Part 26 (1/2)

This monumental pile Is not intended to mark the career, But to shew How much its inhabitant was respected By those who knew his worth, And the benefits Derived from his remedial discovery.

He is now at rest, And far beyond the praises or censures Of this world.

Stranger, as you respect the receptacle of the dead (As one of the many who will rest here), Read the name of John Saint John Long without comment.”

Notwithstanding the exquisite drollery of this inscription, in speaking of a plebeian quack-doctor (who, by the exercise of empiricism, raised himself to the possession of ?5000 per annum, and the intimate friends.h.i.+p of numbers of the aristocracy) as the victim of ”many enemies and few friends,” it cannot be said to be open to much censure. Indeed, St. John Long's wors.h.i.+ppers were for the most part of that social grade in which bad taste is rare, though weakness of understanding possibly may not be uncommon.

The sepulchre itself is a graceful structure, and occupies a prominent position in the Kensal Green cemetery, by the side of the princ.i.p.al carriage-way, leading from the entrance-gate to the chapel of the burial-ground. Immediately opposite to it, on the other side of the gravel drive, stands, not inappropriately, the flaunting sepulchre of Andrew Ducrow, the horse-rider, ”whose death,” the inscription informs us, ”deprived the arts and sciences of an eminent professor and liberal patron.” When any c.o.c.kney bard shall feel himself inspired to write an elegy on the west-end grave-yard, he will not omit to compare John St. John Long's tomb with that of ”the liberal patron of the arts and sciences,” and also with the c.u.mbrous heap of masonry which covers the ashes of Dr. Morrison, hygeist, which learned word, being interpreted, means ”the inventor of Morrison's pills.”

To give a finis.h.i.+ng touch to the memoir of this celebrated charlatan, it may be added that after his death his property became the subject of tedious litigation; and amongst the claimants upon it was a woman advanced in years, and of an address and style that proved her to belong to a very humble state of life. This woman turned out to be St.

John Long's wife. He had married her when quite a lad, had found it impossible to live with her, and consequently had induced her to consent to an amicable separation. This discovery was a source of great surprise, and also of enlightenment to the numerous high-born and richly-endowed ladies who had made overtures of marriage to the idolized quack, and, much to their surprise, had had their advances adroitly but firmly declined.

There are yet to be found in English society, ladies--not silly, frivolous women, but some of those on whom the world of intellect has put the stamp of its approval--who cherish such tender reminiscences of St. John Long, that they cannot mention his name without their eyes becoming bright with tears. Of course this proves nothing, save the credulity and fond infatuation of the fair ones who love. The hands of women decked Nero's tomb with flowers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _THE ANATOMIST_]

CHAPTER XXII.

THE QUARRELS OF PHYSICIANS.

For many a day authors have had the reputation of being more sensitive and quarrelsome than any other set of men. Truth to tell, they are not always so amiable and brilliant as their works. There is in them the national churlishness inducing them to nurse a contempt for every one they don't personally know, and a spirit of antagonism towards nearly every one they do. But to say this is only to say that they are made of British oak. Unfortunately, however, they carry on their contentions in a manner that gives them a wide publicity and a troublesome duration of fame. Soldiers, when they quarrelled in the last century, shot one another like gentlemen, at two paces' distance, and with the crack of their pistols the whole noise of the matter ceased. Authors, from time immemorial, have in their angry moments rushed into print, and lashed their adversaries with satire, rendered permanent by aid of the printer's devil,--thus letting posterity know all the secrets of their folly, whilst the merciful grave put an end to all memorial of the extravagances of their friends. There was less love between Radcliffe and Hannes, Freind and Blackmore, Gibbons and Garth, than between Pope and Dennis, Swift and Grub Street. But we know all about the squabbles of the writers from their poems; whereas only a vague tradition, in the form of questionable anecdotes, has come down to us of the animosities of the doctors--a tradition which would long ere this have died out, had not Garth--author as well as physician--written the ”Dispensary,” and a host of dirty little apothecaries contracted a habit of scribbling lampoons about their professional superiors.

Luckily for the members of it, the Faculty of Medicine is singularly barren of biographies. The career of a physician is so essentially one of confidence, that even were he to keep a memorial of its interesting occurrences, his son wouldn't dare to sell it to a publisher as the ”Revelations of a Departed Physician.” Long ere it would be decent or safe to print such a diary, the public would have ceased to take an interest in the writer. Pettigrew's ”Life of Lettsom,” and Macilwain's ”Memoirs of Abernethy,” are almost the only two pa.s.sable biographies of eminent medical pract.i.tioners in the English language; and the last of these does not presume to enter fully on the social relations of the great surgeon. The lives of Hunter and Jenner are meagre and unworthily executed, and of Bransby Cooper's Life of his uncle little can be said that is not in the language of emphatic condemnation.

From this absence of biographical literature the medical profession at least derives this advantage--the world at large knows comparatively little of their petty feuds and internal differences than it would otherwise.

The few memorials, however, that we have of the quarrels of physicians are of a kind that makes us wish we had more. Of the great battle of the apothecaries with the physicians we have already spoken in the notice of Sir Samuel Garth. To those who are ignorant of human nature it may appear incredible that a body, so lovingly united against common foes, should have warred amongst themselves. Yet such was the case. A London druggist once put up at the chief inn of a provincial capital, whither he had come in the course of his annual summer ride.

The good man thought it would hurt neither his health nor his interests to give ”a little supper” to the apothecaries of the town with whom he was in the habit of doing business. Under the influence of this feeling he sallied out from ”The White Horse,” and spent a few hours in calling on his friends--asking for orders and delivering invitations. On returning to his inn, he ordered a supper for twelve--as eleven medical gentlemen had engaged to sup with him. When the hour appointed for the repast was at hand, a knock at the door was followed by the appearance of guest A, with a smile of intense benevolence and enjoyment. Another rap--and guest B entered. A looked blank--every trace of happiness suddenly vanis.h.i.+ng from his face. B stared at A, as much as to say, ”You be ----!” A shuffled with his feet, rose, made an apology to his host for leaving the room to attend to a little matter, and disappeared. Another rap--and C made his bow of greeting. ”I'll try to be back in five minutes, but if I'm not, don't wait for me,” cried B, hurriedly seizing his hat and rus.h.i.+ng from the apartment. C, a cold-blooded, phlegmatic man, sat down unconcernedly, and was a picture of sleeping contentment till the entry of D, when his hair stood on end, and he fled into the inn-yard, as if he were pursued by a hyena. E knocked and said, ”How d' you do?”

D sprung from his chair, and shouted, ”Good-bye!” And so it went on till, on guest No. 11 joining the party--that had received so many new comers, and yet never for an instant numbered more than three--No. 10 jumped through the window, and ran down the street to the bosom of his family. The hospitable druggist and No. 11 found, on a table provided for twelve, quite as much supper as they required.

Next morning the druggist called on A for an explanation of his conduct. ”Sir,” was the answer, ”I could not stop in the same room with such a scoundrel as B.” So it went straight down the line. B had vowed never to exchange words with C. C would be shot rather than sit at the same table with such a scoundrel as D.

”You gentlemen,” observed the druggist, with a smile to each, ”seem to be almost as well disposed amongst yourselves as your brethren in London; only they, when they meet, don't run from each other, but draw up, square their elbows, and fight like men.”

The duel between Mead and Woodward, as it is more particularly mentioned in another part of these volumes, we need here only to allude to. The contest between Cheyne and Wynter was of a less b.l.o.o.d.y character. Cheyne was a Bath physician, of great practice and yet greater popularity--dying in 1743, at the age of seventy-two. At one time of his life he was so prodigiously fat that he weighed 32 stone, he and a gentleman named Tantley being the two stoutest men in Somersets.h.i.+re. One day, after dinner, the former asked the latter what he was thinking about.

”I was thinking,” answered Tantley, ”how it will be possible to get either you or me into the grave after we die.”

Cheyne was nettled, and retorted, ”Six or eight stout fellows will do the business for me, but you must be taken at twice.”

Cheyne was a sensible man, and had more than one rough pa.s.sage of arms with Beau Nash, when the beau was dictator of the pump-room. Nash called the doctor in and asked him to prescribe for him. The next day, when the physician called and inquired if his prescription had been followed, the beau languidly replied:--

”No, i' faith, doctor, I haven't followed it. 'Pon honour, if I had I should have broken my neck, for I threw it out of my bed-room window.”

But Cheyne had wit enough to reward the inventor of the white hat for this piece of insolence. One day he and some of his learned friends were enjoying themselves over the bottle, laughing with a heartiness unseemly in philosophers, when, seeing the beau draw near, the doctor said:--

”Hush, we must be grave now, here's a fool coming our way.”

Cheyne became ashamed of his obesity, and earnestly set about overcoming it. He brought himself down by degrees to a moderate diet, and took daily a large amount of exercise. The result was that he reduced himself to under eleven stone, and, instead of injuring his const.i.tution, found himself in the enjoyment of better health.

Impressed with the value of the discovery he had made, he wrote a book urging all people afflicted with chronic maladies to imitate him and try the effects of temperance. Doctors, notwithstanding their precepts in favour of moderation, neither are, nor ever have been, averse to the pleasures of the table. Many of them warmly resented Cheyne's endeavours to bring good living into disrepute, possibly deeming that their interests were attacked not less than their habits. Dryden wrote,