Clergymen and Doctors 10

Clergymen and Doctors 10

GEORGE CRABBE, THE APOTHECARY POET.

 

Not the least distinguished among the names of doctors who have

distinguished themselves in the world of literature, is that of George

Crabbe. He was the son of the collector of salt dues at Aldborough, in

Suffolk, where he was born on Christmas Eve, 1754. His father strove to

give his children an education somewhat above their station in life;

and George was kept at school at Bungay and Stowmarket till his

fourteenth year--his comparative delicacy of constitution inducing his

father to destine him to a gentler pursuit than those followed by his

brothers. Leaving school, he was apprenticed to a country doctor, half

farmer half physician, at Wickham Brook, near Bury St. Edmunds, where

he shared the bed of his master's stable-boy. This and other

_désagrémens_ of the situation, however, did not suit Crabbe's likings

or his father's honest pride; and in a couple of years he was removed,

and placed with Mr. Page, a surgeon at Woodbridge, and a gentleman of

family and taste. Here he found time and circumstances favouring to

make his first essays in poetry; and in 1775 published his first work

of consequence, _Inebriety, a Poem: in three parts_. At the expiry of

his apprenticeship, Crabbe vainly tried to raise funds for a regular

course of study in London, and had to content himself with settling

down in his native village in a small practice as surgeon and

apothecary; but this proving an insufficient source of income, he

resolved to venture his fortunes in London, in dependence on his poetic

talent. "With this view he proceeded to London; and after a year spent

in that most trying of all situations, that of a literary adventurer

without money and without friends--a situation from the miseries of

which the unfortunate Chatterton, 'the wondrous boy,' escaped by

suicide--when on the point of being thrown into jail for the little

debts which he had unavoidably contracted, as a last resource, in an

auspicious moment, he had applied to Edmund Burke for assistance,

transmitting to him at the same time some verses as a specimen of his

abilities. In these sketches Burke at once recognised the hand of a

master. He invited the poet to Beaconsfield; installed him in a

convenient apartment; opened up to him the stores of his library;

watched over his progress, and afforded him the benefit of his taste

and literary skill." "The Library" soon appeared, and Crabbe was

famous. By Burke's advice he went into holy orders; he was appointed

chaplain to the household of the Duke of Rutland, obtained ample Church

preferment, and pursued his path to fame.

 

 

THE WAY TO PROMOTION.

 

Speed relates that Guymond, chaplain to Henry I., observing that for

the most part ignorant men were advanced to the best dignities of the

Church, one day, as he was celebrating divine service before the King,

and was about to read these words out of St. James, "It rained not upon

the earth iii years and vi months," read it thus: "It rained not upon

the earth one-one-one years and five-one months." The king noticed the

singularity, and afterwards took occasion to blame the chaplain for it.

"Sire," answered Guymond, "I did it on purpose, for such readers, I

find, are sooner advanced by your Majesty." The King smiled; and in a

short time thereafter presented Guymond to the benefice of St.

Frideswid's, in Oxford.

 

 

BOLD APPLICATION OF BOURDALOUE.

 

Louis Bourdaloue--who claims the proud distinction of being "the

reformer of the pulpit and the founder of genuine pulpit eloquence in

France"--was sent for by Louis XIV. to preach the Advent Sermon in

1670. Bourdaloue, at that time at the age of thirty-eight, acquitted

himself before the Court with so much success, that he was for many

years afterwards retained as a preacher at Court. He was called the

King of Preachers, and the Preacher to Kings; and Louis himself said,

that he would rather hear the repetitions of Bourdaloue, than the

novelties of another. With a collected air, he had little action; he

kept his eyes generally half closed, and penetrated the hearts of his

hearers by the tones of a voice uniform and solemn. On one occasion he

turned the peculiarity of his external aspect to account in a very

memorable fashion. After depicting in soul-awakening terms a sinner of

the first magnitude, he suddenly opened his eyes, and, casting them

full on the King, who sat opposite to him, he cried in a voice of

thunder, "Thou art the man!" The effect was magical, confounding. When

Bourdaloue had made an end of his discourse, he immediately went, and,

throwing himself at the feet of his Sovereign, said, "Sire, behold at

your feet one who is the most devoted of your servants; but punish him

not, that in the pulpit he can own no other master than the King of

kings!" This incident was characteristic of Bourdaloue's style of

preaching, for he gave his powers to attacking the vices, passions, and

errors of mankind. In his later days he renounced the pulpit, and

devoted himself to the care of hospitals, prisons, and religious

institutions. He died in 1704; and his sermons have been translated

into several tongues.

 

 

GARRICK'S PRECEPTS FOR PREACHERS.

 

The celebrated actor Garrick having been requested by Dr. Stonehouse to

favour him with his opinion as to the manner in which a sermon ought to

be delivered, sent him the following judicious answer:--

 

"MY DEAR PUPIL,--You know how you would feel and speak in a parlour

concerning a friend who was in imminent danger of his life, and with

what energetic pathos of diction and countenance you would enforce the

observance of that which you really thought would be for his

preservation. You could not think of playing the orator, of studying

your emphases, cadences, and gestures; you would be yourself; and the

interesting nature of your subject impressing your heart would furnish

you with the most natural tone of voice, the most proper language, the

most engaging features, and the most suitable and graceful gestures.

What you would thus be in the parlour, be in the pulpit, and you will

not fail to please, to affect, and to profit. Adieu, my dear friend."

 

 

GEORGE II. AS AN AMATEUR SURGEON.

 

It is related in the _Percy Anecdotes_, that a gentleman, after taking

tea with a friend who lived in St. James's Palace, took his leave, and

stepping back, immediately fell down a whole flight of stairs, and with

his head broke open a closet door. The unlucky visitor was completely

stunned by the fall; and on his recovery, found himself sitting on the

floor of a small room, and most kindly attended by a neat little old

gentleman, who was carefully washing his head with a towel, and fitting

with great exactness pieces of sticking plaster to the variegated cuts

which the accident had occasioned. For some time his surprise kept him

silent; but finding that the kind physician had completed his task, and

had even picked up his wig, and replaced it on his head, he rose from

the floor, and limping towards his benefactor, was going to utter a

profusion of thanks for the attention he had received. These were,

however, instantly checked by an intelligent frown, and significant

motion of the hand towards the door. The patient understood the hint,

but did not then know that for the kind assistance he had received he

was indebted to George II., King of England.

 

 

BLUNDERS OF BLOOD-LETTERS.

 

A noble fee, in the interests of humanity, was given by a French lady

to a surgeon, who used his lancet so clumsily that he cut an artery

instead of a vein, in consequence of which the lady died. On her

deathbed she made a will, bequeathing the operator a life annuity of

eight hundred livres, on condition "that he never again bled anybody so

long as he lived."

 

In the _Journal Encyclopédique_ of May 1773, a somewhat similar story

is told of a Polish princess, who lost her life in the same way. In her

will, made _in extremis_, there was the following clause:--"Convinced

of the injury that my unfortunate accident will occasion to the unhappy

surgeon who is the cause of my death, I bequeath to him a life annuity

of two hundred ducats, secured by my estate, and forgive his mistake

from my heart. I wish this may indemnify him for the discredit which my

sorrowful catastrophe will bring upon him."

 

A famous French Maréchal reproved the awkwardness of a phlebotomist

less agreeably. Drawing himself away from the operator, just as the

incision was about to be made, he displayed an unwillingness to put

himself further in the power of a practitioner who, in affixing the

fillet, had given him a blow with the elbow in the face. "My Lord,"

said the surgeon, "it seems that you are afraid of the bleeding." "No,"

returned the Maréchal, "not of the bleeding--but the bleeder."

 

 

BISHOPS AND THE POOR.

 

A nobleman once advising a French bishop to add to his house a new wing

in modern style, received this answer:--"The difference, my Lord,

between your advice and that which the devil gave to our Saviour is,

that Satan advised Jesus to change the stones into bread, that the poor

might be fed--and you desire me to turn the bread of the poor into

stones!"

 

Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester in the time of King Edgar, sold the

sacred gold and silver vessels belonging to the Church, to relieve the

poor during a famine,--saying that there was no reason that the

senseless temples of God should abound in riches, while his living

temples were perishing of hunger.

 

Butler, Bishop of Durham, being asked for a charitable subscription,

asked his steward what money he had in the house. The steward informed

him that there were five hundred pounds. "Five hundred pounds!" cried

the bishop; "it is a shame for a bishop to have so much in his

possession!" and he ordered the whole sum to be immediately given to

the poor.

 

 

BISHOP BURNET AGAINST PLURALITIES.

 

Bishop Burnet, in his charges to the clergy of his diocese, used to be

extremely vehement in his exclamations against pluralities. In his

first visitation to Salisbury, he urged the authority of St. Bernard;

who, being consulted by one of his followers whether he might accept of

two benefices, replied, "And how will you be able to serve them both?"

"I intend," answered the priest, "to officiate in one of them by a

deputy." "Will your deputy suffer eternal punishment for you too?"

asked the saint. "Believe me, you may serve your cure by proxy, but you

must suffer the penalty in person." This anecdote made such an

impression on Mr. Kelsey, a pious and worthy clergyman then present,

that he immediately resigned the rectory of Bemerton, in Berkshire,

worth £200 a year, which he then held with one of greater value.

 

 

ABERNETHY CONQUERED BY CURRAN.

 

To curb his tongue, out of respect to Abernethy's humour, was an

impossibility to John Philpot Curran. Eight times Curran (who was

personally unknown to Abernethy) had called on the great surgeon; and

eight times Abernethy had looked at the orator's tongue (telling him

that it was the most unclean and utterly abominable tongue in the

world); had curtly advised him to drink less, and not abuse his stomach

with gormandizing; had taken a guinea, and had bowed him out of the

room. On the ninth visit, just as he was about to be dismissed in the

same summary fashion, Curran said, "Mr. Abernethy, I have been here on

eight different days, and I have paid you eight different guineas, but

you have never yet listened to the symptoms of my complaint. I am

resolved, sir, not to leave the room till you satisfy me by doing so."

With a good-natured laugh, Abernethy leaned back in his chair and said,

"Oh! very well, sir; I am ready to hear you out. Go on, give me the

whole--your birth, parentage, and education. I wait your pleasure. Pray

be as minute and tedious as you can." Curran gravely began:--"Sir, my

name is John Philpot Curran. My parents were poor, but, I believe,

honest people, of the province of Munster, where also I was born, at

Newmarket, in the county of Cork, in the year one thousand seven

hundred and fifty. My father being employed to collect the rents of a

Protestant gentleman of small fortune, in that neighbourhood, procured

my admission into one of the Protestant free schools, where I obtained

the first rudiments of my education. I was next enabled to enter

Trinity College, Dublin, in the humble sphere of a sizar--." And so he

went steadily on, till he had thrown Abernethy into convulsions of

laughter.

 

 

WITTICISMS OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

 

"What is the difference," asked Archbishop Whately of a young clergyman

he was examining, "between a form and a ceremony? The meaning seems

nearly the same; yet there is a very nice distinction." Various answers

were given. "Well," he said, "it lies in this: you sit upon a _form_,

but you stand upon _ceremony_."

 

"Morrow's Library" is the Mudie's of Dublin, and the Rev. Mr. Day a

popular preacher. "How inconsistent," said Archbishop Whately, "is the

piety of certain ladies here! They go to _Day_ for a sermon, and to

_Morrow_ for a novel!"

 

At a dinner-party Archbishop Whately called out suddenly to the host:

"Mr. ----!" There was silence. "Mr. ----, what is the proper female

companion of this John Dory?" After the usual number of guesses the

answer came: "_Anne Chovy._"

 

 

WHITFIELD AND THE KINGSWOOD COLLIERS.

 

The crowds that attended the preaching of Whitfield, first suggested to

him the thought of preaching in the open air. When he mentioned this to

some of his friends, they judged it was mere madness; nor did he begin

to practise it until he went to Bristol, when, finding the churches

denied to him, he preached on a hill at Kingswood to the colliers.

After he had done this three or four times, his congregation is said to

have amounted to twenty thousand persons. He effected a great moral

reform among these colliers by his preaching. "The first discovery," he

tells us, "of their being affected, was to see the white gutters made

by their tears, which plentifully fell down their black cheeks, as they

came out of their coal-pits." After this he preached frequently in the

open air in the vicinity of London, and in other parts of the country,

to thousands of auditors.

 

 

SIR HANS SLOANE.

 

This illustrious physician, President of the Royal Society and the

College of Physicians, and the founder of the British Museum, was born

at Killaleagh, in the north of Ireland, in 1660. He settled in London

in 1684, and was in great repute as a practitioner in the time of

Radcliffe, with whom he was acquainted, though they were never friends.

On his arrival in London, he waited on Sydenham with a letter of

introduction, in which a friend had set forth his qualifications in

glowing language, as "a ripe scholar, a good botanist, a skilful

anatomist." Sydenham read the recommendation, and eyed the young man

very narrowly; then he said, "All this is mighty fine, but it won't do.

Anatomy--botany--nonsense! Sir, I know an old woman in Covent Garden

who understands botany better; and as for anatomy, my butcher can

dissect a joint just as well. No, no, young man, this is all stuff; you

must go to the bedside,--it is there alone that you can learn disease."

In spite of this mortifying reception, however, Sydenham afterwards

took the greatest interest in Sloane, frequently making the young man

accompany him in his chariot on his favourite airing. It was against

the strongly expressed wish of Sydenham that Sloane went to

Jamaica--where he gathered abundant materials for the book on the

natural history of that island, which he published at intervals from

1707 till 1725. He neglected, when he was settled in successful

practice in London, no means that could advance the interests of

literature and science. He presented to the Apothecaries' Company the

fee-simple of their gardens, on conditions as honourable to their fame

as to his own. It was his public spirit and humanity that suggested the

plan of the "Dispensary," the opposition to which gave rise to the

beautiful and famous poem of Garth, which alone preserves the memory of

the contest and the disputants on this much-vexed subject. Sloane was

made a baronet in 1716; but his greatest glory was his succession to

Sir Isaac Newton in the Presidency of the Royal Society. Sloane had

previously acted as secretary; and an evidence is given of the high

sense entertained by that body for his services and his virtues, by

their expulsion of Dr. Woodward from the council, for affronting him by

making grimaces, and by interrupting him, while reading a paper of his

own composition, with a grossly insulting remark. Sir Isaac Newton was

in the chair when the expulsion of Woodward came under discussion; and

some one pleading in his favour that he was a good natural philosopher,

Newton interfered with the remark, that "in order to belong to that

Society, a man ought to be a good moral philosopher as well as a good

natural one." In 1746 Sloane retired from practice; and in 1748 he was

visited by the Prince of Wales, the father of George III., who went to

see a collection and library that were the ornament of the nation. The

Prince duly estimated the value and excellence of the collection, and

at the same time remarked "how much it must conduce to the benefit of

learning, and how great an honour must redound to Britain, to have it

established for public use to the latest posterity." It is probable

that by this time the intention of Sir Hans to bequeath his collection

to the nation had transpired; at all events, when he died, in 1752, it

was found by his will that his collections, which had cost £50,000, and

included 50,000 books and manuscripts, had been left to the nation, on

condition of the payment of £20,000 to his heirs. Parliament voted

£100,000 to fulfil the bargain and increase the collection; and in 1759

the British Museum, founded on Sir Hans Sloane's bequest, was first

opened at Montague House. Sir Hans had the reputation of being one of

the most abstemious and parsimonious of eminent physicians--his

absorbing love for his museum forbidding us to blame or sneer at a

failing from which the country reaped such splendid fruit. He is said

to have given up his winter soirees in Bloomsbury Square, to save the

tea and bread and butter he had to dispense to the guests. At one of

the latest of these entertainments, Handel was present, and gave grave

offence to the scientific baronet by laying a muffin on one of his

books. "To be sure it was a gareless trick," said the composer, a

little brutally, when telling the story, "bud it tid no monsdrous

mischief; bud it pode the old poog-vorm treadfully oud of sorts. I

offered my best apologies, bud the old miser would not have done with

it. If it had been a biscuit it would not have mattered; but muffin and

pudder! And I said, 'Ah, mine Gotd, that is the rub!--it is the

pudder!' Now, mine worthy friend, Sir Hans Sloane, you have a nodable

excuse, you may save your doast and pudder, and lay it to that

unfeeling gormandizing German; and den I knows it will add something to

your life by sparing your burse.'"

 

 

THE REV. ROWLAND HILL,

 

While once travelling alone, was accosted by a footpad, who, by the

agitation of his voice and manner, appeared to be new to his

profession. After delivering to the assailant his watch and purse,

curiosity prompted Mr. Hill to examine him as to the motives that had

urged him to so desperate a course. The man candidly confessed, that

being out of employment, with a wife and children who were perishing of

want, despair had forced him to turn robber; but that this was the

first act of the kind in which he had been engaged. Mr. Hill, struck

with the apparent sincerity of the man, and feeling for his distress,

gave his name and address, and asked him to call on him the next day.

The man did so, and was immediately taken into the service of the

humane divine, where he continued till his death. Nor did Mr. Hill ever

divulge the circumstance, until he related it in the funeral sermon

which he preached on the death of his domestic. The same clergyman

being called to visit a sick man, found a poor emaciated creature in a

wretched bed, without anything to alleviate his misery. Looking more

narrowly, he observed that the man was actually without a shirt, on

which Mr. Hill instantly stripped himself, and forced his own upon the

reluctant but grateful object; then, buttoning himself up closely, he

hastened homewards, sent all that was needed to relieve the destitute

being he had left, provided medical aid, and had the satisfaction of

restoring a fellow-creature to his family.

 

 

"MAKE THE MOST OF HIM."

 

Dr. Moore, the author of _Zeluco_, told the following little story,

which suggests that physicians are not always disinclined to recoup

themselves for their generosity, by making the rich and foolish pay

through the nose:--"A wealthy tradesman, after drinking the Bath

waters, took a fancy to try the effect of the Bristol hot wells. Armed

with an introduction from a Bath physician to a professional brother at

Bristol, the invalid set out on his journey. On the road he gave way to

his curiosity to read the Doctor's letter of introduction, and

cautiously prying into it read these instructive words: 'Dear sir, the

bearer is a fat Wiltshire clothier--make the most of him.'"

 

 

A PACIFIC SHE.

 

Sir William Dawes, Archbishop of York, loved a pun very well. His

clergy dining with him for the first time after he had lost his lady,

he told them he feared they did not find things in so good order as

they used to be in the time of poor Mary; and, looking extremely

sorrowful, he added with a deep sigh, "She was, indeed, _Mare

Pacificum_." A curate, who knew pretty well what the deceased lady had

been in her domestic relations, said, "Aye, my Lord, but she was _Mare

Mortuum_ first!"

 

 

TIME AND ETERNITY.

 

When Archbishop Leighton was minister of a parish in Scotland, the

question was asked of the ministers in their Synod or provincial

meeting, whether they preached the duties of the times. When it was

found that Leighton did not, and he was blamed for his remissness, he

made the answer and defence: "If all the brethren have preached on the

_times_, may not one poor brother be suffered to preach on _eternity_?"