Title: Clergymen and Doctors: Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches.
Author: Anonymous
Release date: February 23, 2015 [eBook #48343]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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NIMMO'S SERIES OF COMMONPLACE BOOKS.
CLERGYMEN AND DOCTORS.
Edinburgh: W. P. Nimmo.
CLERGYMEN AND DOCTORS:
Curious Facts and Characteristic
Sketches.
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM P. NIMMO.
MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH,
PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.
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.
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[12] 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.
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[13] 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 says that he once met with a page of Mr. Baxter under a Christmas pie. "Whether or no the[14] 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."
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,[15] 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.
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.[16] 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."
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!
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[17] "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."
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[18] 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.
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."
Dr. Glynn, of Cambridge, being one day in attendance on a lady, in the quality of her physician, took[19] 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."
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,[20] 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[21] 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.
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.
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[22] 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.
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."
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[23] 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 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.
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.
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.
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[26] 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."
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.
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;[28] 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."
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[29] 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,[30] that they might be able to execute offices in the commonweal?"
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."
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[31] 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[32] 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."
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."
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[34] 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."
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."
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,[35] 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."
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,[36] 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[37] 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."
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[38] 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.[39] 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.
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,[40] 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, 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!"
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[41] 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[42] "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.
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[43] 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.
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:—
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."
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[45] 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."
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[46] 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[47] 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."
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[48] 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.
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[49] to descend into the patient's stomach with a candle and lantern, when he ascended he would not be able to name the complaint!"
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—"[50] 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."
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[51] "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."
"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."
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[52] 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.]
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!"
Benjamin Franklin, in his memoirs, bears witness[53] 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.'"
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."
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[55] 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."
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[56] 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, 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[58] 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."
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.
Sir Godfrey Kneller and Dr. Radcliffe lived next[59] 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."
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[60] 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.
In the reign of Francis I. of France, the saying went—
which we thus translate—
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."
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,[62] 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.'"
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[63] 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.
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—
answered Barrow with the utmost promptitude. The chaplain, a little annoyed at Barrow's laconic answer, continued—
replied the young candidate in the same breath.
was the next question.
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.
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,[65] "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."
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[66] 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."
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 phœnix 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[67] 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,[68] he lost his way in so much of revelation as not to be understood; like the musick of the spheres, which never was heard."
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:—
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;[69] 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.[70] 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.
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[71] 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!"
A Protestant renting a little farm under the second[72] 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."
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,[73] 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.
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.[74] 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.
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[76] 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."
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[77] 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."
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[78] 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."
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[79] 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[80] 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[81] the extravagant and unseemly work of former years, both in his devotional hymns and forms.
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.'"
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,[82] 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.
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[83] 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.
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[84] 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."
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."
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[86] 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.
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!"
Perhaps regarding nothing connected with the science and practice of medicine, or the lives of its professors,[87] 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[88] 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!'"[89] 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[90] 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[91] 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[92] 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[93] 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[94] 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[95] 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[96] 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."
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."
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[98] 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.
In his Church History, Collins says:—"Under the article of Baptism, the Book of Discipline runs thus:[99] '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."
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[100] 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.
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!"
When the diminutive Abbé de Voisenon was ordered by his physician to drink a quart of ptisan per hour,[101] 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!"
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 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[103] 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."
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!'"
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."
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 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.
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.
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[108] 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[109] 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:—
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[110] 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.'"
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[111] 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.
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[112] 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."
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[113] distinguished position among the Metropolitan practitioners.
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!
Faith in the medicinal potency of the properties of the loadstone was, for centuries after its discovery, a[114] 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.[115] 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[116] 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.
When Whitfield first went to Scotland, he was received in Edinburgh with a kind of frantic joy by[117] 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[118] 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."
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,[119] 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, 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[120] 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.
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,[121] 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."
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.
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[122] 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."
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[123] 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 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."
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.
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[125] 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[126] 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."
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."
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[127] 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."
Southey copied the following from Jackson's Oxford Journal:—
"NEXT PRESENTATION.
"To be sold by auction, by Hoggart and Philips,[128] 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.
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."
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[129] 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 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."
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.
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;[133] 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[134] 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.
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,[135] 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!"
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[136] 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."
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, 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[137] 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.
"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."
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[138] 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.
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[139] for the kingdom of heaven,' will thenceforth make a straight furrow?"
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.
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[140] 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[141] 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, 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[142] 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, 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.
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[144] 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."
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[145] 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.
Speed relates that Guymond, chaplain to Henry I., observing that for the most part ignorant men were[146] 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.
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[147] 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.
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[148] 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."
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[149] 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.
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[150] 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."
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, 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.
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[152] 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.
"What is the difference," asked Archbishop Whately of a young clergyman he was examining, "between a[153] 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."
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[154] 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.
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[155] 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[156] 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,[157] 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.'"
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[158] 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.
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.'"
Sir William Dawes, Archbishop of York, loved a pun very well. His clergy dining with him for the[159] 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!"
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?"
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[160] 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.
———
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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.
———
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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.
———
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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.
———
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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.,
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Forty-Eight Scottish Songs and Ballads, with Symphonies and
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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.
———
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JAMIESON'S
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JOSEPHUS: The Whole Works of Flavius Josephus, the Jewish Historian. Translated by Whiston.
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———
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'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.
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Ballads: Scottish and English.
———
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'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.
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The Prose Works of Robert Burns.
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———
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the Holy Scriptures throughout the Year.
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———
'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.
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———
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.
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———
EPOCH MEN,
And the Results of their
Lives.
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SELECTED FROM THE WRITINGS OF
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———
MEN OF HISTORY.
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———
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SELECTED FROM
PLUTARCH'S LIVES.
———
THE MAN OF BUSINESS
Considered in Six Aspects.
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———
THE HAPPY LIFE:
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———
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,
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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.
———
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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;
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⁂ The above are very elegant and remarkably cheap editions of these old favourite Works.
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By Elisha Kent Kane, M.D.,
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Sir John Franklin.
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IV.
Monarchs of Ocean:
Narratives of Maritime Discovery
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V.
Life's Crosses, and How to
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By T. S. Arthur,
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———
NIMMO'S EIGHTEENPENNY REWARD BOOKS.
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IV.
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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.
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IX.
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———
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Fifty-two Bible Lessons for the
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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.
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———
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Little Crowns, and How to Win them.IX.
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The Daisy's First Winter,
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———
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Covers, beautifully printed in Colours, price 4d. each.
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⁂ The distinctive features of the New Series of Sixpenny and One Shilling Juvenile Books are: The Subjects of each Volume have been selected with a due regard to Instruction and Entertainment; they are well printed on fine paper, in a superior manner; the Shilling Series is Illustrated with Frontispieces printed in Colours; the Sixpenny Series has beautiful Engravings; and they are elegantly bound.
———
The Cheapest Children's Toy Books published.
Large 4to, with original large Illustrations, beautifully printed in
colours, illuminated wrapper, price Sixpence each,
NIMMO'S NEW JUVENILE TALES.
The Children in the Wood.
Little Red Riding Hood.
Jack and the Bean Stalk.
Jack the Giant Killer.
The White Cat.
John Gilpin.
Cinderella.
Reynard the Fox.
Nimmo's Juvenile Tales are, without exception, the cheapest Children's Toy Books ever offered to the public. Each book contains Eight original full-page Illustrations from designs by first-class artists, beautifully printed in colours. They are printed on superior paper, and sewed in an elegant coloured wrapper.
NIMMO'S POCKET TREASURIES.
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Miniature 4to, beautifully bound in cloth extra, gilt edges, price 1s. 6d. each.
I.
A TREASURY OF TABLE TALK.II.
EPIGRAMS AND LITERARY FOLLIES.III.
A TREASURY OF POETIC GEMS.IV.
THE TABLE TALK
OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.V.
GLEANINGS FROM THE COMEDIES OF SHAKESPEARE.VI.
BEAUTIES OF THE BRITISH
DRAMATISTS.
'A charming little Series, well edited and printed. More thoroughly readable little books it would be hard to find; there is no padding in them, all is epigram, point, poetry, or sound common sense.'—Publisher's Circular.
———
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, price 6s.,
WAYSIDE THOUGHTS OF A PROFESSOR:
BEING A SERIES OF DESULTORY ESSAYS ON EDUCATION.
By D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson,
Professor of Greek, Queen's College, Galway; Author of 'Day Dreams of a Schoolmaster;' 'Sales Attici; or, The Theology and Ethics of Athenian Drama,' etc. etc.
NIMMO'S POPULAR RELIGIOUS GIFT-BOOKS.
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18mo, finely printed on toned paper, handsomely bound in cloth extra, bevelled boards, gilt edges, price 1s. 6d. each.
———
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 Mourner. By Joseph Parker, D.D., Manchester.
The Cedar Christian. By the Rev. Theodore L. CUYLER.
Consolation for Christian Mothers bereaved of Little Children. By A Friend of Mourners.
'The essence of these pages is an unpretentious spirit, and an humble 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.
The Orphan; or, Words of Comfort for the Fatherless and Motherless.
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
HEAVEN OUR HOME,
In crown 8vo, cloth limp, price 1s. 6d., is also published.
———
II.
TWENTY-NINTH THOUSAND.
Crown 8vo, cloth antique, price 3s. 6d.,
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.
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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.
NIMMO'S
HANDY BOOKS OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Foolscap 8vo, uniformly bound in cloth extra.
PRICE ONE SHILLING EACH.
———
I.
THE EARTH'S CRUST.
A Handy Outline of Geology. With numerous Illustrations. Third Edition. By David Page, LL.D., F.R.S.E., F.G.S., Author of 'Text-Books of Geology and Physical Geography,' etc.
'Such a work as this was much wanted,—a work giving in clear and 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.'
'The Author's excellent aim is to teach henwives how to make the poultry-yard a profitable as well as pleasant pursuit, and to popularize poultry-rearing among the rural population generally.'—The Globe.
III.
HOW TO BECOME A SUCCESSFUL
ENGINEER:
Being Hints to Youths intending to adopt the Profession. Third Edition. By Bernard Stuart, Engineer.
'Parents and guardians, with youths under their charge destined for the profession, as well as youths themselves, who intend to adopt it, will do well to study and obey the plain curriculum in this little book. Its doctrine will, we hesitate not to say, if practised, tend to fill the ranks of the profession with men conscious of the heavy responsibilities placed in their charge.'—Practical Mechanic's Journal.
IV.
RATIONAL COOKERY:
Cookery made Practical and Economical, in connection with the Chemistry of Food. Fifth Edition. By Hartelaw Reid.
'A thousand times more useful as a marriage-gift than the usual gewgaw presents, would be this very simple manual for the daily guidance of the youthful bride in one of her most important domestic duties.'—Glasgow Citizen.
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.
'It is published with a view to the teaching of the history of Europe since the Christian era by the biographic method, recommended by Mr. Carlyle as the only proper method of teaching history. The style of the book is clear, elegant, and terse. The biographies are well, and, for the most part, graphically told.'—The Scotsman.
VI.
DOMESTIC MEDICINE:
Plain and Brief Directions for the Treatment requisite before Advice can be obtained. Second Edition. By Offley Bohun Shore, Doctor of Medicine of the University of Edinburgh, etc. etc. etc.
'This is one of the medicine books that ought to be published. It does not recommend any particular system, and it is not in any sense an advertisement for fees. It is from the pen of Dr. Shore, an eminent physician, and it is dedicated, by permission, to Sir James Y. Simpson, Bart., one of the first physicians of the age. We can recommend it to the attention of heads of families and to travellers.'—The Standard.
VII.
DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT:
Hints on the Training and Treatment of Children and Servants. By Mrs. Charles Doig.
'A more valuable little treatise we have rarely seen.'—Illustrated Times.
'This is an excellent book of its kind, a handbook to family life which will do much towards promoting comfort and happiness.'—The Spectator.
VIII.
FREE-HAND DRAWING:
A Guide to Ornamental, Figure, and Landscape Drawing. By an Art Student, Author of 'Ornamental and Figure Drawing.' Profusely Illustrated.
'This is an excellent and thoroughly practical guide to ornamental, figure, and landscape drawing. Beginners could not make a better start than with this capital little book.'—Morning Star.
IX.
THE METALS USED IN CONSTRUCTION:
Iron, Steel, Bessemer Metal, etc. etc. By Francis Herbert Joynson. Illustrated.
———
OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION.
Popular Religious Works.
SUITABLE FOR PRESENTATION.
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Foolscap 8vo, handsomely bound in cloth extra, antique,
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CHRISTIAN COMFORT.
By the Author of 'EMBLEMS OF JESUS.'
'There is a fitness and adaptability in this book for the purpose it seeks to accomplish, which will most surely secure for it a wide and general acceptance, not only in the home circle, but wherever suffering may be found, whether mental, spiritual, or physical.'—Wesleyan Times.
———
By the same Author, uniform in style and price,
LIGHT ON THE GRAVE.
'This is a book for the mourner, and one full of consolation. Even a heathen poet could say, "Non omnis moriar;" and the object of this book is to show how little of the good man can die, and how thoroughly the sting of death, deprived of its poison, may be extracted. It is the 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 add, make it peculiarly suitable as a gift.'—Daily Review.
———
Uniform in style and price,
GLIMPSES OF THE CELESTIAL CITY,
AND GUIDE TO THE INHERITANCE.
With Introduction by the
REV. JOHN MACFARLANE, LL.D.,
CLAPHAM, LONDON.
NIMMO'S
Series of Commonplace Books.
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BOOKS AND AUTHORS.
Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches.
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INVENTION AND DISCOVERY.
Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches.
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Curious Facts and Illustrative Sketches.
CLERGYMEN AND DOCTORS.
Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches.
———
Large 4to, strongly bound in enamelled boards, price 5s.,
GOOD OLD STORIES:
A NURSERY PICTURE BOOK.
With Sixty large coloured Illustrations.
Being Nimmo's Juvenile Tales complete in One Volume,
forming an admirable present for the Young.
Ten Volumes, fcap. 8vo, cloth, price 26s.; or, in Twenty Volumes,
sewed, price 1s. each,
WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS AND
OF SCOTLAND:
HISTORICAL, TRADITIONARY, AND IMAGINATIVE.
Edited by Alexander Leighton,
One of the Original Editors and Contributors.
In announcing a NEW EDITION of the BORDER TALES, the Publisher does not consider it necessary to say anything in recommendation of a work which has stood the test of a general competition, and which has increased in public favour with its years. Equally suited to all classes of readers, it has been received with delight in the school-room, the drawing-room, the parlour, and the village reading-room. Many of the Tales have been publicly read. The high tone of its morality renders it an admirable small library for young members of the family.
———
NIMMO'S POPULAR TALES.
A Series of Interesting and Amusing Stories
BY EMINENT AUTHORS.
Six volumes, handsomely bound in cloth extra, price 3s. each; may
also be had in twelve volumes, fcap. 8vo, illuminated wrapper,
Price One Shilling each.
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⁂ This work is admirably adapted for village, lending, mechanics' institute, and ship libraries; and the single volumes are suitable for railway, seaside, and fireside reading.
THE CHEAPEST SCHOOLBOOKS PUBLISHED.
THE IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLBOOKS.
New and Improved Editions, uniform foolscap 8vo, strongly bound
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| s. | d. | |
| First Book of Lessons, sewed, | 0 | 1 |
| Second do., bound, | 0 | 4 |
| Sequel to the Second Book, No. 1, | 0 | 4 |
| Do. do., No. 2, | 0 | 4 |
| Third Book of Lessons, | 0 | 8 |
| Fourth do., | 0 | 9 |
| Supplement to the Fourth Book, | 0 | 10 |
| Fifth Book of Lessons (Boys), | 0 | 9 |
| Reading-Book for Girls, | 0 | 9 |
| Selections from the British Poets, Vol. I., | 1 | 0 |
| Do. do., Vol. II., | 1 | 0 |
| English Grammar, | 0 | 4 |
| First Arithmetic, | 0 | 4 |
| Key to First Arithmetic, | 0 | 4 |
| Arithmetic in Theory and Practice, | 0 | 9 |
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| Do., (N. T.), No. I., | 0 | 6 |
| Do. do., No. II., | 0 | 6 |
———
Foolscap 8vo, cloth, price 1s. 6d.,
ARITHMETIC:
The Text-Book of the Irish National Society.
Edited and adapted for Middle-class Schools; with Answers, Numerous Illustrations, and Additional Examples.
By A. K. ISBISTER,
Head Master of the Stationers' School, London; Author of
'The Concise Euclid,' etc. etc. etc.
⁂ This Work may also be had without the Answers, price 1s.
NIMMO'S 'CROWN' LIBRARY.
A SERIES OF STANDARD WORKS.
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Crown 8vo, beautifully printed on superfine paper, with Illustrations by eminent Artists, elegantly bound in cloth, price 3s. 6d. each.
I.
THE CROWN BURNS.
II.
THE
CROWN LONGFELLOW.
III.
THE CROWN SCOTT.
IV.
THE CROWN BYRON.
V.
THE CROWN MOORE.
VI.
THE
CROWN WORDSWORTH.
VII.
THE CROWN BOOK OF
HUMOROUS POETRY.
VIII.
THE
CROWN BALLAD BOOK.
———
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, price 5s.,
A BOOK ABOUT DOMINIES:
BEING THE REFLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS OF A MEMBER OF THE PROFESSION.
John Bull.
'A "Book about Dominies" is the work of no ordinary dominie, who feels 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.
AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS IN TOWN AND COUNTRY.
Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed.
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