES OF HEAVEN.
"God," says St. Pierre, in his _Harmonies of Nature_, "God has placed
upon earth two gates that lead to heaven; He has set them at the two
extremities of life--one at the entrance, the other at the issue. The
first is that of innocence; the second, that of repentance."
GIBBON'S RETORT ON THE PHYSICIAN.
A good story of Gibbon the historian is told in Moore's Memoirs. Gibbon
and an eminent French physician were rivals in courting the favour of
Lady Elizabeth Foster. Impatient at Gibbon's occupying so much of her
attention by his conversation, the doctor said crossly to him, "_Quand
milady Elizabeth Foster sera malade de vos fadaises, je la guérirai_."
[When my Lady Elizabeth Foster is made ill by your twaddle, I will cure
her.] On which Gibbon, drawing himself up grandly, and looking
disdainfully at the physician, replied, "_Quand milady Elizabeth Foster
sera morte de vos recettes, je l'immortaliserai_." [When my Lady
Elizabeth Foster is dead from your prescriptions, I will immortalize
her.]
TRUMP CARDS.
Mrs. Bray relates the following instance of the power of a ruling
passion or habit, concerning a Devonshire physician, boasting the not
untradesmanlike name of Vial, who was a desperate lover of whist. One
evening, in the midst of a deal, the doctor fell off his chair in a
fit. Consternation seized on the company, who knew not whether he was
alive or dead. At length he showed signs of returning life; and,
retaining the last fond idea that had possessed him at the moment he
fell into the fit, he exclaimed, "_What is trumps?_" A _bon-vivant_,
brought to his deathbed by an immoderate use of wine, after having been
told that he could not in all human probability survive many hours, and
would die before eight o'clock next morning, summoned the small
remnants of his strength to call the doctor back, and said, with the
true recklessness of a gambler, "Doctor, I'll bet you a bottle that I
live till nine!"
PERSUASIVENESS OF WHITFIELD.
Benjamin Franklin, in his memoirs, bears witness to the extraordinary
effect that was produced by Whitfield's preaching in America, and tells
an anecdote equally characteristic of the preacher and of himself. "I
happened," says Franklin, "to attend one of his sermons, in the course
of which I perceived that he intended to finish with a collection, and
I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a
handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five
pistoles in gold. As he proceeded, I began to soften, and concluded to
give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that,
and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably,
that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and
all. At this sermon there was also one of our club, who, being of my
sentiments regarding the building in Georgia (the subject of
Whitfield's appeal), and suspecting a collection might be intended, had
by precaution emptied his pockets before he came from home. Towards the
conclusion of the discourse, however, he felt a strong inclination to
give, and applied to a neighbour who stood near him to lend him some
money for the purpose. The request was fortunately made to perhaps the
only man in the company who had the firmness not to be affected by the
preacher. His answer was: 'At any other time, friend Hodgkinson, I
would lend to thee freely; but not now, for thee seems to be out of thy
right senses.'"
"PREACHING FOR A CROWN."
Howell Davies, who was Whitfield's Welsh coadjutor, walking one Sunday
morning to preach, was accosted by a clergyman on horseback, who was
bound on the same errand, and who complained of the unprofitable
drudgery of his profession, saying that he could never get more than
half-a-guinea for preaching. The Welshman replied that he for his part
was content to preach _for a crown_. This so offended the mounted
priest, that he upbraided the pedestrian for disgracing his cloth.
"Perhaps," said Davies, "you will hold me still cheaper when I inform
you that I am going nine miles to preach, and have only seven-pence in
my pocket to bear my expenses out and in. But the crown for which I
preach is a crown of glory."
SHEDDING HIS BLOOD FOR HIS COUNTRY.
Lord Radnor, who lived in the middle of last century, had a singular
liking for the amateur employment of the lancet on the veins of his
friends, or of persons whom he induced by gifts of money to allow him
to display his skill upon them. It is told of Lord Chesterfield, that,
desiring the vote of Lord Radnor in some division impending in the
House of Lords, he went to him, and by and by, in the course of
indifferent conversation, complained that he was suffering from a bad
headache. Lord Radnor leaped at the opportunity of indulging his
predilection for phlebotomy on such a _corpus nobile_; he told Lord
Chesterfield that he ought to lose blood at once. "Do you indeed think
so, my dear Lord? Then do me the favour to add to the service of your
advice that of your skill. I know that you are a clever surgeon." In a
moment Lord Radnor had pulled out his lancet case, and opened a vein in
his visitor's arm; who subsequently, when the bandage was being put on,
as if casually, asked the operator, "By the by, does your Lordship go
down to the House to-day?" Lord Radnor answered that he had not
intended going, not having information enough as to the question that
was to be debated; "But on what side will you, that have considered the
matter, vote?" Lord Chesterfield stated his views to his amateur
surgeon, whose vanity he had so cleverly flattered; and left the house
with the promise of Lord Radnor's vote--having literally, as he told an
intensely amused party of his friends the same evening, "shed his blood
for the good of his country."
DR. KIRWAN, DEAN OF KILLALA.
Towards the end of last century, there arose in Ireland an eminent
preacher, who, to use the emphatic language of Grattan, "broke through
the slumbers of the pulpit." This was Walter Blake Kirwan, originally a
Catholic priest and Professor of Philosophy at Louvain, and afterwards
chaplain to the Neapolitan embassy at London. In 1787 he resolved to
conform to the Establishment, and preached for the first time to a
Protestant congregation in St. Peter's Church at Dublin. He
subsequently became Prebend of Howth, Rector of St. Nicholas, Dublin,
and ultimately Dean of Killala. Wonders have been recorded of his
attractiveness as a preacher. That he was a great orator, the manner in
which he was attended abundantly proved. People crowded to hear him,
who on no other occasion appeared within the walls of a church: men of
the world, who had other pursuits, men of professions, physicians,
lawyers, actors--in short, all to whom clergymen of the highest order
had any charms. The pressure of the crowds was immense; guards were
obliged to be stationed, and even palisades erected, to keep off from
the largest churches the overflowing curiosity, which could not
contribute adequately to the great charities for which he generally
preached. The sums collected on these occasions exceeded anything ever
before known. In one instance, such was the magical impression he
produced, that many persons, ladies particularly, after contributing
all the money they had about them, threw their watches, rings, and
other valuable ornaments into the plate, and next day redeemed them
with money. The produce of this triumph of pulpit oratory was indeed
magnificent; it was no less than £1200--a much larger sum at that day
than the figures represent in ours. Worn out by his labours, Dr. Kirwan
died in 1805; and a book of sermons printed in 1814 is his sole
literary memorial.
JEREMY TAYLOR.
Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down, from the fertility of his mind and the
extent of his imagination, has been styled "the Shakespeare of English
divines." His sermons abound with some of the most brilliant passages;
and embrace such a variety of matter, and such a mass of knowledge and
of learning, that even the acute Bishop Warburton said of him: "I can
fathom the understandings of most men, yet I am not certain that I can
fathom the understanding of Jeremy Taylor." His comparison between a
married and a single life, in his sermon on the Blessedness of
Marriage, is rich in tender sentiments and exquisitely elegant imagery.
"Marriage," says the Bishop, "is the mother of the world, and preserves
kingdoms, and fills cities, churches, and even heaven itself. Celibacy,
like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness;
yet sits alone, and is confined, and dies in singularity. But marriage,
like the useful bee, builds a house, and gathers sweetness from every
flower, and labours and unites into societies and republics, and sends
out colonies, and fills the world with delicacies, and obeys the king,
keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the interest of
mankind; and is that state of things to which God hath designed the
present constitution of the world. Marriage hath in it the labour of
love, and the delicacies of friendship; the blessings of society, and
the union of hands and hearts. It hath in it less of beauty, but more
of safety, than a single life; it is more merry and more sad; is fuller
of joy and fuller of sorrow; it lies under more burthens, but is
supported by the strength of love and charity; and these burthens are
delightful."
A TWO-EDGED ACCUSATION.
Dr. Freind, like too many of the physicians of his time--under Queen
Anne--was not very careful to keep his head clear and hand steady by
moderation in tavern potations; and more often than not he was tipsy
when he visited his patients. Once he entered the chamber of a lady of
high rank in such a state of intoxicated confusion, that he could do
nothing more than mutter to himself, "Drunk--drunk--drunk, by ----!"
Happily, or unhappily, the lady, from the same cause, was not in any
better case than the physician; and when she came to herself, she was
informed by her maid that the doctor had briefly and gruffly described
_her_ condition, and then abruptly taken his leave. Freind next day was
puzzling as to the apology he should offer to his patient for his
unfitness to deal with her ailment, when to his great joy there came a
note from the lady, enclosing a handsome fee, and entreating him to
keep his own counsel as to what he had seen.
RADCLIFFE AND KNELLER.
Sir Godfrey Kneller and Dr. Radcliffe lived next door to each other in
Bow Street, just after the latter had come up to town, and were
extremely intimate. Kneller had a very fine garden, and as the doctor
was fond of flowers, he permitted him to have a door into it.
Radcliffe's servants, however, gathering and destroying the flowers,
Kneller sent to inform him that he would nail up the door; to which
Radcliffe, in his rough manner, replied, "Tell him he may do anything
but paint it."--"Well," retorted Kneller, "he may say what he will; for
tell him, I will take anything from him, except physic."
SLAPS FOR SLEEPERS IN CHURCH.
A Methodist preacher once, observing that several of his congregation
had fallen asleep, exclaimed with a loud voice, "A fire! a fire!"
"Where? where?" cried his auditors, whom the alarm had thoroughly
aroused from their slumbers. "In the place of judgment," said the
preacher, "for those who sleep under the ministry of the holy gospel."
Another preacher, of a different persuasion, more remarkable for drowsy
hearers, finding himself in a like unpleasant situation with his
auditory, or rather _dormitory_, suddenly stopped in his discourse,
and, addressing himself in a whispering tone to a number of noisy
children in the gallery, said, "Silence! silence! children; if you keep
up such a noise, you will waken all the old folks below." Dr. South,
chaplain of Charles II., once when preaching before the Court--then
composed, as every one knows, of the most profligate and dissolute men
in the nation--saw, in the middle of his discourse, that sleep had
gradually made a conquest of his hearers. He immediately stopped short,
and, changing his tone, called out to Lord Lauderdale three times. His
Lordship standing up, Dr. South said, with great composure, "My Lord, I
am sorry to interrupt your repose; but I must beg of you that you will
not snore quite so loud, lest you awaken his Majesty."
Lassenius, chaplain to the Danish Court in the end of the seventeenth
century, for a long time, to his vexation, had seen that during his
sermon the greater part of the congregation fell asleep. One day he
suddenly stopped, and, pulling shuttlecock and battledore from his
pocket, began to play with them in the pulpit. This odd behaviour
naturally attracted the attention of the hearers who were still awake;
they jogged the sleepers, and in a very short time everybody was
lively, and looking to the pulpit with the greatest astonishment. Then
Lassenius began a very severe castigatory discourse, saying, "When I
announce to you sacred and important truths, you are not ashamed to go
to sleep; but when I play the fool, you are all eye and ear."
When Fenelon, as almoner, attended Louis XIV. to a sermon preached by a
Capuchin, he fell asleep. The Capuchin perceived it, and breaking off
his discourse, cried out, "Awake that sleeping Abbé, who comes here
only to pay his court to the King;" a reproof which Fenelon himself
often related with pleasure after he became Archbishop of Cambray.
A PRESCRIPTION FOR LONG LIFE.
In the reign of Francis I. of France, the saying went--
"_Lever à cinq, diner à neuf, Souper à cinq, coucher à neuf, Fait vivre
d'ans nonante et neuf_;"
which we thus translate--
"Rising at five, and dining at nine, Supping at five, and bedding at
nine, Brings the years of a man to ninety and nine."
ABERNETHY AND THE DUKE OF YORK.
The Duke of York once consulted Abernethy. During the time his Highness
was in the room, the doctor stood before him with his hands in his
pockets, waiting to be addressed, and whistling with great coolness.
The Duke, naturally astonished at his conduct, said, "I suppose you
know who I am?"--"Suppose I do; what of that? If your Highness of York
wishes to be well, let me tell you," added the surgeon, "you must do as
the Duke of Wellington often did in his campaigns,--_cut off the
supplies_, and the enemy will quickly leave the citadel."
AN UNLUCKY COINCIDENCE.
Dean Ramsay "remembers in the parish church of Fettercairn, though it
must be sixty years ago, a custom, still lingering in some parts of the
country, of the precentor reading out each single line before it was
sung by the congregation. This practice gave rise to a somewhat unlucky
introduction of a line from the first Psalm. In most churches in
Scotland the communion tables are placed in the centre of the church.
After sermon and prayer, the seats round these tables are occupied by
the communicants while a psalm is being sung. One communion Sunday, the
precentor observed the noble family of Eglantine approaching the
tables, and likely to be kept out by those who pressed in before them.
Being very zealous for their accommodation, he called out to an
individual whom he considered to be the principal obstacle in clearing
the passage, 'Come back, Jock, and let in the noble family of
Eglantine;' and then, turning to his psalm-book, he took up his duty,
and went on to read the line, '_Nor stand in sinners' way_.'"
LICENSED LAY PREACHING.
In 1555, Mr. Tavernier, of Bresley, in Norfolk, had a special licence
signed by Edward VI., authorizing him to preach in any part of his
Majesty's dominions, though he was a layman; and he is said to have
preached before the King at court, wearing a velvet bonnet or round
cap, a damask gown, and a gold chain about his neck. In the reign of
Mary he appeared in the pulpit of St. Mary's at Oxford, with a sword by
his side and a gold chain about his neck, and preached to the scholars,
opening his discourse in this wise: "Arriving at the mount of St.
Mary's, in the stony stage where I now stand, I have brought you some
fine biscuits, baked in the oven of charity, carefully conserved for
the chickens of the church." This sort of style, especially the
alliteration, was much admired in those days, even by the most
accomplished scholars; and was long afterwards in high favour both with
speakers and hearers. At the time Mr. Tavernier first received
commission as a preacher, good preaching was so very scarce, that not
only the King's chaplains were obliged to make circuits round the
country to instruct the people, and to fortify them against Popery, but
even laymen, who were scholars, were, as we have seen, employed for
that purpose.
DR. BARROW'S RHYMES WITH REASON.
In the days of Charles II., candidates for holy orders were expected to
respond in Latin to the various interrogatories put to them by the
bishop or his examining chaplain. When the celebrated Barrow (who was
fellow of Trinity College, and tutor to the immortal Newton) had taken
his bachelor's degree, he presented himself before the bishop's
chaplain, who, with the stiff stern visage of the times, said to
Barrow--
"_Quid est fides?_" (What is faith?) "_Quod non vides_" (What thou dost
not see),
answered Barrow with the utmost promptitude. The chaplain, a little
annoyed at Barrow's laconic answer, continued--
"_Quid est spes?_" (What is hope?)
"_Magna res_" (A great thing),
replied the young candidate in the same breath.
"_Quid est caritas?_" (What is charity?)
was the next question.
"_Magna raritas_" (A great rarity),
was again the prompt reply of Barrow, blending truth and rhyme with a
precision that staggered the reverend examiner, who went direct to the
bishop and told him that a young Cantab had thought proper to give
rhyming answers to three several moral questions, and added that he
believed his name was Isaac Barrow, of Trinity College, Cambridge.
"Barrow! Barrow!" said the bishop, who well knew the literary and moral
worth of the young bachelor; "if that's the case, ask him no more
questions, for he is much better qualified to examine us than we are to
examine him." Barrow received his letters of orders forthwith.
HOW TO BE KEPT IN HEALTH.
Sir G. Staunton related a curious anecdote of old Kien Long, Emperor of
China. He was inquiring of Sir George the manner in which physicians
were paid in England. When, after some difficulty, his Majesty was made
to comprehend the system, he exclaimed, "Is any man well in England,
that can afford to be ill? Now, I will inform you," said he, "how I
manage my physicians. I have four, to whom the care of my health is
committed: a certain weekly salary is allowed them, but the moment I am
ill, the salary stops till I am well again. I need not inform you that
my illnesses are usually short."
JOHN HUNTER ROUTING THE ROUT.
Mr. Jeaffreson, in his amusing _Book about Doctors_, tells a good story
about the great anatomist, John Hunter. "His wife, 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 commonplace. 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.... 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, toil-worn, 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."
ANTICS OF THE FANATICS.
In concord, yet in contrast, with Dr. South's censure on the fanatics
of the Commonwealth, noticed on a former page, we take this from the
_Loyal Satirist, or Hudibras in Prose_, published among _Somers'
Tracts_:--"Well, who's for Aldermanbury? You would think a phoenix
preached there; but the birds will flock after an owl as fast; and a
foot-ball in cold weather is as much followed as Calama (Calamy) by all
his rampant dog-day zealots. But 'tis worth the crouding to hear the
baboon expound like the ape taught to play on the cittern. You would
think the church, as well as religion, were inversed, and the anticks
which were used to be without were removed into the pulpit. Yet these
apish tricks must be the motions of the spirit, his whimsie-meagrim
must be an ecstatie, and Dr. G----, his palsy make him the father of
the sanctified shakers. Thus, among Turks, dizziness is a divine
trance, changlings and idiots are the chiefest saints, and 'tis the
greatest sign of revelation to be out of one's wits.
"Instead of a dumb-shew, enter the sermon dawbers. O what a gracious
sight is a silver inkhorn! How blessed a gift is it to write shorthand!
What necessary implements for a saint are cotton wool and
blotting-paper! These dablers turn the church into a scrivener's shop.
A country fellow last term mistook it for the Six Clerks' Office. The
parson looks like an offender upon the scaffold, and they penning his
confession; or a spirit conjured up by their uncouth characters. By his
cloak you would take him for the prologue to a play; but his sermon, by
the length of it, should be a taylor's bill; and what treats it of but
such buckram, fustian stuff? What a desperate green-sickness is the
land fallen into, thus to doat on coals and dirt, and such rubbish
divinity! Must the French cook our sermons too! and are frogs, fungos,
and toadstools the chiefest dish in a spiritual collation? Strange
Israelites! that cannot distinguish betwixt mildew and manna. Certainly
in the brightest sunshine of the gospel clouds are the best guides; and
woodcocks are the only birds of paradise. I wonder how the ignorant
rabbies should differ so much, since most of their libraries consist
only of a concordance. The wise men's star doubtless was an _ignis
fatuus_ in a churchyard; and it was some such Will-o'-th'-Whisp steered
prophetical Saltmarsh, when, riding post to heaven, he lost his way in
so much of revelation as not to be understood; like the musick of the
spheres, which never was heard."
POPE'S LAST EPIGRAM.
During Pope's last illness, it is said, a squabble happened in his
chamber between his two physicians, Dr. Burton and Dr. Thomson, who
mutually charged each other with hastening the death of the patient by
improper treatment. Pope at length silenced them by saying, "Gentlemen,
I only learn by your discourse that I am in a dangerous way; therefore,
all I now ask is, that the following epigram may be added after my
death to the next edition of the Dunciad, by way of postscript:--
'Dunces rejoice, forgive all censures past, The greatest dunce has
kill'd your foe at last.'"
TRANSFUSION OF BLOOD.
The experiment of transferring the blood of one animal into the
vascular system of another, by means of a tube connected with a vein of
the receiving animal and an artery of the other--which had been
unsuccessfully attempted in 1492 in the hope of saving the life of Pope
Innocent VIII.--was first tried in England in the year 1657 by Clarke,
who failed in his attempts. Lower, of Oxford, succeeded in 1665, and
communicated his success to the Royal Society. This was on dogs. Coxe
did it on pigeons; and Coxe and King afterwards exhibited the
experiment on dogs before the Society, transfusing the blood from vein
to vein. It was again performed from a sheep to a dog, and the
experiment was frequently repeated. The first attempts at transfusion
appear to have been instigated merely by curiosity, or by a disposition
to inquire into the powers of animal economy. But higher views soon
opened themselves; it was conceived that inveterate diseases, such as
epilepsy, gout, and others, supposed to reside in the blood, might be
expelled with that fluid; while with the blood of a sheep or calf the
health and strength of the animal might be transferred to the patient.
The most sanguine anticipations were indulged, and the new process was
almost expected to realize the alchemical reveries of an elixir of life
and immortality. The experiment was first tried in France, where the
blood of a sheep, the most stupid of all animals, according to Buffon,
was transfused into the veins of an idiotic youth, with the effect, as
was asserted, of sharpening his wits; and a similar experiment was made
without injury on a healthy man. Lower and King transferred blood from
a sheep into the system of a literary man, who had offered himself for
the experiment, at first without inconvenience, but afterwards with a
less favourable result; the Royal Society still recommending
perseverance in the trials. These events were not calculated to
maintain the expectation of brilliant results that had been raised; and
other occurrences produced still more severe disappointment. The French
youth first mentioned died lethargic soon after the second transfusion;
the physicians incurred great disgrace, and were judicially prosecuted
by the relations. Not, however, discouraged by this unlucky event, they
soon after transfused the blood of a calf into a youth related to the
royal family, who died soon after of a local inflammation. The
Parliament of Paris now interfered, and proscribed the practice; and
two persons having died after transfusion at Rome, the Pope also issued
a prohibitory edict. Since the publication in 1824, however, of Dr.
Blundell's _Physiological and Pathological Researches_, transfusion has
been recognised as a legitimate operation in obstetric surgery--the
object being to obviate the effects of exhaustion from extreme loss of
blood by hæmorrhage.
FATHER ANDRE BOULANGER.
France has produced several entertaining preachers, among whom was
André Boulanger, better known as "little Father André," who died about
the middle of the seventeenth century. His character has been variously
drawn. He is by some represented as a buffoon in the pulpit; but others
more judiciously observe, that he only indulged his natural genius, and
uttered humorous and lively things to keep the attention of his
audience awake. "He told many a bold truth," says the author of _Guerre
des Auteurs, Anciens et Modernes_, "that sent bishops to their
dioceses, and made many a coquette blush. He possessed the art of
biting while he smiled; and more ably combated vice by his ingenious
satire, than by those vague apostrophes which no one takes to himself.
While others were straining their minds to catch at sublime thoughts
which no one understood, he lowered his talents to the most humble
situations, and to the minutest things." In fact, Father André seems to
have been a sort of seventeenth century Spurgeon, as two samples may
serve to show. In one of his sermons he compared the four doctors of
the Latin Church to the four kings of cards. "St. Augustine," said he,
"is the King of Hearts, for his great charity; St. Ambrose is the King
of Clubs (_treflé_), by the flowers of his eloquence; St. Gregory is
the King of Diamonds, for his strict regularity; and St. Jerome is the
King of Spades (_pique_), for his piquant style." The Duke of Orleans
once dared Father André to employ any ridiculous expression about him.
This, however, the good father did, very adroitly. He addressed the
Duke thus: "_Foin de vous, Monseigneur; foin de moi; foin de tous les
auditeurs_." He saved himself from the consequences of his jest, by
taking for his text the seventh verse of the tenth chapter of Isaiah,
where it is said, "All the people are grass"--_Foin_ in French
signifying hay, and being also an interjection, "Fie upon!"
AN INTERCESSOR FOR HIMSELF.
A Protestant renting a little farm under the second Duke of Gordon, a
Catholic, fell behind in his payments; and the steward, in his master's
absence, seized the farmer's stock and advertised it to be rouped on a
certain day. In the interval, the Duke returned home, and the tenant
went to him to entreat indulgence. "What is the matter, Donald?" said
the Duke, seeing him enter with sad and downcast looks. Donald told his
sorrowful tale concisely and naturally: it touched the Duke's heart,
and produced a formal quittance of the debt. Donald, as he cheerily
withdrew, was seen staring at the pictures and images he saw in the
Duke's hall, and expressed to his Grace, in a homely way, a wish to
know who they were. "These," said the Duke, "are the saints who
intercede with God for me." "My Lord Duke," said the tenant, "would it
not be better to apply yourself directly to God? I went to mickle Sandy
Gordon, and to little Sandy Gordon; but if I had not come to your good
Grace's self, I could not have got my discharge, and baith I and my
bairns had been harried out of house and hame."
WHITFIELD'S INFLUENCE ON THE CHURCH.
Toplady speaks thus, in a sermon, of the Establishment to which he
belonged, and the effect on its ministers of the work of Whitfield
beyond its pale:--"I believe no denomination of professing Christians
(the Church of Rome excepted) were so generally void of the light and
life of godliness, so generally destitute of the doctrine and of the
grace of the gospel, as was the Church of England, considered as a
body, about fifty years ago. At that period, a _converted_ minister in
the Establishment was as great a wonder as a comet; but now, blessed be
God, since that precious, that great apostle of the English empire, the
late dear Mr. Whitfield, was raised up in the spirit and power of
Elias, the word of God has run and been glorified; many have believed
and been added to the Lord all over the three kingdoms; and still,
blessed be His name, the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls continues
to issue His word; and great is the company of preachers, greater and
greater every year." This was indeed a liberality far in advance of
Toplady's time.
GENEROSITY OF DR. GREGORY.
It was the custom of the Professors of Edinburgh University, in the
time of this amiable and learned man--as it is partly still--to receive
at their own residences the fees from students intending to attend
their lectures; some old students yet remembering that, when other
material for the class-tickets failed, and sometimes even when it did
not, the necessary formula was written on the back of a playing-card.
While Dr. Gregory was one day at the receipt of fees, he left his room,
in which was a single student, and went into an adjoining apartment for
more admission cards. In this room there was a mirror, in which the
doctor saw the student lift and pocket a portion of a pile of guineas
that lay on the table. Dr. Gregory took no notice of what he had seen
till he was showing the student out; but on the threshold he said, with
a voice marked with deep emotion, "Young man, I saw what you did just
now. Keep the money; I know what distress you must be in. But for God's
sake never do it again; it can never succeed." The remorseful student
sought in vain to persuade the Professor to take back the money: "No,
this must be your punishment, that you must keep it now that you have
taken it." The kind warning was not lost; the student, we are assured,
turned out a good and honest man. At another time Gregory attended a
poor medical student, ill of typhus fever, who offered him the
customary fee of a guinea. The doctor refused it in silence, and with
signs of annoyance and anger at the offer; whereupon the student
hastily said, "I beg your pardon, Dr. Gregory; I did not know your
rule. Dr. A. has always taken a fee." "Oh, he has, has he?" said
Gregory; "then, my young friend, ask him to meet me here in
consultation--and offer me the fee first." The consultation took place,
and the student offered the fee; whereupon the good Gregory broke out:
"Sir, do you mean to insult me? Is there a Professor in this University
who would so far degrade himself, as to take payment from one of his
brotherhood, and a junior?" Dr. A. did not enjoy the little scene that
had been prepared for him; and that very day he returned the fees he
had taken of the sick student.
RUDE TRUTH FOR A QUEEN.
It is well known to how great an extent Queen Elizabeth, with all her
strength of mind, was beset by the weakness of her sex in what
concerned her age and her personal appearance. "The majesty and gravity
of a sceptre," says one of her contemporaries, "could not alter the
nature of a woman in her. When Bishop Rudd was appointed to preach
before her, he, wishing in a godly zeal, as well became him, that she
should think sometimes of mortality, being then sixty-three years of
age--he took his text fit for that purpose out of the Psalms, xc. 12:
'Teach us to _number_ our days, that we may incline our hearts unto
wisdom;' which text he handled most learnedly. But when he spoke of
some sacred and mystical numbers, as three for the Trinity, three times
three for the heavenly hierarchy, seven for the Sabbath, and seven
times seven for a jubilee; and lastly, nine times seven for the grand
climacterical year (her age), she, perceiving whereto it tended, began
to be troubled by it. The Bishop, discovering that all was not well,
for the pulpit stood opposite her Majesty, he fell to treat of some
more plausible (pleasing) numbers, as of the number 666, making
_Latinus_, with which, he said, he could prove Pope to be Antichrist,
etc. He still, however, interlarded his sermon with Scripture passages,
touching the infirmities of age, as that in Ecclesiastes: 'When the
grinders shall be few in number, and they wax dark that look out of the
windows,' etc.; 'and the daughters of singing shall be abased;' and
more to that purpose. The Queen, as the manner was, opened the window;
but she was so far from giving him thanks or good countenance, that she
said plainly: 'He might have kept his arithmetic for himself; but I see
the greatest clerks are not the wisest men;' and so she went away
discontented."
AN ARCHBISHOP'S INSTALLATION FEAST.
Fuller, in his _Church History_, relates that "George Nevill, brother
to the great Earl of Warwick, at his instalment into the Archbishoprick
of York, gave a prodigious feast to all the nobility, most of the prime
clergy, and many of the great gentry, wherein, by his bill of fare,
three hundred quarters of wheat, three hundred and thirty tuns of ale,
one hundred and four tuns of wine, one pipe of spiced wine, eighty fat
oxen, six wild bulls, one thousand and four wethers, three hundred
hogs, three hundred calves, three thousand geese, three thousand
capons, three hundred pigs, one hundred peacocks, two hundred cranes,
two hundred kids, two thousand chickens, four thousand pigeons, four
thousand rabbits, two hundred and four bitterns, four thousand ducks,
two hundred pheasants, five hundred partridges, four thousand
woodcocks, four hundred plovers, one hundred curlews, one hundred
quails, one thousand egrets, two hundred roes, above four hundred
bucks, does, and roebucks, one thousand five hundred and six hot
venison pasties, four thousand cold venison pasties, one thousand
dishes of jelly parted, four thousand dishes of plain jelly, four
thousand cold custards, two thousand hot custards, three hundred pike,
three hundred bream, eight seals, four porpoises, and four hundred
tarts. At this feast the Earl of Warwick was steward, the Earl of
Bedford, treasurer, the Lord of Hastings, comptroller, with many more
noble officers; servitors, one thousand; cooks, sixty-two; kitcheners,
five hundred and fifteen.... But," continues honest Fuller, "seven
years after, the King seized on all the estate of this archbishop, and
sent him over prisoner to Calais in France, where _vinctus jacuit in
summa inopia_, he was kept bound in extreme poverty. Justice thus
punished his former prodigality."
DA VINCI A GREAT ANATOMIST.
Leonardo Da Vinci, to his talents as a painter, added that of being the
best anatomist and physiologist of his time, and was the first person
who introduced the practice of making anatomical drawings. Vassari, in
his _Lives of the Painters_, says that Leonardo made a book of studies,
drawn with red chalk, and touched with a pen with great diligence, of
such subjects as Marc Antonio de la Torre, an excellent philosopher of
that day, had dissected. "And concerning those from part to part, he
wrote remarks in letters of an ugly form, which are written by the left
hand backwards, and not to be understood but by those who knew the
method of reading them; for they are not to be read without a
looking-glass." Those very drawings and writings alluded to by Vassari,
were happily found to be preserved in the royal collection of original
drawings, where Dr. Hunter was permitted to examine them. The Doctor,
in noticing them, says: "I expected to see little more than such
designs in anatomy as might be useful to the painter in his own
profession; but I saw, and, indeed, with astonishment, that Leonardo
had been a general and a deep student. When I consider what pains he
has taken upon every part of the body, the superiority of his universal
genius, his particular excellence in mechanics and hydraulics, and the
attention with which such a man would examine and see objects which he
was to draw, I am fully persuaded that Leonardo was the best anatomist
at that time in the world."
EXTRAVAGANCES OF THE HERRNHUTERS.
In a letter to Count Zinzendorf--the founder of the community of
Moravian Brethren at Herrnhut, in Upper Lusatia--who visited England
about 1745, Whitfield thus describes and rebukes some of the
extravagant flummeries then practised by the Moravians: "Pray, my Lord,
what instances have we of the first Christians walking round the graves
of their deceased friends on Easter day, attended with hautboys,
trumpets, French horns, violins, and other kinds of musical
instruments? Or where have we the least mention made of pictures of
particular persons being brought into the Christian assemblies, and of
candles being placed behind them in order to give a transparent view of
the figures? Where was it ever known that the picture of the Apostle
Paul, representing him handing a gentleman and lady up to the side of
Jesus Christ, was ever introduced into the primitive love-feasts?...
Again, my Lord, I beg leave to inquire whether we hear anything in
Scripture of eldresses or deaconesses of the apostolical churches
seating themselves before a table covered with artificial flowers, and
against that a little altar surrounded with wax tapers, on which stood
a cross, composed either of mock or real diamonds, or other glittering
stones? And yet your Lordship must be sensible this was done in Fetter
Lane Chapel, for Mrs. Hannah Nitschman, the present general eldress of
your congregation; with this addition, that all the sisters were
seated, clothed in white, and with German caps; the organ also
illuminated with three pyramids of wax tapers, each of which was tied
with a red ribbon; and over the head of the general eldress was placed
her own picture, and over that (_horresco referens_) the picture of the
Son of God. A goodly sight this, my Lord, for a company of English
Protestants to behold!... A like scene to this was exhibited by the
single brethren in a room of their house at Hatton Garden. The floor
was covered with sand and moss, and in the middle of it was paved a
star of different-coloured pebbles; upon that was placed a gilded dove,
which spouted water out of its mouth into a vessel prepared for its
reception, which was curiously decked with artificial leaves and flags;
the room was hung with moss and shell; the Count, his son, and
son-in-law, in honour of whom all this was done, with Mrs. Hannah
Nitschman, and Mr. Peter Boehlen, and some other labourers, were also
present. These were seated under an alcove, supported by columns made
of pasteboard, and over their heads was painted an oval in imitation of
marble, containing cyphers of Count Zinzendorf's family. Upon a
side-table was a little altar covered with shells, and on each side of
the altar was a bloody heart, out of, or near which, proceeded flames.
The room was illuminated with wax tapers, and musicians played in an
adjoining apartment, while the company performed their devotions, and
regaled themselves with sweetmeats, coffee, tea, and wine." Mr.
Whitfield also mentions a "singular expedient" made use of to raise the
drooping spirits of one Mr. Bell, who had been induced to join the
Brethren. On his birthday, he was sent for by Mr. Peter Boehlen, one of
the bishops, and "was introduced into a hall, where was placed an
artificial mountain, which, upon singing a particular verse, was made
to fall down, and then behind it was discovered an illumination,
representing Jesus Christ and Mr. Bell sitting very near, or embracing
each other; and out of the clouds was also represented plenty of money
falling round Mr. Bell and the Saviour." Towards the close of his
career, Count Zinzendorf applied himself, and not without success, to
undo a good deal of the extravagant and unseemly work of former years,
both in his devotional hymns and forms.
AN AWKWARD ASSOCIATION.
In his _Jest-book_, Mr. Lemon tells the following capital story of
awkward association:--"In a cause tried in the Court of Queen's Bench,
the plaintiff being a widow, and the defendants two medical men who had
treated her for delirium tremens, and put her under restraint as a
lunatic, witnesses were called on the part of the plaintiff to prove
that she was not addicted to drinking. The last witness called by Mr.
Montagu Chambers, the leading counsel, on the part of the plaintiff,
was Dr. Tunstal, who closed his evidence by describing a case of
delirium tremens treated by him, in which the patient recovered in a
single night. 'It was,' said the witness, 'a case of gradual drinking,
sipping all day, from morning till night.' These words were scarcely
uttered, than Mr. Chambers, turning to the Bench, said, 'My Lord, that
is my case.'"
TURNING-POINT IN PALEY'S CAREER.
When Paley first went to Cambridge, he fell into a society of young men
far richer than himself, to whom his talents and conviviality made him
an acceptable companion, and he was in a fair way for ruin. One morning
one of these comrades came into his bedroom before he was up, and he,
as usual, thought it was to propose some plan of pleasure for the day.
His friend, however, said, "Paley, I have not slept a wink this night
for thinking of you. I am, as you know, heir to such and such a
fortune, and whether I ever look in a book at Cambridge does not
signify a farthing. But this is not the case with you. You have only
your abilities to look to; and no man has better, if you do but make
the proper use of them. But if you go on in this way, you are ruined;
and from this time forward I am determined not to associate with you,
for your own sake. You know I like your company, and it is a great
sacrifice to give it up; but give it up I will, as a matter of
conscience." Paley lay in bed the whole day, ruminating upon this. In
the evening he rose and took his tea, ordered his bed-maker to make his
fire overnight, and call him at five in the morning; and from that day
forward he rose always at that hour. He went out first wrangler, and
became the fortunate man he was. This story was told to Southey in
1808, by Mr. Brome, who had it from an intimate friend of Paley.
THE DANGERS OF TOO GOOD COMPANY.
George I. liked to temper the cares of royalty with the pleasures of
private life, and commonly invited six or eight friends to pass the
evening with him. His Majesty seeing Dr. Lockier one day at court,
desired the Duchess of Ancaster, who was almost always of the party, to
ask the Doctor to come that evening. When the company met in the
evening, Dr. Lockier was not there; and the King inquired of the
Duchess if she had invited him. "Yes," she said; "but the Doctor
presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and hopes your Majesty will
have the goodness to excuse him at present; he is soliciting some
preferment from your Majesty's Ministers, and fears it may be some
obstacle to him, if it should be known that he had the honour of
keeping such good company." The King laughed very heartily, and said he
believed he was in the right. Not many weeks after, Dr. Lockier kissed
the King's hand as Dean of Peterborough; and as he was rising from
kneeling, the King inclined forwards, and with great good-humour
whispered in his ear, "Well, now, Doctor, you will not be afraid to
come in an evening; I would have you come this evening;" an invitation
which was very readily accepted.
ANECDOTES OF ABERNETHY.
John Abernethy, the pupil and friend of John Hunter, was remarkable for
eccentricity and _brusquerie_ in his dealings with patients. But there
are many instances to show that his roughness was only external, and
that a very soft and gentle heart beat in his bosom. He was sometimes
successfully combated with his own weapons. A lady on one occasion
entered his consulting-room, and showed him an injured finger, without
saying a word. In silence Abernethy dressed the wound; silently the
lady put the usual fee on the table, and retired. In a few days she
came again, and offered the finger for inspection. "Better?" asked the
surgeon. "Better," answered the lady, speaking for the first time. Not
another word followed during the interview. Three or four visits were
made, in the last of which the patient held out her finger perfectly
healed. "Well?" was Abernethy's inquiry. "Well," was the lady's answer.
"Upon my soul, madam," exclaimed the delighted surgeon, "_you are the
most rational woman I ever met with_!" "I had heard of your rudeness
before I came, Sir," another and less fortunate lady said, taking his
prescription; "but I was not prepared for such treatment. What am I to
do with this?" "Anything you like," the surgeon roughly answered. "Put
it on the fire if you please." Taking him at his word, the lady put her
fee on the table, and the prescription on the fire, and, making a bow,
left the room. Abernethy followed her, apologizing, and begging her to
take back the fee or let him write another prescription; but the lady
would not relent. When the bubble schemes were flourishing in 1825, Mr.
Abernethy met some friends who had risked large sums of money in one of
those speculations; they informed him that they were going to partake
of a most sumptuous dinner, the expenses of which would be defrayed by
the company. "If I am not very much deceived," replied he, "you will
have nothing but bubble and squeak in a short time."
BLOMFIELD'S REBUKE TO NON-RESIDENT RECTORS.
Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London, had occasion to call the attention of
the Essex incumbents to the necessity of residing in their parishes;
and he reminded them that curates were, after all, of the same flesh
and blood as rectors, and that the residence which was possible for the
one, could not be quite impossible for the other. "Besides," added he,
"there are two well-known preservatives against ague: the one is, a
good deal of care and a little port wine; the other, a little care and
a good deal of port wine. I prefer the former; but if any of the clergy
prefer the latter, it is at all events a remedy which incumbents can
afford better than curates."
DEVOTION OF A CATHOLIC PRIEST.
In a parish close to Dublin, it is on record that a Catholic priest was
called on to administer the solemn rites of his religion to a family in
the last stage of typhus fever. The family, six or seven in number,
were found lying in a wretched hovel, on a little straw scattered on
the damp earthen floor. The agonies of death were fast coming upon
them. The confession of each one of them had to be heard. Lest any
should overhear the confession of another, the priest stretched himself
on the straw, while the miserable sufferer breathed his or her
confession into his ear. Thus, inhaling the poison of their
respiration, and separating them from each other successively, at the
risk of his own life, he completed his sacred functions.
PULPIT JOKES OF DANIEL BURGESS.
Daniel Burgess, the noted Nonconformist minister, was by no means of
Puritan strictness, for he was the most facetious person of his day,
and carried his wit so far as to retail it from the pulpit with more
levity than decency. Speaking of Job's "robe of righteousness," he once
said, "If any of you would have a suit for a twelvemonth, let him
repair to Monmouth Street; if for his lifetime, let him apply to the
Court of Chancery; but if for all eternity, let him put on the robe of
righteousness." The sermons of Burgess were adapted to the prejudices
as well as the opinions of his hearers--wit and Whiggism went hand in
hand with Scripture. He was strongly attached to the House of
Brunswick, and would not uphold the Pretender's cause from the pulpit.
He once preached a sermon, about that time, on the reason why the Jews
were called Jacobites, in which he said, "God ever hated Jacobites, and
therefore Jacob's sons were not so called, but Israelites!"
PHYSICIANS AND THEIR FEES.
Perhaps regarding nothing connected with the science and practice of
medicine, or the lives of its professors, are there more stories told,
more curious facts on record, more interesting exhibitions of character
and touching displays of generosity to relate, than about the giving
and taking--or not taking--of fees. In stringing together some
memoranda and anecdotes on this head, it needs only to be said that
they are but a few out of a crowd. At the outset, it may be explained
that from very early times the fee of the physician (like that of the
advocate or the university professor) was regarded in the light of a
voluntary recognition or reward for services rendered out of pure love
of science or humanity. Dr. Doran alleges, indeed, that "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." It has very naturally, however, been objected that physicians
act from no such lofty motives, but merely because they prefer that the
gratitude or the fears of the patient should be the measure of their
reward. And yet, as Mr. Wadd forcibly remarks, "it is a fact, not less
singular than true, that the advancement of surgical science is a
benefit conferred on society at the expense of the scientific
practitioner, since in proportion as the mode of cure is _tuto et
celeriter_, safe and speedy, remuneration is diminished. Perhaps in no
instance is this better exemplified than in the operation of the
hydrocele, introduced by my late friend and master, Sir James Earle.
Compare the simplicity, safety, and celerity of this, with the bustle
and bloody brutality of the old system; the business of six weeks
reduced to so many days! But mark the consequence, _quâ honorarium_:
does the patient increase the fee for the pain and misery he is spared?
Not a bit of it. Here is little or no work done; no trouble to the
doctor; no pain to the patient; therefore, nothing to pay for....
Selden, who understood these failings in mankind vastly well, gives
them a sly hit in his _Table Talk_:--'If a man had a sore leg, and he
should go to an honest, judicious chirurgeon, and he should only bid
him keep it warm, and anoint it with such an oil (an oil well known)
that would do the cure, haply he would not much regard him, because he
knows the medicine beforehand, an ordinary medicine. But if he should
go to a surgeon that should tell him, your leg will gangrene within
three days and it must be cut off, and you will die unless you do
something that I could tell you, what listening there would be to this
man! Oh, for the Lord's sake, tell me what this is, I will give you any
content for your pains!'" Not only has this loss of reward through the
devising of new appliances for preventing human suffering, not made
medical men, as a rule, one whit less anxious to devise them, or adopt
them when devised; but it is in the experience of all, that in many
cases physicians can render services gratuitously, which they would
never have had the opportunity of rendering if it was not understood,
both by themselves and the suffering, that they gave their skill
cheerfully for God's sake as for gold's sake, to those who were unable
to appeal to the latter power.
_Ancient Fees of Magnitude._--Seleucus--the one of Alexander's generals
to whom the kingdom of Syria fell at the break-up of the empire of
Macedonian conquest--gave to Erasistratus 60,000 crowns "for
discovering the disorder of his son Antiochus." Alcon, whose dexterity
is celebrated in Martial's _Epigrams_, was repaid by the public, in the
course of a few years' practice, the sum of 10,000,000 sesterces
(£80,000) which he had lost by a law-suit. Four Roman physicians,
Aruntius, Calpetanus, Rubrius, and Albutius, for their attendance on
Augustus and his two immediate successors, enjoyed each an annual
salary of 250,000 sesterces, equal to £2000 sterling.
_Early English Fees._--In 1345, Edward III. granted to his apothecary,
Coursus de Gungeland, a pension of sixpence a-day; and "Ricardus Wye,
chirurgicus," had twelve pence per day, and eight marks per year, for
his services. Under the same king, "Willielmus Holme, chirurgicus
Regis," is rewarded with the permission, during his lifetime, "to hunt,
take, and carry off wild animals of all kinds, in any of the royal
forests, chases, parks, and warrens." In the Courts of the kings of
Wales, the physician or surgeon was the twelfth person in rank, and his
fees seem to have been fixed by law. For a flesh wound, not of a
dangerous character, he got nothing but such of the wounded man's
garments as the blood had stained; but for any of the three classes of
dangerous wounds, he had in addition 180 pence, and his maintenance so
long as his services might be in requisition.
_Fees in the reign of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth._--In the record of
expenses of the Earl of Cumberland, it is stated that he paid to a
physician of Cambridge £1; but this fee was evidently, as shown by
other entries, an exceptionally liberal one, even perhaps for a noble
to pay. In the 18th year of Henry VIII., as is mentioned in Burn's
_History of Westmoreland_, Sir Walter Strickland made a bargain with a
physician to cure him of an asthma for £20. Stow, in the same reign,
complimenting British physicians on their skill and learning, mentions
"as the great grievance that the inferior people are undone by the
exorbitance of their fees." Half-a-crown, he avers, is in Holland
looked on as a large fee; whereas in England "a physician scorns to
touch any metal but gold; and our surgeons are still more
unreasonable." Queen Elizabeth's physician in ordinary received £100
per annum, besides his sustenance, wine, wax, and other necessaries or
perquisites. Her apothecary, Hugo Morgan, for one quarter's bill had
£83, 7s. 8d.; but this was not all for medicines, as such entries as
this will show:--eleven shillings for a confection shaped like a _manus
Christi_, with bezoar stone and unicorn's horn; sixteenpence for a
royal sweetmeat with incised rhubarb; six shillings for "a conserve of
barberries, with preserved damascene plums, and other things for Mr.
Ralegh;" two shillings and sixpence for sweet scent to be used at the
christening of Sir Richard Knightley's son; and so on.
_Fees after the Revolution._--At the close of the sixteenth and opening
of the seventeenth century, the fee of the physician had tended towards
fixity, as regards the _minimum_ at least, which was ten shillings.
This appears from several incidental contemporary statements, as in the
satirical dialogue of "Physick lies a-bleeding; or the Apothecary
turned Doctor" (published in 1697, during the war of the "Dispensary"),
in which one of the characters, called on to pay eighteen shillings for
medicine for his wife and a crown by way of gratuity to the apothecary,
says: "I wish you had called a doctor; perhaps he would have advised
her to have forbore taking anything, at least as yet, so I had saved
13s. in my pocket." In 1700, as appears from the _Levamen Infirmi_, the
existence of _minimum_ and _maximum_ fees appears to have been quite
recognised:--"To a graduate in physick, 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
eightpence, 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."
_Sir Theodore Mayerne._--This eminent physician, who was a native of
Geneva, and attended James I. and the two Charleses, once very neatly
and deservedly rebuked a mean and ostentatious friend, who, after
consulting him, laid on the table two broad pieces of gold (of the
value of 36s. each). Sir Theodore quietly pocketed the fee; and, on his
friend expressing or showing himself hurt at thus being taken at his
money, said to him: "I made my will this morning; and if it should
appear that I had refused a fee, I might be deemed _non compos_." Mr.
Wadd caps this anecdote with another about Dr. Meyer Schomberg, who was
much in vogue about the middle of last century. Mr. Martin, the
surgeon, used now and then to visit him; and was once shown in when a
patient was with him. After the patient was gone, Martin noticed two
guineas lying on the table, and asked the doctor how it came that he
left his money about in that way? Said Dr. Schomberg: "I always have a
couple of guineas before me, as an example, or broad hint, what they
(the patients who consulted him) ought to give."
_Large Royal Fees in Later Times._--Henry Atkins was sent for to
Scotland by James the First (of England), to attend to the Prince
Charles--afterwards Charles I., but then in his infancy--who lay
dangerously sick. For this journey and duty the King gave Atkins the
splendid fee of £6000, which he invested in the purchase of the manor
of Clapham. In 1685 a very handsome fee was ordered to be paid--but it
was never paid--to Dr. King, for a brave breach of Court etiquette that
saved the life of Charles II. for a time. Evelyn thus relates the
incident, under date 4th February 1685:--"I went to London, hearing his
Majesty had been, 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 physician) had not been
actually present, to let him blood (having his lancet in his pocket),
his Majesty had certainly died that moment, which might have been 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 blood in the very paroxysm, without staying the coming of other
physicians; which regularly should have been done, and for want of
which he must have a regular pardon, as they tell me." The Privy
Council ordered £1000 to be given to Dr. King; but he never obtained
the money. The physicians who attended Queen Caroline in 1737 had 500
guineas, and the surgeons 300 guineas, apiece. Dr. Willis, for his
success in dealing with the malady of George III., received £1500
a-year for twenty years, and £650 was settled on his son for life; the
subordinate physicians had thirty guineas for each visit to Windsor,
and ten for each visit to Kew. The Empress Catherine of Russia made Dr.
Dimsdale--a Hertfordshire physician--who, in 1768, travelled to St.
Petersburg to inoculate her and her son, a Baron of the Empire; and
presented him with a fee of £12,000, and a life pension of £500. This
sum of £12,000 is about the largest ever paid, in ancient times or
modern, to one physician for one operation; although there are living
surgeons who from private individuals have received fees that dwarf
this imperial largess into comparative insignificance. Perhaps even
more remarkable, however, than Catherine's liberal payment for good
work, was the Emperor Joseph of Austria's reward for bad news. On his
deathbed his Majesty asked Quarin his opinion of his case, and was
frankly assured, in reply, that he could not expect to live other
forty-eight hours. For this uncourtly but really kind affirmation of
the truth, the Emperor created Quarin a Baron, and conferred on him an
income of £2000. Louis XIV. gave his physician and surgeon 75,000
crowns each, after the successful performance of a painful, and at that
time novel, operation. Beside this, the fees paid by Napoleon I. to the
Faculty who attended Marie Louise in March 1811, when the Emperor's son
was born, are trifling. Dubois, Corvisart, Bourdier, and Ivan, had
amongst them a remuneration of £4000, £2000 being the portion assigned
to Dubois.
_Fee for a Political Consultation._--At the outbreak of the American
war, Grenville was desirous to ascertain what was the state of feeling
that prevailed among the Quaker colonists in America; and he could hit,
as he thought, on no more effectual means of doing this, than by a
conversation with Dr. Fothergill, who was a Quaker, and enjoyed the
hearty confidence of his brethren of that sect. Fothergill was
accordingly summoned to prescribe for the statesman--who, in reality,
wanted to feel, through him, the pulse of transatlantic Quakerism; and
the visit, of course, was made to take the turn of a vivacious
controversy on American politics. At the end, Grenville put five
guineas into the doctor's hand, and said to him, "Really, I feel so
much better, that I don't think it is necessary for you to prescribe."
With a shrewd smile, Fothergill, keeping a good hold of the money,
said, "Well, at this rate, friend, I can spare thee an hour now and
then."
_Generous Refusal of Fees._--There are many anecdotes of refusal of
physicians to take fees from persons whom the payment of them would
have distressed; but they are all so nobly alike, that we need not
quote any here. The benevolent and eccentric Dr. Smith, when
established in a practice equal to that of any physician in London, did
what perhaps few physicians in great practice would have done. He set
apart _two days for the poor in each week_. From those who were really
poor, he never took a fee; and from those who were of the middling
ranks in life, he never would take above half a guinea! Yet so great
was the resort to him, that he has in one day received fifty guineas,
at the rate of half a guinea only from each patient.
_Sticklers for Fees._--Sir Richard Jebb was once paid three guineas by
a nobleman from whom he had a right to expect five. Sir Richard dropped
the coins on the carpet, when a servant picked them up and restored
them. Sir Richard continued his search. "Are all the guineas found?"
asked his Lordship, looking round. "There must be two still on the
floor," was Jebb's answer; "for I have only three." The hint was taken,
and the right sum put down. An eminent Bristol doctor coming into his
patient's bedroom immediately after death, found the right hand of the
deceased tightly clenched. Opening the fingers, he discovered within
them a guinea. "Ah! that was for me, clearly," said the doctor, putting
the piece into his pocket. A physician, receiving two guineas when he
expected three, from an old lady who used to give him the latter fee,
had recourse to one part of Sir Richard Jebb's artifice, and, assuming
that the third guinea had been dropt through his carelessness on the
floor, looked about for it. "Nay, nay," said the lady, "you are not in
fault. It is I who dropt it."
_Fees collectively Irresistible._--Radcliffe attended a friend for a
twelvemonth gratuitously. On his last visit his friend said, "Doctor,
here is a purse in which I have put every day's fee; and your goodness
must not get the better of my gratitude. Take your money." Radcliffe
steeled himself to persevere in benevolence, just touched the purse to
reject it, heard the chink of the gold, and put it into his pocket,
saying "Singly, Sir, I could have refused them for a twelvemonth; but,
all together, they are _irresistible_."
PALEY'S ECONOMY OF CONSCIENCE.
The great controversy on the propriety of requiring a subscription to
articles of faith, as practised by the Church of England, excited in
1772 a very strong sensation amongst the members of the two
universities. Paley, when pressed to sign the clerical petition which
was presented to the House of Commons for relief, excused himself,
saying, "He could not _afford_ to keep a conscience."
DIFFIDENCE IN THE PULPIT.
Izaak Walton relates about Bishop Sanderson, that once "his dear and
most intimate friend, the learned Dr. Hammond, came to enjoy a quiet
rest and conversation with him for some days at Boothby Pannel, and did
so, and having formerly persuaded him to trust his excellent memory,
and not read, but try to speak a sermon as he had writ it; Dr.
Sanderson became so compliant as to promise that he would. And to that
end they two went early the Sunday following to a neighbour minister,
and requested to exchange a sermon; and they did so. And at Dr.
Sanderson's going into the pulpit, he gave his sermon (which was a very
short one) into the hands of Dr. Hammond, intending to preach it as it
was writ; but before he had preached a third part, Dr. Hammond (looking
on his sermon as written) observed him to be out, and so lost as to the
matter, especially the method, that he also became afraid for him; for
it was discernible to many of that plain auditory. But when he had
ended this short sermon, as they two walked homeward, Dr. Sanderson
said with much earnestness, 'Good Doctor, give me my sermon, and know
that neither you, nor any man living, shall ever persuade me to preach
again without my books.' To which the reply was, 'Good Doctor, be not
angry; for if ever I persuade you to preach again without book, I will
give you leave to burn all the books that I am master of.'" Elsewhere
Walton says:--"Though they were much esteemed by them that procured and
were fit to judge them, yet (Dr. Sanderson's sermons) were the less
valued because he read them, which he was forced to do; for though he
had an extraordinary memory (even the art of it), yet he was punished
with such an innate, invincible fear and bashfulness, that his memory
was wholly useless as to the repetition of his sermons, so as he had
writ them; which gave occasion to say, when some of them were first
printed and exposed to censure (which was in the year 1632), that the
best sermons that ever were read were never preached." Aubrey says,
that when he was a freshman at college, and heard Dr. Sanderson read
his first lecture, he was out in the Lord's Prayer.
CHRISTIAN NAMES AMONG THE PURITANS.
In his _Church History_, Collins says:--"Under the article of Baptism,
the Book of Discipline runs thus: 'Let persuasions be used that such
names that do savour either of Paganism or Popery be not given to
children at their baptism, but principally those whereof there are
examples in the Scriptures.' The Puritans were strict in keeping close
to this rule, as may be collected from the odd names they gave their
children; such as, 'The Lord is Near,' 'More Trial,' 'Reformation,'
'Discipline,' 'Joy Again,' 'Sufficient from Above,' 'Free-Gifts,' 'More
Fruit,' 'Dust,' etc. And here Snape was remarkably scrupulous; for this
minister refused to baptize one Christopher Hodgkinson's child, because
he would have it christened Richard. Snape acquainted Hodgkinson with
his opinion beforehand. He told him he must change the name, and look
out for one in the Scripture; but the father, not thinking this fancy
would be so strongly insisted on, brought his son to church. Snape
proceeded in the solemnity till he came to naming the child; but not
being able to prevail for any other name than Richard, refused to
administer the sacrament, and thus the child was carried away, and
afterwards baptized by a conforming clergyman."
"WHAT IS AN ARCHDEACON?"
Lord Althorp, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, having to propose to
the House of Commons a vote of £400 a year for the salary of the
Archdeacon of Bengal, was puzzled by a question from Mr. Hume, "What
are the duties of an archdeacon?" So he sent one of the subordinate
occupants of the Treasury Bench to the other House to obtain an answer
to the question from one of the bishops. To Dr. Blomfield accordingly
the messenger went, and repeated the question, "What is an archdeacon?"
"An archdeacon," replied the bishop, in his quick way, "an archdeacon
is an ecclesiastical officer, who performs archidiaconal functions;"
and with this reply Lord Althorp and the House were perfectly satisfied.
"TAPPING" A TOPER.
A man who had never drunk water enough to warrant the disease, was
reduced to such a state by dropsy, that the physicians decided that
tapping was necessary; and the poor patient was invited to submit to
the operation, which he seemed inclined to do, in spite of the
entreaties of his son. "Oh! father, father, do not let them _tap_ you,"
screamed the boy, in an agony of tears; "do anything, but do not let
them tap you!" "Why, my dear?" inquired the afflicted parent. "It will
do me good, and I shall live long in health to make you happy." "No,
father, no, you will not: there never was anything _tapped_ in our
house that lasted longer than a week!"
THE CAPACITY OF AN ABBE.
When the diminutive Abbé de Voisenon was ordered by his physician to
drink a quart of ptisan per hour, he was horrified. On his next visit
the doctor asked, "What effect has the ptisan produced?" "Not any,"
answered the little Abbé. "Have you taken it all?" "I could not take
more than half of it." The physician was angry that his directions had
not been carried out, and frankly said so. "Ah! my friend," pleaded the
Abbé, "how could you desire me to swallow a quart an hour? I hold but a
pint!"
BENEFIT OF CLERGY.
In Burnet's _History of the Reformation_, we find it stated that "a law
of Henry VII. for burning in the hand clerks convicted of felony, did
not prove a sufficient restraint. And when, in the fourth year of the
following reign, it was enacted that all murderers and robbers should
be denied the benefit of their clergy, two provisos were added to make
the bill pass through the House of Lords, the one for excepting all
such as were within the holy orders of bishop, priest, or deacon, and
the other, that the Act should only be in force till the next
Parliament. Pursuant to this Act many murderers and felons were denied
their clergy, and the law passed on them to the great satisfaction of
the nation; but this gave great offence to the clergy, and the Abbot of
Winchelcont said, in a sermon at Paul's Cross, that the Act was
contrary to the law of God, and to the liberties of the holy Church,
and that all who assented to it had by so doing incurred the censures
of the Church."
DEAN SWIFT'S CONTRIBUTORY DINNER.
Dean Swift once invited to dinner several of the first noblemen and
gentlemen in Dublin. A servant announced the dinner, and the Dean led
the way to the dining-room. To each chair was a servant, a bottle of
wine, a roll, and an inverted plate. On taking his seat, the Dean
desired the guests to arrange themselves according to their own ideas
of precedence, and fall to. The company were astonished to find the
table without a dish, or any provisions. The Lord Chancellor, who was
present, said, "Mr. Dean, we do not see the joke." "Then I will show it
you," answered the Dean, turning up his plate, under which was
half-a-crown, and a bill of fare from a neighbouring tavern. "Here,
sir," said he, to his servant, "bring me a plate of goose." The company
caught the idea, and each man sent his plate and half-a-crown. Covers,
with everything that the appetites of the moment dictated, soon
appeared. The novelty, the peculiarity of the manner, and the
unexpected circumstances, altogether excited the plaudits of the noble
guests, who declared themselves particularly gratified by the Dean's
entertainment. "Well," said the Dean, "gentlemen, if you have dined, I
will order the _dessert_." A large roll of paper, presenting the
particulars of a splendid dinner, was produced, with an estimate of the
expense. The Dean requested the accountant-general to deduct the
half-crowns from the amount, observing, "that as his noble guests were
pleased to express their satisfaction with the dinner, he begged their
advice and assistance in disposing of the _fragments_ and _crumbs_," as
he termed the balance mentioned by the accountant-general--which was
two hundred and fifty pounds. The company said, that no person was
capable of instructing the Dean in things of that nature. After the
circulation of the finest wines, the most judicious remarks on charity
and its abuse were introduced, and it was agreed that the proper
objects of liberal relief were well-educated families, who from
affluence, or the expectation of it, were reduced through misfortune to
silent despair. The Dean then divided the sum by the number of his
guests, and addressed them according to their respective private
characters, with which no one was perhaps better acquainted. "You, my
Lords," said the Dean to several young noblemen, "I wish to introduce
to some new acquaintance, who will at least make their acknowledgment
for your favours with sincerity." "You, my reverend Lords," addressing
the bishops present, "adhere so closely to the spirit of the
Scriptures, that your left hands are literally ignorant of the
beneficence of your right. You, my Lord of Kildare, and the two noble
lords near you, I will not entrust with any part of this money, as you
have been long in the _usurious_ habits of lending your own on such
occasions; but your assistance, my Lord of Kerry, I must entreat, as
charity covereth a multitude of sins."
"BREAKING UP" BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS.
It is related that Dr. Harrington of Bath, the Editor of _Nugæ
Antiquæ_, 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, etc. 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!'"
BOTTLE BLIND.
Dean Cowper, of Durham, was very economical of his wine. One day at
table he was descanting on the extraordinary performance of a man who
was blind, and remarked that the poor fellow could see no more than
"that bottle." "I do not wonder at that at all, Sir," replied a minor
canon; "for we have seen no more than _that bottle_ all the afternoon."
FEARLESSNESS OF JOHN KNOX.
When Lord Darnley, in 1565, had married Mary Queen of Scots, he was
prevailed on by his friends to go and hear Knox preach, in the hope
that thereby he might conciliate the stem moralist and outspoken
minister. But Knox seized the occasion to declaim even more vehemently
against the government of wicked princes, who, for the sins of the
people, are sent as tyrants and scourges to torment them. Darnley
complained to the Council of the insult; and the bold preacher was
forbidden the use of his pulpit for several days. Robertson thus
remarks on his character:--"Rigid and uncomplying himself, he showed no
regard to the infirmities of others. Regardless of the distinctions of
rank and character, he uttered his admonitions with acrimony and
vehemence, more apt to irritate than to reclaim. Those very qualities,
however, which now render his character less amiable, fitted him to be
the instrument of Providence for advancing the Reformation among a
fierce people, and enabled him to face dangers, and to surmount
opposition, from which a person of a more gentle spirit would have been
apt to shrink back." The shortest and perhaps the best funeral oration
extant, is that pronounced by the Earl of Morton over the grave of
Knox: "Here lies he who never feared the face of man."
WESLEY AND BEAU NASH.
Wesley once preaching at Bath, Beau Nash entered the room, came close
up to the preacher, and demanded by what authority he was acting?
Wesley answered, "By the authority of Jesus Christ, conveyed to me by
the present Archbishop of Canterbury, when he laid his hands upon me
and said, 'Take thou authority to preach the gospel.'" Nash then
affirmed that he was acting contrary to the law. "Besides," said he,
"your preaching frightens people out of their wits." "Sir," replied
Wesley, "did you ever hear me preach?" "No," said the master of the
ceremonies. "How, then, can you judge of what you have never heard?"
"By common report," said Nash. "Sir," retorted Wesley, "is not your
name Nash? I dare not judge of you by common report; I think it not
enough to judge by." Nash, right or wrong as to the extravagances of
the Methodists, was certainly proclaiming his opinions in the wrong
place; and when he desired to know what the people came there for, one
of the company cried out: "Let an old woman answer him. You, Mr. Nash,
take care of your body, we take care of our souls, and for the food of
our souls we come here." Nash found himself so different a man in the
meeting-house, to what he was in the pump-room or the assembly, that he
thought it best to withdraw.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE BIBLE.
In Silliman's _Travels_ it is related that during the Peace of Amiens,
in 1801-2, a committee of English gentlemen went over to Paris for the
purpose of taking measures to supply the French with the Bible in their
own language. One of these gentlemen, Mr. Hardcastle, subsequently gave
the assurance that the fact which was published was literally
true--that they searched Paris for several days before a single Bible
could be found.
EDWARD JENNER, THE DISCOVERER OF VACCINATION.
It is to a "country doctor" that England and the world owe one of the
greatest benefits that modern medical science has conferred on the
race, in the practice of vaccination. The youngest son of a
Gloucestershire clergyman, Edward Jenner was placed, about 1763, as
apprentice to a surgeon at Sodbury; and it was there, it is stated,
that first the possibility of arresting the then dreaded and dreadful
ravages of small-pox entered his mind. He accidentally learned, from
the conversation of a young serving woman--who boasted that she was
safe from that disease because she had had "cow-pox"--that among
servants in the country there prevailed a belief that the small-pox
could not attack any one into whose system had been absorbed the virus
from a diseased cow. From that time Jenner never lost sight of the
idea. He spent some time in London finishing his studies, under the
prelections of John Hunter; and then he settled, for life as it proved,
at Berkeley, in Gloucestershire. Pursuing inquiries and experiments on
the subject of vaccination, he established the efficacy of the rural
system of inducing "cow-pox" as a preventive against small-pox; which
had originated by inoculation, accidental or designed, with some of the
matter afforded by a peculiar disease of the udder of a cow, and which
could be communicated by inoculation from one human being to another
with the same preventive efficacy. In 1796, a friend of Jenner's, to
whom he had communicated the results of his inquiry--Mr. Cline, surgeon
to St. Thomas's Hospital--first employed vaccination in London; and the
practice was speedily adopted in the army and navy, the Government
bestowing on Jenner honours and rewards, and the University of Oxford
conferring on him the diploma of Doctor of Medicine. Just, however, as
Blackmore and Tanner had vehemently opposed inoculation, so did many
members of the Faculty, foremost among them Moseley, Birch, and
Woodville, oppose the new system of vaccination. The London mob were
asked and induced to believe that if they submitted to vaccination they
were in jeopardy of being converted into members of the canine species,
and that the operation would infallibly be followed by the development
of horns, and tail, and "thick natural fell" of hair. A child was said
to have never ceased, since he received the matter into his system, to
run about on all fours and imitate the lowing of a bull! In a
caricature Jenner was mounted on a cow. Moseley indited verses, of
which this is a sample:--
"O Jenner! thy book, nightly phantasies rousing,
Full oft makes me quake for my heart's dearest treasure;
For fancy, in dreams, oft presents them all browsing
On commons, just like little Nebuchadnezzar.
_There_, nibbling at thistle, stand Jem, Joe, and Mary,
On their foreheads, oh, horrible! crumpled horns bud;
There Tom with his tail, and poor William all hairy,
Reclined in a corner, are chewing the cud."
Even in Berkeley, Jenner was pursued with ridicule and suspicion; but
he went quietly on his rounds, waiting confidently till the storm was
laid, plashing through the Gloucestershire lanes in the garb that an
acquaintance has thus described:--"He was dressed in a blue coat and
yellow buttons, buckskins, well-polished jockey-boots, with handsome
silver spurs, and he carried a smart whip with a silver handle. His
hair, after the fashion, was done up in a club, and he wore a
broad-brimmed hat." But Jenner, says Mr. Jeaffreson, found also
compensation for all the ridicule and opposition "in the enthusiastic
support of Rowland Hill, who not only advocated vaccination in his
ordinary conversation, but from the pulpit used to say, after his
sermon to his congregation, wherever he preached, 'I am ready to
vaccinate to-morrow morning as many children as you choose; and if you
wish them to escape that horrid disease, the small-pox, you will bring
them.' A Vaccine Board was also established at the Surrey
Chapel--_i.e._ the Octagon Chapel, in Blackfriars Road. 'My Lord,' said
Rowland Hill once to a nobleman, 'allow me to present to your Lordship
my friend, Dr. Jenner, who has been the means of saving more lives than
any other man.' 'Ah!' observed Jenner, 'would that I, like you, could
say--souls.' There was no cant in this. Jenner was a simple,
unaffected, and devout man. His last words were, 'I do not marvel that
men are grateful to me; but I am surprised that they do not feel
gratitude to God for making me a medium of good.'"
ANGEL-WORSHIP.
A now obsolete ecclesiastical custom in Scotland was, Dean Ramsay says,
that the minister should bow in succession to the heritors or
proprietors in the parish, who occupied the front gallery seats; a
custom, when the position of the heritors was tolerably well matched,
that led to an unpleasant contest at times as to who was entitled to
the precedence of getting the first bow. A clever and complimentary
reply was made by Dr. Wightman of Kirkmahoe, when rallied on one
occasion for neglecting this usual act of courtesy one Sunday. The
heritor who was entitled to, and always received, this token of
respect, was Miller of Dalswinton. One Sunday, the Dalswinton pew was
filled by a bevy of ladies, but no gentleman was present; and the
Doctor--perhaps because he was a bachelor, and felt a delicacy in the
circumstances--omitted the usual salaam in that direction. A few days
after, meeting Miss Miller (who was widely famed for her beauty, and
afterwards became Countess of Mar), she rallied him, in presence of her
companions, for not bowing to her on the Sunday. The Doctor immediately
replied, "I beg your pardon, Miss Miller; but you know, surely, that
angel-worship is not allowed by the Church of Scotland;" and, lifting
his hat, he bowed low and passed on.
BUNYAN'S SUCCESSFUL AND PRESISTENT PREACHING.
A student of Cambridge observing a multitude flock to a village church
on a working day, inquired what was the cause. On being informed that
"one Bunyan, a tinker," was to preach there, he gave a boy a few
halfpence to hold his horse, resolved, as he said, "to hear the tinker
prate." The tinker _prated_ to such effect, that for some time the
scholar wished to hear no other preacher; and, through his future life,
gave proofs of the advantages he had received from the humble ministry
of the author of the _Pilgrim's Progress_. Bunyan, with rude but
irresistible zeal, preached throughout the country, and formed the
greater part of the Baptist churches in Bedfordshire; until, at the
Restoration, he was thrown into prison, where he remained twelve years.
During his confinement he preached to all to whom he could gain access;
and when liberty was offered to him on condition of promising to
abstain from preaching, he constantly replied, "If you let me out
to-day, I shall preach again to-morrow." Bunyan, on being liberated,
became pastor of the Baptist Church at Bedford; and when the kingdom
enjoyed more religious liberty, he enlarged the sphere of his
usefulness by preaching every year in London, where he excited great
attention. On one day's notice, such multitudes would assemble, that
the places of worship could not hold them. "At a lecture at seven
o'clock in the dark mornings of winter," says one of his
contemporaries, "I have seen about twelve hundred; and I computed about
three thousand that came to hear him on a Lord's day, so that one-half
of them were obliged to return for want of room."
LETTSOM'S LIBERATION OF HIS SLAVES.
Dr. Lettsom, the founder of the Sea-Bathing Infirmary at Margate, and
of the General Dispensary, was left by his father a property, which
happened to consist almost entirely of a number of slaves on an estate
in Jamaica. When the benevolent doctor went out to the West Indies to
take possession of his inheritance, he is said to have emancipated
every one of the slaves on his arrival; so that, in the words of his
biographer, "he became a voluntary beggar at the age of twenty-three."
The doctor went afterwards to Tortola, where, by his practice as a
physician, he amassed a considerable sum of money, with which he
returned to England in 1768, and attained a distinguished position
among the Metropolitan practitioners.
CIVIL TO THE PRINCE OF EVIL.
The devil, in his malignant wrestlings with the spirits of the
righteous, has not always been so energetically and uncivilly received
as by Luther and his ink-bottle. It is related in all seriousness, that
a minister who "used often to preach for Mr. Huntington, was talking
one Lord's day morning, at Providence Chapel, about a trial he
underwent in his own parlour, wherein the devil had 'set in' with his
unbelief to dispute him out of some truth that was essential to
salvation. He said he was determined that the devil should not have his
way, and he therefore 'drew a chair for him, and desired him to sit
down that they might have it out together.' According to his own
account, he gained a great victory over the empty chair." He did better
in his confidence than Barcena the Jesuit did in the opposite spirit;
who told another of his order that when the devil appeared to him one
night, out of his profound humility he rose up to meet him, and prayed
him to sit down in his chair, for he was more worthy to sit there than
he!
"PERKINS' TRACTORS" EXPOSED.
Faith in the medicinal potency of the properties of the loadstone was,
for centuries after its discovery, a regular part of many physicians'
mental stock-in-trade; and pulverized magnet was administered in the
form of pills, and potions, and salves, even after Dr. Gilbert, of
Colchester, had in 1660 scientifically ascertained and published the
fact, that when reduced to powder the loadstone ceases totally to
possess its magnetic properties. The belief in the efficacy of magnets
held its ground much later. Even in 1779 and 1780, the Royal Society of
Medicine at Paris made experiments with the view of precisely
ascertaining the influence of magnets on the human system; and the
conclusion reached was, that they exerted a healing potency of no
contemptible character. It was about this time that the instruments
called "Perkins' Tractors," which were supposed to be endowed with
magnetic power, came into vogue. Perkins was an American citizen, from
the shrewd State of Connecticut; and only he could make, and only he
sell, the painted nails, composed of an alloy of various metals, that
were in great demand among the credulous and the wealthy. For a
considerable time the wonderful tractors attracted and perplexed
everybody; until Dr. Haygarth of Bath, in the following manner, made it
apparent that the efficacy of the tractors lay not in themselves, but
in the mental condition of the person upon whom they were
used:--"Robert Thomas, aged forty-three, who had been for some time
under the care of Dr. Lovell, in the Bristol Infirmary, with a
rheumatic affection of the shoulder, which rendered his arm perfectly
useless, was pointed out as a proper object of trial by Mr. J. W. Dyer,
apothecary to the house. Tuesday, April 19th, having everything in
readiness, I passed through the ward, and, in a way that he might
suspect nothing, questioned him respecting his complaint. I then told
him that I had an instrument in my pocket which had been very
serviceable to many in his state; and when I had explained to him how
simple it was, he consented to undergo the operation. In six minutes no
other effect was produced than a warmth upon the skin, and I feared
that this _coup d'essai_ had failed. The next day, however, he told me
that 'he had received so much benefit that it had enabled him to lift
his hand from his knee, which he had in vain several times attempted on
Monday evening, as the whole ward witnessed.' The tractors I used being
made of lead, I thought it advisable to lay them aside, lest, being
metallic points, the proof against the fraud might be less complete.
Thus much, however, was proved, that the patent tractors possessed no
specific power independent of simple metals. Two pieces of wood,
properly shaped and painted, were next made use of; and in order to add
solemnity to the farce, Mr. Barton held in his hand a stop-watch,
whilst Mr. Lax minuted the effects produced. In four minutes the man
raised his hand several inches, and he had lost also the pain in his
shoulder, usually experienced when attempting to lift anything. He
continued to undergo the operation daily, and with progressive good
effect; for, on the twenty-fifth, he could touch the mantelpiece. On
the twenty-seventh, in the presence of Dr. Lovell and Mr. J. P. Noble,
two common iron nails, disguised with sealing-wax, were substituted for
the pieces of mahogany before used. In three minutes he felt something
moving from his arm to his hand, and soon after he touched the board of
rules which hung a foot above the fire-place. This patient at length so
far recovered that he could carry coals and use his arm sufficiently to
help the nurse; yet, previous to the use of the spurious tractors, he
could no more lift his hand from his knee than if a hundredweight were
upon it, or a nail driven through it, as he declared in the presence of
several gentlemen. The fame of this case brought applications in
abundance; indeed, it must be confessed, that it was more than
sufficient to act upon weak minds, and induce a belief that these
pieces of wood and iron were endowed with some peculiar virtues."
The prosecution and publication of the result of Haygarth's
experiments, led to the downfall of Perkins and the discredit of the
tractors; but it was not very long before Mesmerism had established a
yet stronger hold on the public credulity, which seems never to be
content, if it is not fooled to the top of its bent.
WHITFIELD "IMPROVING" AN EXECUTION IN EDINBURGH.
When Whitfield first went to Scotland, he was received in Edinburgh
with a kind of frantic joy by many of the citizens. The day after his
arrival, an unhappy man, who had forfeited his life to the offended
laws of his country, was to be executed. Mr. Whitfield mingled in the
crowd on the occasion, and seemed highly pleased with the solemnity and
decorum with which the awful scene was conducted. His appearance,
however, drew the eyes of all around him, and raised a variety of
opinions as to his motives. The next day being Sunday, he preached to a
very large congregation in a field near the city. In the course of his
sermon, he adverted to the execution which had taken place on the
preceding day. "I know," said he, "that many of you will find it
difficult to reconcile my appearance yesterday with my character. Many
of you, I know, will say that my moments would have been better
employed in praying for the unhappy man than in attending him to the
fatal tree, and that perhaps curiosity was the only cause that
converted me into a spectator on that occasion. But those who ascribe
that uncharitable motive to me, are under a mistake. I went as an
observer of human nature, and to see the effect that such an example
would have on those who witnessed it. I watched the conduct of almost
every one present on that awful occasion, and I was highly pleased with
their demeanour, which has given me a very favourable opinion of the
Scottish nation. Your sympathy was visible on your countenances, and
reflected the goodness of your hearts, particularly when the moment
arrived that your unhappy fellow-creature was to close his eyes on this
world for ever; then you all, as if moved by one impulse, turned your
heads aside, and wept. Those tears were precious, and will be held in
remembrance. How different was it when the Saviour of mankind was
extended on the cross! The Jews, instead of sympathizing in His
sorrows, triumphed in them. They reviled Him with bitter expressions,
with words even more bitter than the gall and vinegar which they handed
Him to drink. Not one of all that witnessed His pains turned His head
aside, even in the last pang. Yes, my friends, there was one; that
glorious luminary (pointing to the sun) veiled his brightness, and
travelled on his course in tenfold night."
DR. JOHNSON'S OPINION OF WHITFIELD.
Boswell informs us that Dr. Johnson would not allow much merit to
Whitfield's oratory. "His popularity, Sir," said he, "is chiefly owing
to the peculiarity of his manner. He would be followed by crowds were
he to wear a nightcap in the pulpit, or were he to preach from a tree."
And again: "Whitfield never drew as much attention as a mountebank
does; he did not draw attention by doing better than others, but by
doing what was strange. Were Astley to preach a sermon standing upon
his head on a horse's back, he would collect a multitude to hear him;
but no wise man would say he had made a better sermon for that. I never
treated Whitfield's ministry with contempt; I believe he did good. He
had devoted himself to the lower classes of mankind, and among them he
was of use. But when familiarity and noise claim the praise due to
knowledge, art, and elegance, we must beat down such pretensions."
DR. WOLCOT ("PETER PINDAR") IN JAMAICA.
Dr. Wolcot, the patron of Opie, and better known to fame as "Peter
Pindar," practised medicine--descending from a family, members of which
in several generations had followed the same profession in Devon and
Cornwall. Sir William Trelawny, when he went as Governor to Jamaica,
took Wolcot out as surgeon to his household; and there he figured in
several characters--as grand master of the ceremonies, private
secretary, and chaplain. Whether or not he ever received regular
ordination, it is certain that Wolcot acted as rector in the colony for
some time; and odd stories of his behaviour as a parish priest were
current among his friends as well as his enemies. He read prayers and
preached when a congregation presented itself; but that was not oftener
than about every fourth Sunday. He was a capital shot, and, with his
clerk, used to amuse himself with shooting pigeons. Having shot their
way to the church, the pair were wont to wait ten minutes in the porch
for the arrival of the congregation; at the end of which time, if
nobody appeared, the reverend sportsmen returned to their amusement. If
a few negroes only presented themselves at the church, the rector
bought them off with a little money; and one old negro, finding out
Wolcot's weakness, after a time attended every Sunday, when the rector
would address him: "What do you come here for, blackee?" "Why, Massa,
for to hear your good sermon and all the prayer ob de church." "Would
not a _bit_ or two do you more good?" "Yes, massa doctor; me lub prayer
much, but me lub money too." The little transaction would then take
place, and the darky retire grinning; and it is said that this man drew
thus an income from Wolcot for a whole year. When he returned to
England, Wolcot did not succeed in obtaining a practice, and abandoned
both physic and divinity for satire--which yielded him a good income
while he lived, and won him fame both with his own generation and with
posterity.
CHARITY OF ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON.
In 1685, Archbishop Tillotson avowed himself a warm advocate for
affording charitable relief to the French refugees, on the recall of
the Edict of Nantes. Dr. Beveridge, the prebendary of Canterbury,
having objected to reading a brief for this purpose, as contrary to the
rubric, the Archbishop observed to him roughly, "Doctor, Doctor,
charity is above all rubrics." While Tillotson was in a private
station, he always laid aside two-tenths of his income for charitable
uses; and after his elevation to the mitre, he so constantly expended
all that he could spare of his annual revenues in acts of beneficence,
that the only legacy which he was able to leave to his family consisted
of two volumes of sermons, the value of which, however, was such, that
the copyright brought not less than £2500. Of Tillotson it is told that
once, when King William III. complained of the shortness of his sermon,
he replied, "Sire, could I have bestowed more time upon it, it would
not have been so long."
DRUBBING-IN RELIGIOUS FEELING.
Pietro della Valle, "who," says Southey, "could be amused at the
superstition of others," reports that when the _Ecce Homo_ was
displayed during a sermon in the Jesuit church at Goa, the women used
to beat their servants if they did not cry enough to please them.
BON-MOTS OF SYDNEY SMITH.
Sydney Smith was once dining in company with a French gentleman, who
had before dinner indulged in a number of free-thinking speculations,
and ended by avowing himself a materialist. "Very good soup, this,"
said Mr. Smith. "Yes, Sir, it is excellent," was the reply. "Pray, Sir,
do you _believe_ in a _cook_?" inquired Mr. Smith.--"Do you believe in
the apostolical succession?" inquired one of Smith. "I do," he replied;
"and my faith in that dogma dates from the moment I became acquainted
with the Bishop of ----, _who is so like Judas!_"--In preaching a
charity sermon, Sydney Smith frequently repeated the assertion that, of
all nations, Englishmen were most distinguished for their generosity,
and the love of their _species_. The collection happening to be
inferior to his expectation, provoked him to say, that he had evidently
made a great mistake; for that his expression should have been, that
they were distinguished for the love of their _specie_.--On the
departure of Bishop Selwyn for his diocese, New Zealand, Smith, when
taking his leave of him, said: "Good-bye, my dear Selwyn; I hope you
will not _disagree_ with the man who eats you!"--A friend of Smith
inquired, "What is Puseyism?" To which the witty canon replied:
"Puseyism, Sir, is inflexion and genuflexion; posture and imposture;
bowing to the east, and curtseying to the west."
THE ORIGIN OF OUR INDIAN COMMERCE.
It is perhaps not generally known, says Wadd, in his _Memoirs_, that it
was an English surgeon of the name of Broughton whose good fortune it
was to open the commerce of India to his countrymen, by the following
accident. Having been sent from Surat to Agra in the year 1636, to
treat one of the daughters of the Emperor Shah Jehan, he had the good
fortune to cure the Princess. By way of recompense, the Emperor, among
other favours, gave him the privilege of a free commerce throughout the
whole extent of his dominions. Broughton immediately returned to
Bengal, to purchase goods, and transmit them by sea to Surat. Scarcely
had he returned when he was requested to attend the favourite of the
Nabob of the province, labouring under a very dangerous disease. Having
fortunately restored his patient to health, the Nabob settled a pension
upon him, confirmed the privilege of the Emperor, and promised to allow
the same to all the English who should come to Bengal. Broughton
communicated all this to the English Governor at Surat, and it was by
the advice of the latter that the company sent from England, in 1640,
two ships to Bengal. Such was the origin of a commerce that has since
been carried to so great an extent--and made the foundation of a vast
empire.
CHARLES II. AND BISHOP STILLINGFLEET.
Charles the Second once demanded of Dr. Stillingfleet, who was a
preacher to the Court, "Why he read his sermons before him, when on
every other occasion his sermons were delivered extempore?" The Bishop
answered, that, overawed by so many great and noble personages, and in
the presence of his Sovereign, he dared not to trust his powers. "And
now," said the divine, "will your Majesty permit me to ask a question?"
"Certainly," said the condescending monarch. "Why, then, does your
Majesty read your speeches, when it may be presumed that _you_ can have
no such reason?" "Why, truly," said the King, "I have asked my subjects
so often for money, that I am ashamed to look them in the face."
A TOO PERSONAL APPLICATION.
When Dr. Beadon was rector of Eltham, in Kent, his text one day was,
"Who art thou?" After reading the text, he made a pause, for the
congregation to reflect upon the words; when a gentleman, in a military
dress, who at the instant was marching very sedately up the middle
aisle of the church, supposing it a question addressed to him, to the
surprise of all present replied, "I am, Sir, an officer of the
sixteenth regiment of foot, on a recruiting party here; and having
brought my wife and family with me, I wish to be acquainted with the
neighbouring clergy and gentry." This so deranged the divine, and
astonished the congregation, that though they attempted to listen with
decorum, the service was not continued without considerable difficulty.
PREACHING TO PURPOSE.
Burnet records that "two entries made in the Council Books, show the
good effects of Latimer's zealous preaching. On the 10th of March he
brought in £104 recovered of one who had concealed it from the King,
and a little after, £363 of the King's money." The amount of this
conscience-money must of course be multiplied manifold, to estimate
aright the penetrating and persuading power of the preacher. Latimer's
style of preaching is said to have been extremely captivating; simple
and familiar, often enlivened with anecdote, irony, and humour; and
still oftener swelling into strains of most impassioned and awakening
eloquence. Of the earnestness of his manner, which could lead to the
disgorgement of great plunder by unscrupulous men, the following, from
a sermon against the corruptions of the age, may be taken as a
sample:--"Take heed and beware of covetousness; take heed and beware of
covetousness; take heed and beware of covetousness. And what if I
should say nothing else these three or four hours but these words?
Great complaints there are of it, and much crying out, and much
preaching, but little amendment that I can see; Covetousness is the
root of all evil. Then have at the root; out with your swords, ye
preachers, and strike at the root. Stand not ticking and toying at the
branches, for new branches will spring out again, but strike at the
root; and fear not these great men, these men of power, these
oppressors of the needy--fear them not, but strike at the root." In
another sermon, Latimer himself gives some account of the restitutions
he brought about:--"At my first preaching of restitution, one man took
remorse of conscience, and acknowledged himself to me that he had
deceived the King, and willing he was to make restitution; and so the
first Lent came to my hands £20 to be restored to the King's use. I was
promised £20 more the same Lent; but it could not be made, so that it
came not. Well, the next Lent came £320 more. I received it myself and
paid it to the King's council. So I was asked what he was that made
this restitution. But should I have named him? Nay, they should as soon
have this weasand of mine. Well, now, this Lent came £180, 10s. which I
was paid, and delivered this present day to the King's council; and so
this man hath made a godly restitution. And so, quoth I to a certain
nobleman that is one of the King's council, if every man that hath
beguiled the King should make restitution after this sort, it would
cough the King £20,000 I think, said I. Yea, that it would, quoth the
other, a whole £100,000. Alack! alack! make restitution for God's sake;
ye will cough in hell else, that all the devils there will laugh at
your coughing. There is no remedy but restitution, open or secret, or
else hell."
SERVANT AND MASTER.
A preacher who differed in opinion with Adolphus Gunn, called upon him,
and being known, was denied admittance, "Mr. Gunn being busy in his
study." "Tell him," said the importunate visitor, "that a servant of
the Lord wishes to speak to him." Gunn sent back this answer: "Tell the
servant of the Lord that I am engaged with his Master."
DR. BARROWBY,
Who lived about the middle of last century, when canvassing for a post
in St. Bartholomew's Hospital, called upon a grocer in Snow Hill, one
of the governors. The grocer was sitting in his counting-house, and
thence saw the Doctor enter the shop. Knowing his person, and having
little doubt that the object of his visit was to solicit his vote at
the approaching election, the grocer immediately donned his hat and
spectacles, and greatest parochial consequence, and, strutting into the
shop with an insolent air of patronage, addressed the Doctor
with--"Well, friend, and what is your business?" Barrowby promptly and
quietly said, "I want a pound of plums;" and after the abashed and
mortified grocer had weighed them out and put them up, Barrowby paid
for them and walked off without saying a word. (This story has been
erroneously told of Abernethy.) Of the same Dr. Barrowby, it is related
that an Irish gentleman, whom the College of Physicians had declined to
pass, called next day on him, and insisted upon fighting him, as being
one of the Censors who had been the authors of the rejection. Barrowby,
who was small of stature, declined to fight. "I am only the third
Censor," he said, "in point of age; you must first call out your
countryman, Sir Hans Sloane, our President, and when you have fought
him and the two senior Censors, then I shall be ready to meet you."
A DESIRABLE CURE OF SOULS.
Southey copied the following from Jackson's _Oxford Journal_:--
"NEXT PRESENTATION.
"To be sold by auction, by Hoggart and Philips, at the Auction Mart,
opposite the Bank of England, on Thursday next, the 11th day of April
1811, the next presentation to a most valuable living, in one of the
first sporting counties. The vicinity affords the best coursing in
England, also excellent fishing, an extensive cover for game, and
numerous packs of fox-hounds, harriers, etc.; it is half-an-hour's ride
from one of the first cities, and not far distant from several most
fashionable watering-places; the surrounding country is beautiful and
healthful, and the society elegant and fashionable. The incumbent is
about fifty years of age. Particulars may be had," etc. etc.
BEAU NASH'S TREATMENT OF A PRESCRIPTION.
When Beau Nash was ill, Dr. Cheyne wrote a prescription for him. Next
day the Doctor, coming to see his patient, asked him if he had followed
the prescription. "No, truly, Doctor," was the answer of Nash; "if I
had I should have broken my neck, for I threw it out of a two pair of
stairs' window."
PULTENEY'S CURE BY SMALL BEER.
Mr. Pulteney, afterwards the Earl of Bath, lay (about 1730) for a long
time at Lord Chetwynd's house of Ingestre, in Staffordshire, sick, very
dangerously, of a pleuritic fever. This illness cost him an expense of
750 guineas for physicians; and, after all, his cure was accomplished
merely by a draught of small beer. Dr. Hope, Dr. Swynsen, and other
physicians from Stafford, Lichfield, and Derby, were called in, and
carried off about 250 guineas of the patient's money, leaving the
malady just where they found it. Dr. Freind went down post from London,
with Mrs. Pulteney, and received 300 guineas for the journey. Dr.
Broxholm went from Oxford, and received 200 guineas. When these two
physicians, who were Pulteney's particular friends, arrived, they found
his case to be quite desperate, and gave him over, saying that
everything had been done that could be done. They prescribed some few
medicines, but without the least effect. He was still alive, and was
heard to mutter, in a low voice, "Small beer, small beer." They said,
"Give him small beer, or anything." Accordingly, a great silver cup was
brought, which held two quarts of small beer; they ordered an orange to
be squeezed into it, and gave it to him. Pulteney drank off the whole
at a draught, and demanded another. Another cupful was administered to
him; and soon after that he fell into a profuse perspiration and a
profound slumber for nearly twenty-four hours. In his case the saying
was eminently verified, "If he sleep he shall do well." From that time
forth, he recovered wonderfully, insomuch that in a few days the
physicians took their leave. The joy over his recovery was diffused
over the whole country; for he was then in the height of that
popularity which, after his elevation to the peerage, he completely
forfeited.
A WITTY FRENCH PREACHER.
A French preacher, called Father André, was nicknamed by his Bishop _le
petit fallot_ (the little lantern). Having to preach before the
prelate, André determined to notice this, and took for his text, "Ye
are the light of the world." Addressing himself to the Bishop, he said,
"Vous etês, monseigneur, le grand fallot de l'église, nous ne sommes
que de petits fallots." Father André, preaching before an Archbishop,
perceived him to be asleep during the sermon, and thought of the
following method to awake him. Turning to the beadle of the church, he
said in a loud voice, "Shut the doors, the shepherd is asleep, and the
sheep are going out, to whom I am announcing the word of God." This
sally caused a stir in the audience, which awoke the Archbishop. Being
once to announce a collection for a young lady, to enable her to take
the veil, he said, before the commencement of his sermon, "Friends, I
recommend to your charity a young lady, who has not enough to enable
her to make a vow of poverty." Preaching during the whole of Lent in a
town where he was never invited to dine, he said, in his farewell
sermon, "I have preached against every vice except that of good
living--which, I believe, is not to be found among you, and therefore
needed not my reproach."
CROMWELL AND RICHARD BAXTER.
After Cromwell had seized on the government, Richard Baxter, the
celebrated Nonconformist divine, once preached before the Protector,
when he made use of the following text: "Now, I beseech you, brethren,
by the name of our Lord Jesus the Christ, that ye all speak the same
thing, and that there be no division amongst you; but that ye be
perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment."
The discourse on these words was levelled against the divisions and
distractions which then prevailed, especially in the Church. After the
sermon, Cromwell sent for Mr. Baxter, and made a long and serious
speech to him, about God's providence in the change of the government,
and the great things which had been done at home and abroad. Mr. Baxter
answered, that it was too condescending in his Highness to acquaint him
so fully with all these matters, which were above his understanding;
but that the honest people of the land took their ancient monarchy to
be a blessing, and not an evil, and humbly craved his patience, that he
might ask how they had forfeited that blessing? At this question
Cromwell became angry; he said, "There was no forfeiture; but God had
changed things as it pleased Him;" and after reviling the Parliament
which thwarted him, and especially by name four or five members who
were particular friends of Mr. Baxter, he dismissed the worthy divine
with signs of great displeasure.
MESSENGER MONSEY'S DYING JESTS.
Dr. Messenger Monsey, the great grandfather of Lord Cranworth (so at
least Mr. Jeafferson affirms), was appointed physician to Chelsea
Hospital through the influence of Godolphin, and, after holding that
office for about half a century, died in his rooms at Chelsea in 1788,
in his ninety-fifth year. The eccentricities that had characterized his
prime continued to distinguish him to the last. In consequence of his
great age, many intending candidates for the office went down to
Chelsea, in order to contemplate the various advantages and _agrémens_
of the situation, and observe the progress of the tenacious incumbent
towards final recumbency. Monsey, who was at once a humorist, and
possessed of a sharp eye for a visitor of this order, one day espied in
the College walks a reconnoitring doctor, whom he thus accosted: "So,
Sir, I find you are one of the candidates to succeed me." The physician
bowed. Monsey proceeded: "But you will be confoundedly disappointed."
"Disappointed!" exclaimed the physician, with quivering lips. "Yes,"
returned Monsey; "you expect to outlive me; but I can discern from your
countenance, and other concomitant circumstances, that you are
deceiving yourself--you will certainly die first; though, as I have
nothing to expect from that event, I shall not rejoice at your death,
as I am persuaded you would at mine." It actually fell out as Monsey
(possibly only by way of a ghastly jest) had foretold; the candidate
lived but a short time. The Doctor was so diverted with checking the
aspiring hopes of his brethren of the faculty, that whenever he saw a
physician on the look-out, he was not content till he had gone down to
comfort him in the same manner. He did so to several; and it is very
remarkable--if it be true, as it is alleged--that his predictions were
in every case verified. At last the medical speculators shrank in
superstitious alarm from Chelsea, and left Monsey to die in peace;
indeed, when his death happened, the Minister of the day was not
engaged by a single promise, nor had he had for some time a single
application for the place of physician to the College. Monsey got out
of his own death as much grim fun as he had out of the poor prying
place-hunters. A few days before he died, he wrote to Mr. Cruickshanks,
the anatomist, begging to know whether it would suit his convenience to
undertake the dissection of his body, as he felt that he could not live
many hours, and Mr. Forster, his surgeon, was then out of town. The
dissection was one of the instructions of his eccentric and rather
brutal will; his body was not to be subjected to the insult of any
funeral ceremony, but, after the surgeon had finished with it, "the
remainder of my carcase may be put into a hole, or crammed into a box
with holes, and thrown into the Thames." His will was, so far as
regards the dissection, faithfully carried out; Mr. Forster dissected
the body, and delivered a lecture upon it to the medical students in
the theatre of Guy's Hospital. Before he had disposed of his body by
will in the manner described, and when he meant to be buried in his
garden, he had written an epitaph eminently characteristic of his
violent cynicism and contempt of things sacred:--
MONSEY'S EPITAPH, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
"Here lie my old bones; my vexation now ends; I have lived much too
long for myself and my friends. As to churches and churchyards, which
men may call holy, 'Tis a rank piece of priestcraft, and founded on
folly. What the next world may be, never troubled my pate; And be what
it may, I beseech you, O fate! When the bodies of millions rise up in a
riot, To let the old carcase of Monsey be quiet."
UNMISTAKEABLE IDENTITY.
A Reverend Doctor in London was what is usually termed a popular
preacher. His reputation, however, had been gained not by his drawing
largely on his own stores of knowledge or eloquence, but by the skill
with which he appropriated the thoughts and language of the great
divines who had gone before him. With fashionable audiences, lightly
versed in pulpit lore, he passed for a miracle of erudition and pathos.
It did, for all that, once happen to him to be detected in his
larcenies. One Sunday, as he was beginning to amaze and delight his
admirers, a grave old gentleman seated himself close to the pulpit, and
listened with close attention. The preacher had hardly finished his
third sentence, before the old gentleman muttered, loud enough to be
heard by those near, "That's Sherlock!" The Doctor frowned, but went
on. He had not proceeded much further, when his tormentor broke out
with, "That's Tillotson!" The Doctor bit his lips and paused, but,
considering discretion the better part of valour, again proceeded. A
third exclamation of "That's Blair!" however, was too much, and fairly
deprived him of patience. Leaning over the pulpit, he cried, "Fellow,
if you do not hold your tongue, you shall be turned out!" Without
moving a muscle of his face, the grave old gentleman raised his head,
and, looking the Doctor full in the face, retorted, "_That's his own!_"
WHITFIELD AND THE NEW YORK SAILORS.
When Whitfield preached before the seamen at New York, he had the
following bold apostrophe in his sermon:--"Well, my boys, we have a
clear sky, and are making fine headway over a smooth sea, before a
light breeze, and we shall soon lose sight of land. But what means this
sudden lowering of the heavens, and that dark cloud arising from
beneath the western horizon? Hark! Don't you hear distant thunder?
Don't you see those flashes of lightning? There is a storm gathering!
Every man to his duty! How the waves rise, and dash against the ship!
The air is dark! The tempest rages! Our masts are gone! The ship is on
her beam ends! What next?" It is said that the unsuspecting tars,
reminded of former perils on the deep, as if struck by the power of
magic, arose with united voices and minds, and shouted, "_Take to the
long boat._."
CLEVER PERVERSION OF SCRIPTURE.
Dr. Williamson, Vicar of Moulton, in Lincolnshire, had a violent
quarrel with one of his parishioners of the name of Hardy, who showed
considerable resentment. On the succeeding Sunday the Doctor preached
from the following text, which he pronounced with much emphasis, and
with a significant look at Mr. Hardy, who was present: "There is no
fool like the fool _Hardy_."
DR. WASDALE'S LONG RIDE.
Dr. Wasdale, who originally was an apothecary, resided at Carlisle when
George III. came to the throne; and as he had some business to transact
in London, he was desirous to see the pageant of the coronation at the
same time. As he was very busy in his professional engagements at
Carlisle, he set out on a Saturday after the market was over, about one
in the afternoon, and got to London the next day, Sunday, in the
evening, having ridden 301 miles in twenty-eight hours. He left London
again on the following Thursday about noon, and got home on Friday in
the evening. This is perhaps the greatest equestrian feat in medical
annals; and, for the information of possible rivals, the Doctor left
the memorandum "that he made use of his own saddle the whole journey."
Dr. Wasdale, in the later part of his life, resided in Spring Gardens,
but did not engage in practice, acting as private secretary to the Duke
of Norfolk.
ICONOCLASTIC ZEAL IN THE NORTH.
"The high altar at Aberdeen"--so we read in Douglas's _East Coast of
Scotland_, published at the end of last century--"a piece of the finest
workmanship of anything of the kind in Europe, was hewn to pieces in
1649, by order of the parish minister. The carpenter employed for this
infamous purpose, struck with the noble workmanship, refused to lay a
tool on it; till the more than Gothic priest took the hatchet from his
hand, and struck the first blow." Elsewhere Douglas, who displays a
heart hatred of the image-breakers, remarks that, "so violent was the
zeal of that reforming period against all monuments of idolatry, that
perhaps the sun and moon, very ancient objects of false worship, _owed
their safety to their distance_."
UNCONCERN IN PRESENCE OF DEATH.
Dr. Woodville, the author of a work on medical botany, lived in
lodgings at a carpenter's house in Ely Place, London; and a few days
before he died, Dr. Adams brought about his removal, for better
attendance, to the Small-pox Hospital. The carpenter with whom he
lodged had not been always on the best terms with him. Woodville said
he should like to let the man see that he died at peace with him, and,
as he never had had much occasion to employ him, desired that he might
be sent for to come and measure him for his coffin. This was done; the
carpenter came, and took measure of the Doctor, who begged him not to
be more than two days about it, "for," said he, "I shall not live
beyond that time;" and he actually did die just before the end of the
next day. A contemporary and friend of his, Dr. George Fordyce, also
expired under similar circumstances. He desired his youngest daughter,
who was sitting by his bedside, to take up a book and read to him; she
read for about twenty minutes, when the Doctor said, "Stop, go out of
the room; I am going to die." She put down the book, and went out of
the room to call the attendant, who immediately went into the bedroom
and found that Fordyce had breathed his last.
AN AGRICULTURAL DEFENCE OF BIGOTRY.
In Ryder's _History of England_, a singular reason is stated to have
been alleged by the Interlocutor, in support of a motion he had made in
Convocation against permitting the printing of Cranmer's translation of
the Bible. "If," said the mover, "we give them the Scriptures in their
vernacular tongue, what ploughman who has read that 'no man having set
his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of
heaven,' will thenceforth make a straight furrow?"
PURITAN RECHRISTENING OF PLAYING CARDS.
The Puritans objected to the use of "heathen" names, not only for
children, but for the "court" cards of the pack. They complained,
according to Collier, of the appellations of Hercules, Alexander,
Julius Cæsar, Hector, and such like; and they wanted to have the Kings
called David, Solomon, Isaiah, and Hezekiah; the Queens, Sarah, Rachel,
Esther, and Susannah; the Knaves, Balak, Achitophel, Tobit, and Bel.
There was, however, it must be confessed, considerable toleration in
their permitting the use of cards at all.
JOHN HUNTER THE ANATOMIST.
Wadd, in his interesting collection of medical _Mems., Maxims, and
Memoirs_, says of John Hunter:--"When Hunter began practice, the town
was in possession of Hawkins, Bromfield, Sharpe, and Pott; whilst Adair
and Tomkins had the chief practice derived from the army. He remained
in unenvied obscurity for many years; and so little was he considered,
that some time after he began lecturing his class consisted of less
than twenty. Dr. Denman used to say that William Hunter was a man of
order, and John Hunter a man of genius; and, in truth, with all his
cleverness, which was more than ordinary, the Doctor always felt John's
superiority. 'In this I am only my brother's interpreter.' 'I am simply
the demonstrator of this discovery; it was my brother's'--were his
constant expressions. Hunter was a philosopher in more senses than one:
he had philosophy enough to bear prosperity as well as adversity, and
with a rough exterior was a very kind man. The poor could command his
services more than the rich. He would see an industrious tradesman
before a duke, when his house was full of grandees. 'You have no time
to spare,' he would say; 'you live by it: most of these can wait; they
have nothing to do when they go home.' No man cared less for the
profits of the profession, or more for the honour of it. He cared not
for money himself, and wished the Doctor to estimate it by the same
scale, when he sent a poor man with this laconic note:--
'DEAR BROTHER,--The bearer wants your advice. I do not know the nature
of the case. He has no money, and you have plenty, so you are well
met.--Yours,
'J. HUNTER.'
He was once applied to, to perform a serious operation on a tradesman's
wife; the fee agreed upon was twenty guineas. He heard no more of the
case for two months, at the end of which time he was called upon to
perform it. In the course of his attendance he found out that the cause
of the delay had been the difficulty under which the patient's husband
had laboured to raise the money; and that they were worthy people, who
had been unfortunate, and were by no means able to support the expense
of such an affliction. 'I sent back to the husband nineteen guineas,
and kept the twentieth,' said he, 'that they might not be hurt with an
idea of too great an obligation. It somewhat more than paid me for the
expense I had been at in the business.' He held the operative part of
surgery in the lowest estimation. 'To perform an operation,' said he,
'is to mutilate the patient whom we are unable to cure; it should
therefore be considered as an acknowledgment of the imperfection of our
art.' Among other characteristics of genius, was his simplicity of
character and singleness of mind. His works were announced as the works
of _John Hunter_; and _John Hunter_ on a plain brass plate announced
his residence. His honour and his pride made him look with contempt on
the unworthy arts by which ignorant and greedy men advance their
fortunes. He contemplated the hallowed duties of his art with the
feelings of a philanthropist and a philosopher; and although surgery
had been cultivated more than 2000 years, this single individual did
more towards establishing it as a _science_, than all who preceded him."
LORD BACON ON THE REVIVAL OF "PROPHESYING."
Lord Bacon, in his _Inquiry on the Pacification of the Church_, asks
whether it might not be advantageous to renew the good service that was
practised in the Church of England for some years, and afterwards put
down, against the advice and opinion of one of the greatest and gravest
prelates of the land. The service in question was commonly called
"prophesying;" and from this description of it by Bacon it may be seen
that it might have benefits of its own, not in the Church of England
alone or especially, if it were resumed at the present day:--"The
ministers within a precinct did meet upon a week-day in some principal
town, where there was some ancient grave minister that was president,
and an auditory admitted of gentlemen, or other persons of leisure.
Then every minister successively, beginning with the youngest, did
handle one and the same part of Scripture, spending severally some
quarter of an hour or better, and in the whole, some two hours; and so
the exercise being begun and concluded with prayer, and the president
giving a text for the next meeting, the assembly was dissolved; and
this was, as I take it, a fortnight's exercise, which in my opinion was
the best way to frame and train up preachers to handle the word of God
as it ought to be handled, that hath been practised. For we see orators
have their declamations; lawyers have their merits; logicians their
sophisms; and every practice of science hath an exercise of erudition
and imitation before men come to the life; only preaching, which is the
worthiest, and wherein it is most dangerous to do amiss, wanteth an
introduction, and is ventured and rushed upon at first."
DR. DONNE'S PRAYERFUL PUN.
Dr. Donne, the Dean of St. Paul's, having married a lady of a rich and
noble family without the consent of the parents, was treated with great
asperity. Having been told by the father that he was to expect no money
from him, the Doctor went home and wrote the following note to him:
"John Donne, Anne Donne, _undone_." This quibble had the desired
effect, and the distressed couple were restored to favour.
PREPARING FOR THE WORST AND BEST.
The historians of dissent record with pride the sedulous preparation of
Dr. Marryat, a tutor who belonged to the Independent body, to make the
best of either of the worlds to come. He was accustomed, we are told,
to sit up at his studies two or three nights in the week, the whole
year over. He learned by heart, at these times, the poets and prophets
of the Old Testament, the Epistles and Apocalypse of the New; and what
he had thus acquired, he sought to retain by careful recitation of them
annually. He had begun to do this while he was yet a young man; when,
"deeply convinced of his sinfulness and misery, he was afraid of
falling into hell, and formed the resolution that if that should be the
case, he would treasure up in his mind as much of the word of God as he
possibly could, and carry it with him to the place of torment. When
faith in his Redeemer afterwards communicated to his soul the peace and
consolations of the gospel, he still continued the practice, that he
might have a larger measure to carry to a better place."
GEORGE CRABBE, THE APOTHECARY POET.
Not the least distinguished among the names of doctors who have
distinguished themselves in the world of literature, is that of George
Crabbe. He was the son of the collector of salt dues at Aldborough, in
Suffolk, where he was born on Christmas Eve, 1754. His father strove to
give his children an education somewhat above their station in life;
and George was kept at school at Bungay and Stowmarket till his
fourteenth year--his comparative delicacy of constitution inducing his
father to destine him to a gentler pursuit than those followed by his
brothers. Leaving school, he was apprenticed to a country doctor, half
farmer half physician, at Wickham Brook, near Bury St. Edmunds, where
he shared the bed of his master's stable-boy. This and other
_désagrémens_ of the situation, however, did not suit Crabbe's likings
or his father's honest pride; and in a couple of years he was removed,
and placed with Mr. Page, a surgeon at Woodbridge, and a gentleman of
family and taste. Here he found time and circumstances favouring to
make his first essays in poetry; and in 1775 published his first work
of consequence, _Inebriety, a Poem: in three parts_. At the expiry of
his apprenticeship, Crabbe vainly tried to raise funds for a regular
course of study in London, and had to content himself with settling
down in his native village in a small practice as surgeon and
apothecary; but this proving an insufficient source of income, he
resolved to venture his fortunes in London, in dependence on his poetic
talent. "With this view he proceeded to London; and after a year spent
in that most trying of all situations, that of a literary adventurer
without money and without friends--a situation from the miseries of
which the unfortunate Chatterton, 'the wondrous boy,' escaped by
suicide--when on the point of being thrown into jail for the little
debts which he had unavoidably contracted, as a last resource, in an
auspicious moment, he had applied to Edmund Burke for assistance,
transmitting to him at the same time some verses as a specimen of his
abilities. In these sketches Burke at once recognised the hand of a
master. He invited the poet to Beaconsfield; installed him in a
convenient apartment; opened up to him the stores of his library;
watched over his progress, and afforded him the benefit of his taste
and literary skill." "The Library" soon appeared, and Crabbe was
famous. By Burke's advice he went into holy orders; he was appointed
chaplain to the household of the Duke of Rutland, obtained ample Church
preferment, and pursued his path to fame.
THE WAY TO PROMOTION.
Speed relates that Guymond, chaplain to Henry I., observing that for
the most part ignorant men were advanced to the best dignities of the
Church, one day, as he was celebrating divine service before the King,
and was about to read these words out of St. James, "It rained not upon
the earth iii years and vi months," read it thus: "It rained not upon
the earth one-one-one years and five-one months." The king noticed the
singularity, and afterwards took occasion to blame the chaplain for it.
"Sire," answered Guymond, "I did it on purpose, for such readers, I
find, are sooner advanced by your Majesty." The King smiled; and in a
short time thereafter presented Guymond to the benefice of St.
Frideswid's, in Oxford.
BOLD APPLICATION OF BOURDALOUE.
Louis Bourdaloue--who claims the proud distinction of being "the
reformer of the pulpit and the founder of genuine pulpit eloquence in
France"--was sent for by Louis XIV. to preach the Advent Sermon in
1670. Bourdaloue, at that time at the age of thirty-eight, acquitted
himself before the Court with so much success, that he was for many
years afterwards retained as a preacher at Court. He was called the
King of Preachers, and the Preacher to Kings; and Louis himself said,
that he would rather hear the repetitions of Bourdaloue, than the
novelties of another. With a collected air, he had little action; he
kept his eyes generally half closed, and penetrated the hearts of his
hearers by the tones of a voice uniform and solemn. On one occasion he
turned the peculiarity of his external aspect to account in a very
memorable fashion. After depicting in soul-awakening terms a sinner of
the first magnitude, he suddenly opened his eyes, and, casting them
full on the King, who sat opposite to him, he cried in a voice of
thunder, "Thou art the man!" The effect was magical, confounding. When
Bourdaloue had made an end of his discourse, he immediately went, and,
throwing himself at the feet of his Sovereign, said, "Sire, behold at
your feet one who is the most devoted of your servants; but punish him
not, that in the pulpit he can own no other master than the King of
kings!" This incident was characteristic of Bourdaloue's style of
preaching, for he gave his powers to attacking the vices, passions, and
errors of mankind. In his later days he renounced the pulpit, and
devoted himself to the care of hospitals, prisons, and religious
institutions. He died in 1704; and his sermons have been translated
into several tongues.
GARRICK'S PRECEPTS FOR PREACHERS.
The celebrated actor Garrick having been requested by Dr. Stonehouse to
favour him with his opinion as to the manner in which a sermon ought to
be delivered, sent him the following judicious answer:--
"MY DEAR PUPIL,--You know how you would feel and speak in a parlour
concerning a friend who was in imminent danger of his life, and with
what energetic pathos of diction and countenance you would enforce the
observance of that which you really thought would be for his
preservation. You could not think of playing the orator, of studying
your emphases, cadences, and gestures; you would be yourself; and the
interesting nature of your subject impressing your heart would furnish
you with the most natural tone of voice, the most proper language, the
most engaging features, and the most suitable and graceful gestures.
What you would thus be in the parlour, be in the pulpit, and you will
not fail to please, to affect, and to profit. Adieu, my dear friend."
GEORGE II. AS AN AMATEUR SURGEON.
It is related in the _Percy Anecdotes_, that a gentleman, after taking
tea with a friend who lived in St. James's Palace, took his leave, and
stepping back, immediately fell down a whole flight of stairs, and with
his head broke open a closet door. The unlucky visitor was completely
stunned by the fall; and on his recovery, found himself sitting on the
floor of a small room, and most kindly attended by a neat little old
gentleman, who was carefully washing his head with a towel, and fitting
with great exactness pieces of sticking plaster to the variegated cuts
which the accident had occasioned. For some time his surprise kept him
silent; but finding that the kind physician had completed his task, and
had even picked up his wig, and replaced it on his head, he rose from
the floor, and limping towards his benefactor, was going to utter a
profusion of thanks for the attention he had received. These were,
however, instantly checked by an intelligent frown, and significant
motion of the hand towards the door. The patient understood the hint,
but did not then know that for the kind assistance he had received he
was indebted to George II., King of England.
BLUNDERS OF BLOOD-LETTERS.
A noble fee, in the interests of humanity, was given by a French lady
to a surgeon, who used his lancet so clumsily that he cut an artery
instead of a vein, in consequence of which the lady died. On her
deathbed she made a will, bequeathing the operator a life annuity of
eight hundred livres, on condition "that he never again bled anybody so
long as he lived."
In the _Journal Encyclopédique_ of May 1773, a somewhat similar story
is told of a Polish princess, who lost her life in the same way. In her
will, made _in extremis_, there was the following clause:--"Convinced
of the injury that my unfortunate accident will occasion to the unhappy
surgeon who is the cause of my death, I bequeath to him a life annuity
of two hundred ducats, secured by my estate, and forgive his mistake
from my heart. I wish this may indemnify him for the discredit which my
sorrowful catastrophe will bring upon him."
A famous French Maréchal reproved the awkwardness of a phlebotomist
less agreeably. Drawing himself away from the operator, just as the
incision was about to be made, he displayed an unwillingness to put
himself further in the power of a practitioner who, in affixing the
fillet, had given him a blow with the elbow in the face. "My Lord,"
said the surgeon, "it seems that you are afraid of the bleeding." "No,"
returned the Maréchal, "not of the bleeding--but the bleeder."
BISHOPS AND THE POOR.
A nobleman once advising a French bishop to add to his house a new wing
in modern style, received this answer:--"The difference, my Lord,
between your advice and that which the devil gave to our Saviour is,
that Satan advised Jesus to change the stones into bread, that the poor
might be fed--and you desire me to turn the bread of the poor into
stones!"
Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester in the time of King Edgar, sold the
sacred gold and silver vessels belonging to the Church, to relieve the
poor during a famine,--saying that there was no reason that the
senseless temples of God should abound in riches, while his living
temples were perishing of hunger.
Butler, Bishop of Durham, being asked for a charitable subscription,
asked his steward what money he had in the house. The steward informed
him that there were five hundred pounds. "Five hundred pounds!" cried
the bishop; "it is a shame for a bishop to have so much in his
possession!" and he ordered the whole sum to be immediately given to
the poor.
BISHOP BURNET AGAINST PLURALITIES.
Bishop Burnet, in his charges to the clergy of his diocese, used to be
extremely vehement in his exclamations against pluralities. In his
first visitation to Salisbury, he urged the authority of St. Bernard;
who, being consulted by one of his followers whether he might accept of
two benefices, replied, "And how will you be able to serve them both?"
"I intend," answered the priest, "to officiate in one of them by a
deputy." "Will your deputy suffer eternal punishment for you too?"
asked the saint. "Believe me, you may serve your cure by proxy, but you
must suffer the penalty in person." This anecdote made such an
impression on Mr. Kelsey, a pious and worthy clergyman then present,
that he immediately resigned the rectory of Bemerton, in Berkshire,
worth £200 a year, which he then held with one of greater value.
ABERNETHY CONQUERED BY CURRAN.
To curb his tongue, out of respect to Abernethy's humour, was an
impossibility to John Philpot Curran. Eight times Curran (who was
personally unknown to Abernethy) had called on the great surgeon; and
eight times Abernethy had looked at the orator's tongue (telling him
that it was the most unclean and utterly abominable tongue in the
world); had curtly advised him to drink less, and not abuse his stomach
with gormandizing; had taken a guinea, and had bowed him out of the
room. On the ninth visit, just as he was about to be dismissed in the
same summary fashion, Curran said, "Mr. Abernethy, I have been here on
eight different days, and I have paid you eight different guineas, but
you have never yet listened to the symptoms of my complaint. I am
resolved, sir, not to leave the room till you satisfy me by doing so."
With a good-natured laugh, Abernethy leaned back in his chair and said,
"Oh! very well, sir; I am ready to hear you out. Go on, give me the
whole--your birth, parentage, and education. I wait your pleasure. Pray
be as minute and tedious as you can." Curran gravely began:--"Sir, my
name is John Philpot Curran. My parents were poor, but, I believe,
honest people, of the province of Munster, where also I was born, at
Newmarket, in the county of Cork, in the year one thousand seven
hundred and fifty. My father being employed to collect the rents of a
Protestant gentleman of small fortune, in that neighbourhood, procured
my admission into one of the Protestant free schools, where I obtained
the first rudiments of my education. I was next enabled to enter
Trinity College, Dublin, in the humble sphere of a sizar--." And so he
went steadily on, till he had thrown Abernethy into convulsions of
laughter.
WITTICISMS OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.
"What is the difference," asked Archbishop Whately of a young clergyman
he was examining, "between a form and a ceremony? The meaning seems
nearly the same; yet there is a very nice distinction." Various answers
were given. "Well," he said, "it lies in this: you sit upon a _form_,
but you stand upon _ceremony_."
"Morrow's Library" is the Mudie's of Dublin, and the Rev. Mr. Day a
popular preacher. "How inconsistent," said Archbishop Whately, "is the
piety of certain ladies here! They go to _Day_ for a sermon, and to
_Morrow_ for a novel!"
At a dinner-party Archbishop Whately called out suddenly to the host:
"Mr. ----!" There was silence. "Mr. ----, what is the proper female
companion of this John Dory?" After the usual number of guesses the
answer came: "_Anne Chovy._"
WHITFIELD AND THE KINGSWOOD COLLIERS.
The crowds that attended the preaching of Whitfield, first suggested to
him the thought of preaching in the open air. When he mentioned this to
some of his friends, they judged it was mere madness; nor did he begin
to practise it until he went to Bristol, when, finding the churches
denied to him, he preached on a hill at Kingswood to the colliers.
After he had done this three or four times, his congregation is said to
have amounted to twenty thousand persons. He effected a great moral
reform among these colliers by his preaching. "The first discovery," he
tells us, "of their being affected, was to see the white gutters made
by their tears, which plentifully fell down their black cheeks, as they
came out of their coal-pits." After this he preached frequently in the
open air in the vicinity of London, and in other parts of the country,
to thousands of auditors.
SIR HANS SLOANE.
This illustrious physician, President of the Royal Society and the
College of Physicians, and the founder of the British Museum, was born
at Killaleagh, in the north of Ireland, in 1660. He settled in London
in 1684, and was in great repute as a practitioner in the time of
Radcliffe, with whom he was acquainted, though they were never friends.
On his arrival in London, he waited on Sydenham with a letter of
introduction, in which a friend had set forth his qualifications in
glowing language, as "a ripe scholar, a good botanist, a skilful
anatomist." Sydenham read the recommendation, and eyed the young man
very narrowly; then he said, "All this is mighty fine, but it won't do.
Anatomy--botany--nonsense! Sir, I know an old woman in Covent Garden
who understands botany better; and as for anatomy, my butcher can
dissect a joint just as well. No, no, young man, this is all stuff; you
must go to the bedside,--it is there alone that you can learn disease."
In spite of this mortifying reception, however, Sydenham afterwards
took the greatest interest in Sloane, frequently making the young man
accompany him in his chariot on his favourite airing. It was against
the strongly expressed wish of Sydenham that Sloane went to
Jamaica--where he gathered abundant materials for the book on the
natural history of that island, which he published at intervals from
1707 till 1725. He neglected, when he was settled in successful
practice in London, no means that could advance the interests of
literature and science. He presented to the Apothecaries' Company the
fee-simple of their gardens, on conditions as honourable to their fame
as to his own. It was his public spirit and humanity that suggested the
plan of the "Dispensary," the opposition to which gave rise to the
beautiful and famous poem of Garth, which alone preserves the memory of
the contest and the disputants on this much-vexed subject. Sloane was
made a baronet in 1716; but his greatest glory was his succession to
Sir Isaac Newton in the Presidency of the Royal Society. Sloane had
previously acted as secretary; and an evidence is given of the high
sense entertained by that body for his services and his virtues, by
their expulsion of Dr. Woodward from the council, for affronting him by
making grimaces, and by interrupting him, while reading a paper of his
own composition, with a grossly insulting remark. Sir Isaac Newton was
in the chair when the expulsion of Woodward came under discussion; and
some one pleading in his favour that he was a good natural philosopher,
Newton interfered with the remark, that "in order to belong to that
Society, a man ought to be a good moral philosopher as well as a good
natural one." In 1746 Sloane retired from practice; and in 1748 he was
visited by the Prince of Wales, the father of George III., who went to
see a collection and library that were the ornament of the nation. The
Prince duly estimated the value and excellence of the collection, and
at the same time remarked "how much it must conduce to the benefit of
learning, and how great an honour must redound to Britain, to have it
established for public use to the latest posterity." It is probable
that by this time the intention of Sir Hans to bequeath his collection
to the nation had transpired; at all events, when he died, in 1752, it
was found by his will that his collections, which had cost £50,000, and
included 50,000 books and manuscripts, had been left to the nation, on
condition of the payment of £20,000 to his heirs. Parliament voted
£100,000 to fulfil the bargain and increase the collection; and in 1759
the British Museum, founded on Sir Hans Sloane's bequest, was first
opened at Montague House. Sir Hans had the reputation of being one of
the most abstemious and parsimonious of eminent physicians--his
absorbing love for his museum forbidding us to blame or sneer at a
failing from which the country reaped such splendid fruit. He is said
to have given up his winter soirees in Bloomsbury Square, to save the
tea and bread and butter he had to dispense to the guests. At one of
the latest of these entertainments, Handel was present, and gave grave
offence to the scientific baronet by laying a muffin on one of his
books. "To be sure it was a gareless trick," said the composer, a
little brutally, when telling the story, "bud it tid no monsdrous
mischief; bud it pode the old poog-vorm treadfully oud of sorts. I
offered my best apologies, bud the old miser would not have done with
it. If it had been a biscuit it would not have mattered; but muffin and
pudder! And I said, 'Ah, mine Gotd, that is the rub!--it is the
pudder!' Now, mine worthy friend, Sir Hans Sloane, you have a nodable
excuse, you may save your doast and pudder, and lay it to that
unfeeling gormandizing German; and den I knows it will add something to
your life by sparing your burse.'"
THE REV. ROWLAND HILL,
While once travelling alone, was accosted by a footpad, who, by the
agitation of his voice and manner, appeared to be new to his
profession. After delivering to the assailant his watch and purse,
curiosity prompted Mr. Hill to examine him as to the motives that had
urged him to so desperate a course. The man candidly confessed, that
being out of employment, with a wife and children who were perishing of
want, despair had forced him to turn robber; but that this was the
first act of the kind in which he had been engaged. Mr. Hill, struck
with the apparent sincerity of the man, and feeling for his distress,
gave his name and address, and asked him to call on him the next day.
The man did so, and was immediately taken into the service of the
humane divine, where he continued till his death. Nor did Mr. Hill ever
divulge the circumstance, until he related it in the funeral sermon
which he preached on the death of his domestic. The same clergyman
being called to visit a sick man, found a poor emaciated creature in a
wretched bed, without anything to alleviate his misery. Looking more
narrowly, he observed that the man was actually without a shirt, on
which Mr. Hill instantly stripped himself, and forced his own upon the
reluctant but grateful object; then, buttoning himself up closely, he
hastened homewards, sent all that was needed to relieve the destitute
being he had left, provided medical aid, and had the satisfaction of
restoring a fellow-creature to his family.
"MAKE THE MOST OF HIM."
Dr. Moore, the author of _Zeluco_, told the following little story,
which suggests that physicians are not always disinclined to recoup
themselves for their generosity, by making the rich and foolish pay
through the nose:--"A wealthy tradesman, after drinking the Bath
waters, took a fancy to try the effect of the Bristol hot wells. Armed
with an introduction from a Bath physician to a professional brother at
Bristol, the invalid set out on his journey. On the road he gave way to
his curiosity to read the Doctor's letter of introduction, and
cautiously prying into it read these instructive words: 'Dear sir, the
bearer is a fat Wiltshire clothier--make the most of him.'"
A PACIFIC SHE.
Sir William Dawes, Archbishop of York, loved a pun very well. His
clergy dining with him for the first time after he had lost his lady,
he told them he feared they did not find things in so good order as
they used to be in the time of poor Mary; and, looking extremely
sorrowful, he added with a deep sigh, "She was, indeed, _Mare
Pacificum_." A curate, who knew pretty well what the deceased lady had
been in her domestic relations, said, "Aye, my Lord, but she was _Mare
Mortuum_ first!"
TIME AND ETERNITY.
When Archbishop Leighton was minister of a parish in Scotland, the
question was asked of the ministers in their Synod or provincial
meeting, whether they preached the duties of the times. When it was
found that Leighton did not, and he was blamed for his remissness, he
made the answer and defence: "If all the brethren have preached on the
_times_, may not one poor brother be suffered to preach on _eternity_?"
PHYSICIANS AND CLERGYMEN.
A peculiar sympathy has always existed between these two professions,
when the second had need of the first; and the times were, and for some
are not yet past, when the condition of the clergy gave them a very
powerful claim on the generosity of the physicians. A poor clergyman,
settled in London on a curacy of fifty pounds per annum, with a wife
and numerous family, was known to the good Quaker, Dr. Fothergill. An
epidemic disease seized upon the curate's wife and five children. In
his distress he looked to the doctor for his assistance, but dared not
apply to him, not being able to pay him for his attendance. A friend,
who knew his situation, kindly offered to accompany him to the Doctor's
house, and give him his fee. They took the advantage of his hour of
audience; and, after a description of the several cases, the fee was
offered, and rejected, but note was taken of the curate's place of
residence. The Doctor called assiduously the next and every succeeding
day, until his attendance was no longer necessary. The curate, anxious
to return some mark of the sense he entertained of the Doctor's
services, strained every nerve to accomplish it; but his astonishment
was not to be described, when, instead of receiving the money he
offered, with apologies for his situation, the Doctor put ten guineas
into his hand, desiring him to apply without diffidence in future
difficulties.--Dr. Wilson, of Bath, sent a present of £50 to an
indigent clergyman, whom he had met in the course of practice. The
gentleman who had engaged to convey the gift to the unfortunate priest,
said, "Well, then, I'll take the money to him to-morrow." "Oh, my dear
sir," said the Doctor, "take it to him to-night. Only think of the
importance to a sick man of one good night's rest!"
MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH,
PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.
CATALOGUE OF
POPULAR AND STANDARD BOOKS
PUBLISHED BY
WILLIAM P. NIMMO,
EDINBURGH,
_AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS_.
A SUPERB GIFT-BOOK.
The 'Edina' Burns.
_JUST READY_,
Beautifully printed on the finest toned paper, and elegantly bound in
cloth extra, gilt edges, price One Guinea; or Turkey morocco extra,
price Two Guineas; or in clan tartan enamelled, with photograph of the
Poet, price Two Guineas.
_A HANDSOME DRAWING-ROOM EDITION OF_
THE POEMS AND SONGS
OF
ROBERT BURNS.
_WITH ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE MOST DISTINGUISHED SCOTTISH
ARTISTS._
The 'EDINA' EDITION of BURNS contains Sixty-four entirely Original
Illustrations, drawn expressly for it; and the names of the Artists who
have kindly given their assistance--comprising several of the most
distinguished members of the Royal Scottish Academy--are a sufficient
guarantee that they are executed in the highest style of art. The
engraving of the Illustrations is executed by Mr. R. PATERSON; and the
volume is printed by Mr. R. CLARK, Edinburgh.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE 'EDINA BURNS.'
The Times.
'The arts of the printer and engraver show to advantage in this Scotch
edition of the Poems and Songs of Burns. The Artists who supply the
Illustrations are all of the land of Burns, and the book owes nothing
to handicraftsmen on this side the Tweed. Many of the engravings are
excellent, particularly the landscape sketches. Altogether the book is
a handsome one, and to the "Scot abroad" it would be difficult to make
a more acceptable present.'
Pall Mall Gazette.
'Mr. Nimmo's illustrated edition of the "Poems and Songs of Robert
Burns" is a book upon which the publisher has evidently bestowed great
care. Limiting himself to the art and industry of his own country, he
has endeavoured to unite Scotland's best draughtsmen, engravers, and
printers in the production of a worthy edition of Scotland's greatest
and dearest poet. The result is very satisfactory. It is certainly a
very meritorious production, and one which does great credit to the
publisher.'
The Examiner.
'Of all the handsome reprints of the works of "nature's own" bard, this
"Edina" edition of the poems and songs of Burns is, perhaps, the
handsomest yet produced. Beautifully printed, and profusely illustrated
by some of the most distinguished of the Scotch academicians, it forms
a shrine worthy of the genius of the "poet of the land of the mountain
and the flood."'
Court Circular.
'If we were asked what is the best and handsomest edition of Burns
extant, we should answer--and we call the special attention of the
reader to the distinguishing title which the publisher has affixed to
this volume--the "Edina."'
Saturday Review.
'This is, as it ought to be, a Scotch edition. It is of Scotland,
decidedly Scottish. Scotch as to author, printer, publisher, and
illustrator. The whole thing has a decidedly pretty and whiskyish look;
or, rather, to speak more decorously, it recalls the land of the
heather and the flood throughout.'
Illustrated London News.
'The magnificent "Edina" edition of his works is a noble tribute
rendered to the genius of Burns by the graphic and typographic skill
and taste of Edinburgh, the city which gave him an admiring welcome in
his lifetime, and where his monument has been erected.'
Court Journal.
'If Burns could have lived to see himself in such a jacket of gold and
red as Mr. Nimmo of Edinburgh puts upon him this year, he would, we
think, have shed a tear of gratitude, for pride would have been foreign
to so great a heart.'
Illustrated Times.
'Many editions of the works of the immortal Scottish bard have passed
under our notice within the last few years, but none equal to the
"Edina Burns," just published by Mr. Nimmo.'
NIMMO'S 'CARMINE' GIFT-BOOKS.
_NEW AND CHEAPER EDITIONS._
Small 4to, beautifully printed within red lines on superior paper,
handsomely bound in cloth extra, bevelled boards, gilt edges, price 7s.
6d.,
ROSES AND HOLLY:
A Gift-Book for all the Year.
With Original Illustrations by GOURLAY STEELL, R.S.A.; SAM. BOUGH,
A.R.S.A.; JOHN M'WHIRTER; R. HERDMAN, R.S.A.; CLARK STANTON, A.R.S.A.;
J. LAWSON, and other eminent Artists.
'This is really a collection of art and literary gems--the prettiest
book, take it all in all, that we have seen this season.'--_Illustrated
Times_.
Uniform with the above, price 7s. 6d.,
PEN AND PENCIL PICTURES FROM THE POETS.
A Series of Forty beautiful Illustrations on Wood, with descriptive
selections from the Writings of the Poets, elegantly printed within red
lines, on superfine paper.
Uniform with the above, price 7s. 6d.,
GEMS OF LITERATURE:
ELEGANT, RARE, AND SUGGESTIVE.
A Collection of the most notable beauties of the English Language,
appropriately illustrated with upwards of one hundred original
engravings, drawn expressly for this work. Beautifully printed within
red lines, on superfine paper.
'For really luxurious books, Nimmo's "Pen and Pencil Pictures from the
Poets" and "Gems of Literature" may be well recommended. They are
luxurious in the binding, in the print, in the engravings, and in the
paper.'--_Morning Post._
Uniform with the above, price 7s. 6d.,
THE BOOK OF ELEGANT EXTRACTS.
Profusely Illustrated by the most eminent Artists. Choicely printed on
superfine paper, within red lines.
Second Edition, imperial 16mo, cloth extra, gilt edges, price 3s. 6d.,
KARL-OF-THE-LOCKET AND HIS THREE WISHES.
A Tale. By DAVID SMITH.
'To that portion of the public which cares about knowing such things,
it has not been unknown for some time that Mr. David Smith, brother of
the poet Alexander, is likewise in possession of the literary faculty,
and even of the gift of song; but this beautiful little book, which
will be the delight of all boys and the admiration of many men, so for
as we are aware, is the first substantive work from his pen. Meant as
it is for a boy's book, it presents a terseness in the style, a poetic
tint in the language throughout, and a vividness in the descriptive
passages, which we do not often find in such literature in
England.'--_Daily Review._
Crown 4to, cloth extra, gilt edges, price 6s.,
THE NATIONAL MELODIST.
TWO HUNDRED STANDARD SONGS, WITH SYMPHONIES AND ACCOMPANIMENTS FOR THE
PIANOFORTE.
Edited by J. C. KIESER.
Demy 4to, cloth extra, gilt edges, price 3s. 6d.,
THE SCOTTISH MELODIST.
FORTY-EIGHT SCOTTISH SONGS AND BALLADS, WITH SYMPHONIES AND
ACCOMPANIMENTS FOR THE PIANOFORTE.
Edited by J. C. KIESER.
The above two volumes are very excellent Collections of First-class
Music. The arrangements and accompaniments, as the name of the Editor
will sufficiently testify, are admirable. They form handsome and
suitable presentation volumes.
Demy 8vo, cloth, price 10s. 6d.,
JAMIESON'S SCOTTISH DICTIONARY.
Abridged from the Dictionary and Supplement (in 4 vols. 4to), by JOHN
JOHNSTONE. An entirely new Edition, Revised and Enlarged, by JOHN
LONGMUIR, A.M., LL.D., formerly Lecturer in King's College and
University, Aberdeen.
NIMMO'S
LIBRARY EDITION OF STANDARD WORKS,
WELL ADAPTED FOR
Prizes in Upper Classes and High Schools.
In large Demy 8vo, with Steel Portrait and Vignette, handsomely bound
in cloth extra, in a new style, price 5s. each.
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, based on the Text of
Johnson, Steevens, and Reed; with a Biographical Sketch by MARY C.
CLARKE; and a Copious Glossary.
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS. Translated from the Arabic. An
entirely New Edition. Illustrated with upwards of 100 original
Engravings.
THE COMPLETE POETICAL AND PROSE WORKS OF ROBERT BURNS. With Life and
Variorum Notes.
THE MISCELLANEOUS WORKS OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
JOSEPHUS: The Whole Works of FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, the Jewish Historian.
Translated by WHISTON.
Ten Volumes, large Crown 8vo, cloth, price £2, 14s.,
A HANDSOME LIBRARY EDITION OF
THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND,
FROM THE ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER III. TO THE UNION.
BY PATRICK FRASER TYTLER, F.R.S.E., F.A.S.
Also, Four Volumes, Crown 8vo, cloth, price 18s.,
THE PEOPLE'S EDITION OF
TYTLER'S HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.
'The most brilliant age of Scotland is fortunate in having found a
historian whose sound judgment is accompanied by a graceful liveliness
of imagination. We venture to predict that this book will soon become,
and long remain, the standard History of Scotland.'--_Quarterly Review._
'An accurate, well-digested, well-written History; evincing
deliberation, research, judgment, and fidelity.'--_Scotsman._
'The tenor of the work in general reflects the highest honour on Mr.
Tytler's talents and industry.'--_Sir Walter Scott._
'The want of a complete History of Scotland has been long felt; and
from the specimen which the volume before us gives of the author's
talents and capacity for the task he has undertaken, it may be
reasonably inferred that the deficiency will be very ably supplied. The
descriptions of the battles are concise, but full of spirit. The events
are themselves of the most romantic kind, and are detailed in a very
picturesque and forcible style.'--_Times._
*_* The LIBRARY Edition of TYTLER'S HISTORY OF SCOTLAND may be had in
Ten volumes, handsomely bound in tree calf extra; and the PEOPLE'S
Edition, Four volumes in Two, tree calf extra.
NIMMO'S POPULAR EDITION OF THE WORKS OF THE POETS.
In fcap. 8vo, printed on toned paper, elegantly bound in cloth extra,
gilt edges, price 3s. 6d. each; or in morocco antique, price 6s. 6d.
each. Each Volume contains a Memoir, and is illustrated with a Portrait
of the Author, engraved on Steel, and numerous full-page Illustrations
on Wood, from designs by eminent Artists.
Longfellow's Poetical Works.
Scott's Poetical Works.
Byron's Poetical Works.
Moore's Poetical Works.
Wordsworth's Poetical Works.
Cowper's Poetical Works.
Milton's Poetical Works.
Thomson's Poetical Works.
Pope's Poetical Works.
Beattie and Goldsmith's Poetical Works.
Burns's Poetical Works.
The Casquet of Gems.
A Volume of Choice Selections from the Works of the Poets.
The Book of Humorous Poetry.
Ballads: Scottish and English.
*_* This Series of Books, from the very superior manner in which it is
produced, is at once the cheapest and handsomest edition of the Poets
in the market. The volumes form elegant and appropriate presents as
School Prizes and Gift-Books, either in cloth or morocco.
'They are a marvel of cheapness, some of the volumes extending to as
many as 700, and even 900, pages, printed on toned paper in a
beautifully clear type. Add to this, that they are profusely
illustrated with wood engravings, are elegantly and tastefully bound,
and that they are published at 3s. 6d. each, and our recommendation of
them is complete.'--_Scotsman._
UNIFORM WITH
NIMMO'S POPULAR EDITION OF THE WORKS OF THE POETS.
_The Complete Works of Shakespeare._
With Biographical Sketch by MARY COWDEN CLARKE. Two Volumes, price 3s.
6d. each.
_The Arabian Nights' Entertainments._
With One Hundred Illustrations on Wood. Two Volumes, price 3s. 6d. each.
_Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress & Holy War._
Complete in One Volume.
_Lives of the British Poets_:
Biographies of the most eminent British Poets, with Specimens of their
Writings. Twelve Portraits on Steel, and Twelve Full-page Illustrations.
_The Prose Works of Robert Burns._
Correspondence complete, Remarks on Scottish Song, Letters to Clarinda,
Commonplace Books, etc. etc.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, price 3s. 6d.,
FAMILY PRAYERS FOR FIVE WEEKS,
WITH PRAYERS FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS, AND A TABLE FOR READING THE HOLY
SCRIPTURES THROUGHOUT THE YEAR.
BY WILLIAM WILSON, MINISTER OF KIPPEN.
'This is an excellent compendium of family prayers. It will be found
invaluable to parents and heads of families. The prayers are short,
well expressed, and the book as a whole does the author great
credit.'--_Perth Advertiser._
'Thoroughly evangelical and devotional in spirit, beautifully simple
and scriptural in expression, and remarkably free from repetition or
verbosity, these prayers are admirably adapted either for family use or
for private reading.'--_Kelso Chronicle._
NIMMO'S PRESENTATION SERIES OF STANDARD WORKS.
* * * * *
In small Crown 8vo, printed on toned paper, bound in cloth extra, gilt
edges, bevelled boards, with Portrait engraved on Steel, price 3s. 6d.
each.
* * * * *
=WISDOM, WIT, AND ALLEGORY=.
Selected from 'The Spectator.'
* * * * *
=BENJAMIN FRANKLIN=:
A BIOGRAPHY.
* * * * *
=THE WORLD'S WAY=.
LAYS OF LIFE AND LABOUR.
* * * * *
TRAVELS IN AFRICA.
THE LIFE AND TRAVELS OF
=MUNGO PARK=.
With a Supplementary Chapter, detailing the results of recent Discovery
in Africa.
* * * * *
=WALLACE, THE HERO OF SCOTLAND=:
A BIOGRAPHY.
By James Paterson.
* * * * *
=EPOCH MEN=,
AND THE RESULTS OF THEIR LIVES.
By Samuel Neil.
=A BOOK OF CHARACTERS=.
SELECTED FROM THE WRITINGS OF
OVERBURY, EARLE, AND BUTLER.
* * * * *
=MEN OF HISTORY=.
By Eminent Writers.
* * * * *
=OLD WORLD WORTHIES=;
OR, CLASSICAL BIOGRAPHY.
SELECTED FROM PLUTARCH'S LIVES.
* * * * *
=THE MAN OF BUSINESS=
Considered in Six Aspects.
A BOOK FOR YOUNG MEN.
* * * * *
=THE HAPPY LIFE=:
LAYS OF LOVE AND BROTHERHOOD.
* * * * *
=WOMEN OF HISTORY=.
By Eminent Writers.
*_* This elegant and useful Series of Books has been specially prepared
for School and College Prizes: they are, however, equally suitable for
General Presentation. In selecting the works for this Series, the aim
of the publisher has been to produce books of a permanent value,
interesting in manner and instructive in matter--books that youth will
read eagerly and with profit, and which will be found equally
attractive in after life.
=NIMMO'S HALF-CROWN REWARD BOOKS.=
Extra Foolscap 8vo, cloth elegant, gilt edges, Illustrated, price 2s.
6d. each.
I.
=Memorable Wars of Scotland.=
BY
PATRICK FRASER TYTLER, F.R.S.E., Author of 'History of Scotland,' etc.
* * * * *
II.
=Seeing the World=:
=A Young Sailor's Own Story=.
BY CHARLES NORDHOFF,
Author of the 'Young Man-of-War's Man.'
* * * * *
III.
=The Martyr Missionary:
Five Years in China=.
BY REV. CHARLES P. BUSH, M.A.
IV.
=My New Home:
A Woman's Diary.=
By the Author of 'Win and Wear,' etc.
* * * * *
V.
=Home Heroines:
Tales for Girls.=
BY T. S. ARTHUR, Author of 'Life's Crosses,' 'Orange Blossoms,' etc.
* * * * *
VI.
=Lessons from Women's Lives.=
BY SARAH J. HALE.
* * * * *
NIMMO'S FAVOURITE GIFT-BOOKS.
In small 8vo, printed on toned paper, richly bound in cloth and gold
and gilt edges, with new and original Frontispiece, printed in colours
by KRONHEIM, price 2s. 6d. each.
=The Vicar of Wakefield=.
=Poems and Essays=.
BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
* * * * *
=Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress=.
* * * * *
=The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe=.
=Æsop's Fables,
With Instructive Applications.=
BY DR. CROXALL.
* * * * *
=The History of Sandford and Merton=.
* * * * *
=Evenings at Home;
Or, The Juvenile Budget Opened=.
*_* The above are very elegant and remarkably cheap editions of these
old favourite Works.
NIMMO'S TWO SHILLING REWARD BOOKS.
Foolscap 8vo, Illustrated, elegantly bound in cloth extra, bevelled
boards, gilt back and side, gilt edges, price 2s. each.
I.
=The Far North=:
Explorations in the Arctic Regions.
BY ELISHA KENT KANE, M.D.,
Commander second 'Grinnell' Expedition in search of Sir John Franklin.
II.
=The Young Men of the Bible=:
A Series of Papers,
Biographical and Suggestive.
BY REV. JOSEPH A. COLLIER.
III.
=The Blade and the Ear=:
A Book for Young Men.
IV.
=Monarchs of Ocean=:
Narratives of Maritime Discovery and Progress.
V.
=Life's Crosses, and How to Meet them=.
BY T. S. ARTHUR,
Author of 'Anna Lee,' 'Orange Blossoms,' etc.
VI.
=A Father's Legacy to his Daughters; etc=.
A Book for Young Women.
BY DR. GREGORY.
* * * * *
NIMMO'S EIGHTEENPENNY REWARD BOOKS.
Demy 18mo, Illustrated, cloth extra, gilt edges, price 1s. 6d. each.
I.
=The Vicar of Wakefield=.
Poems and Essays.
BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
II.
=Æsop's Fables=,
With Instructive Applications.
BY DR. CROXALL.
III.
=Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress=.
IV.
=The Young Man-of-War's Man=;
A Boy's Voyage round the World.
V.
=The Treasury of Anecdote=:
Moral and Religious.
VI. =The Boy's Own Workshop=.
BY JACOB ABBOTT.
VII.
=The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe=.
VIII.
=The History of Sandford and Merton=.
IX.
=Evenings at Home=;
Or, The Juvenile Budget Opened.
*_* The above Series of elegant and useful books are specially prepared
for the entertainment and instruction of young persons.
NIMMO'S SUNDAY SCHOOL REWARD BOOKS.
Fcap. 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges, Illustrated, price 1s. 6d. each.
I.
Bible Blessings.
BY REV. RICHARD NEWTON,
Author of 'The Best Things,' 'The Safe Compass,' 'The King's Highway,'
etc.
II.
One Hour a Week: Fifty-two Bible Lessons for the Young.
By the Author of 'Jesus on Earth.'
III.
The Best Things.
BY REV. RICHARD NEWTON.
IV.
Grace Harvey and her Cousins.
By the Author of 'Douglas Farm.'
V.
Lessons from Rose Hill; AND Little Nannette.
VI.
Great and Good Women: Biographies for Girls.
BY LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
NIMMO'S ONE SHILLING JUVENILE BOOKS.
Foolscap 8vo, Coloured Frontispieces, handsomely bound in cloth,
Illuminated, price 1s. each.
I.
Four Little People and their Friends.
II.
Elizabeth; Or, The Exiles of Siberia.
III.
Paul and Virginia.
IV.
Little Threads: Tangle Thread, Golden Thread, Silver Thread.
V.
The Perils of Greatness; Or, The Story of Alexander Menzikoff.
VI.
Barton Todd.
VII.
Benjamin Franklin: A Biography for Boys.
VIII.
Little Crowns, and How to Win them.
IX.
Great Riches: Nelly Rivers' Story.
X.
The Right Way, and the Contrast.
XI.
The Daisy's First Winter, And other Stories.
XII.
The Man of the Mountain.
NIMMO'S SIXPENNY JUVENILE BOOKS.
Demy 18mo, Illustrated, handsomely bound in cloth, gilt side, gilt
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_Pearls for Little People._
_Great Lessons for Little People._
_Reason in Rhyme_: A Poetry Book for the Young.
_Æsop's Little Fable Book._
_Grapes from the Great Vine._
_Ways of Doing Good._
_Story Pictures from the Bible._
_The Tables of Stone_: Illustrations of the Commandments.
_The Pot of Gold._
_Stories about our Dogs._ By HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
_The Red-Winged Goose._
_The Hermit of the Hills._
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I.
A TREASURY OF TABLE TALK.
II.
EPIGRAMS AND LITERARY FOLLIES.
III.
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IV.
THE TABLE TALK OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
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BEING A SERIES OF DESULTORY ESSAYS ON EDUCATION.
BY D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON,
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Schoolmaster;' 'Sales Attici; or, The Theology and Ethics of Athenian
Drama,' etc. etc.
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Across the River: Twelve Views of Heaven. By NORMAN MACLEOD, D.D.; R.
W. HAMILTON, D.D.; ROBERT S. CANDLISH, D.D.; JAMES HAMILTON, D.D.; etc.
etc. etc.
'A more charming little work has rarely fallen under our notice, or one
that will more faithfully direct the steps to that better land it
should be the aim of all to seek.'--_Bell's Messenger._
Emblems of Jesus; or, Illustrations of Emmanuel's Character and Work.
'We have no hesitation in pronouncing this book worthy of high
commendation. The metaphors are wrought out with great skill, beauty,
freshness, and analytical power. The arrangement and treatment are
admirable.'--_Dundee Courier._
Life Thoughts of Eminent Christians.
Comfort for the Desponding; or, Words to Soothe and Cheer Troubled
Hearts.
'This work administers the balm of consolation to almost every class of
weary and heavy-laden souls.'--_Stirling Journal._
The Chastening of Love; or, Words of Consolation to the Christian
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The Cedar Christian. By the Rev. Theodore L. CUYLER.
Consolation for Christian Mothers bereaved OF LITTLE CHILDREN. By A
FRIEND OF MOURNERS.
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though holy mission. We doubt not that many a mother in her lonely
anguish will feel relief in having this simple companion to share her
tears.'--_Stirling Journal._
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Gladdening Streams; or, The Waters of the Sanctuary. A Book for
Fragments of Time on each Lord's Day of the Year.
Spirit of the Old Divines.
Choice Gleanings from Sacred Writers.
Popular Works by the Author of 'Heaven our Home.'
I.
NINETY-SIXTH THOUSAND.
Crown 8vo, cloth antique, price 3s. 6d.,
HEAVEN OUR HOME.
'The author of the volume before us endeavours to describe what heaven
is, as shown by the light of reason and Scripture; and we promise the
reader many charming pictures of heavenly bliss, founded upon
undeniable authority, and described with the pen of a dramatist, which
cannot fail to elevate the soul as well as to delight the
imagination.... Part Second proves, in a manner as beautiful as it is
convincing, the DOCTRINE OF THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN,--a
subject of which the author makes much, introducing many touching
scenes of Scripture celebrities meeting in heaven and discoursing of
their experience on earth. Part Third DEMONSTRATES THE INTEREST WHICH
THOSE IN HEAVEN FEEL IN EARTH, AND PROVES, WITH REMARKABLE CLEARNESS,
THAT SUCH AN INTEREST EXISTS NOT ONLY WITH THE ALMIGHTY AND AMONG THE
ANGELS, BUT ALSO AMONG THE SPIRITS OF DEPARTED SOULS. We unhesitatingly
give our opinion that this volume is one of the most delightful
productions of a religious character which has appeared for some time;
and we would desire to see it pass into extensive
circulation.'--_Glasgow Herald._
A Cheap Edition of
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TWENTY-NINTH THOUSAND.
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MEET FOR HEAVEN.
'The author, in his or her former work, "Heaven our Home," portrayed a
SOCIAL HEAVEN, WHERE SCATTERED FAMILIES MEET AT LAST IN LOVING
INTERCOURSE AND IN POSSESSION OF PERFECT RECOGNITION, to spend a
never-ending eternity of peace and love. In the present work the
individual state of the children of God is attempted to be unfolded,
and more especially the state of probation which is set apart for them
on earth to fit and prepare erring mortals for the society of the
saints.... The work, as a whole, displays an originality of conception,
a flow of language, and a closeness of reasoning rarely found in
religious publications.... The author combats the pleasing and
generally accepted belief, that DEATH WILL EFFECT AN ENTIRE CHANGE ON
THE SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF OUR SOULS, and that all who enter into bliss
will be placed on a common level.'--_Glasgow Herald._
A Cheap Edition of
MEET FOR HEAVEN,
In crown 8vo, cloth limp, price 1s. 6d., is also published.
III.
TWENTY-FIRST THOUSAND.
Crown 8vo, cloth antique, price 3s. 6d.,
LIFE IN HEAVEN.
THERE, FAITH IS CHANGED INTO SIGHT, AND HOPE IS PASSED INTO BLISSFUL
FRUITION.
'This is certainly one of the most remarkable works which have been
issued from the press during the present generation; and we have no
doubt it will prove as acceptable to the public as the two attractive
volumes to which it forms an appropriate and beautiful
sequel.'--_Cheltenham Journal._
'We think this work well calculated to remove many erroneous ideas
respecting our future state, and to put before its readers such an idea
of the reality of our existence there, as may tend to make a future
world more desirable and more sought for than it is at
present.'--_Cambridge University Chronicle._
'This, like its companion works, "Heaven our Home," and "Meet for
Heaven," needs no adventitious circumstances, no prestige of literary
renown, to recommend it to the consideration of the reading public,
and, like its predecessors, will no doubt circulate by tens of
thousands throughout the land.'--_Glasgow Examiner._
A Cheap Edition of
LIFE IN HEAVEN,
In crown 8vo, cloth limp, price 1s. 6d., is also published.
IV.
Crown 8vo, cloth antique, price 3s. 6d.,
TABOR'S TEACHINGS;
OR, THE VEIL LIFTED.
'The main subjects discussed in this new work are, Christ's glory and
eternal intercourse with his people. These are developed with great
power of thought, and great beauty of language. The book is sure to
meet with as flattering a reception as the author's former
works.'--_The Newsman._
'The work opens up to view a heaven to be prized, and a home to be
sought for, and presents it in a cheerful and attractive aspect. The
beauty and elegance of the language adds grace and dignity to the
subject, and will tend to secure to it the passport to public favour so
deservedly merited and obtained by the author's former
productions.'--_Montrose Standard._
'A careful reading of this volume will add immensely to the interest of
the New Testament narrative of the Transfiguration, and so far will
greatly promote our personal interest in the will of God as revealed in
his word.'--_Wesleyan Times._
A Cheap Edition of
TABOR'S TEACHINGS,
In crown 8vo, cloth limp, price 1s. 6d., is also published.
Uniform with 'Heaven our Home.'
Third Edition, just ready, price 3s. 6d.,
THE SPIRIT DISEMBODIED.
_WHEN WE DIE WE DO NOT FALL ASLEEP: WE ONLY CHANGE OUR PLACE._
BY HERBERT BROUGHTON.
_OPINIONS OF THE PRESS._
'This book will be read by thousands. It treats on all-important
subjects in a simple and attractive style.'--_Chronicle._
'This is a book of very considerable merit, and destined, ere long, to
attract attention in the literary world. The subject of which it treats
is one of surpassing interest.'--_Berwick Warder._
'This is a remarkable work, and well worth the study of all inquiring
minds.'--_Renfrew Independent._
'The last chapter supplies us with a few more instances of the deaths
of pious men, in proof that angels do attend the deathbed scenes of the
saints of God, to carry the disembodied spirit to heaven.'--_Pall Mall
Gazette._
'The author shows as conclusively as it can be shown, not only that the
soul is an immortal part of our being, but that there are mysterious
links connecting us with those we love on earth, and that when "clothed
upon" with immortality, we shall "recognise each other and be together
in eternity."'--_Exeter Post._
'We think the author has satisfactorily demonstrated both the
immortality of man, and also that the spirit lives in a condition of
conscious existence after death. His chapter on the recognition of
friends in heaven, proves that point in a convincing manner. His
narratives of the triumphant deathbeds, and the celestial visions of
many departed saints, will be prized by not a few readers.'--_Dundee
Courier._
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Geology and Physical Geography,' etc.
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intelligible outline the leading facts of the science, without
amplification or irksome details. It is admirable in arrangement, and
clear, easy, and at the same time forcible, in style. It will lead, we
hope, to the introduction of geology into many schools that have
neither time nor room for the study of large treatises.'--_The Museum._
II.
POULTRY AS A MEAT SUPPLY:
Being Hints to Henwives how to Rear and Manage Poultry Economically and
Profitably. Fourth Edition. By the Author of 'The Poultry Kalendar.'
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HOW TO BECOME A SUCCESSFUL ENGINEER:
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By BERNARD STUART, Engineer.
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IV.
RATIONAL COOKERY:
Cookery made Practical and Economical, in connection with the Chemistry
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the youthful bride in one of her most important domestic
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V.
EUROPEAN HISTORY:
In a Series of Biographies, from the Beginning of the Christian Era
till the Present Time. Second Edition. By DAVID PRYDE, M.A.
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book is clear, elegant, and terse. The biographies are well, and, for
the most part, graphically told.'--_The Scotsman._
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DOMESTIC MEDICINE:
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the attention of heads of families and to travellers.'--_The Standard._
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work of one who has apparently suffered, and obviously reflected much;
and, having traversed the vale of weeping, offers himself for a guide
to the spots where the springs of comfort flow, and where the sob
passes into the song.... The form and elegance of the book, we must
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WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS AND OF SCOTLAND:
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A BOOK ABOUT DOMINIES:
BEING THE REFLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS OF A MEMBER OF THE PROFESSION.
John Bull.
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the dignity of his profession, and relates his experience, which is by
no means to be despised. The book merits perusal by all interested in
the great question of Education.'
Bell's Weekly Messenger.
'A more sensible book than this about boys has rarely been written, for
it enters practically into all the particulars which have to be
encountered amongst "the young ideas" who have to be trained for life,
and are too often marred by the educational means adopted for their
early mental development. The writer is evidently one of the Arnold
school--that "prince of schoolmasters"--who did more for the formation
of the character of his pupils than any man that ever lived.'
Spectator.
'This is a manly, earnest book. The author describes in a series of
essays the life and work of a schoolmaster; and as he has lived that
life, and done that work from deliberate choice, his story is worth
hearing. Why does the writer of a book, so honest and thoughtful as
this about dominies, come before the public anonymously? Let us hope
that a second edition will ere long be called for, and that thus an
opportunity may be afforded of correcting this mistake.'
EDINBURGH: WILLIAM P. NIMMO.
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