Part 31 (1/2)
”Why, ma.s.sa, to hear your good sermon and all de prayer ob de church.”
”Would not a _bit_ or two do you more good?”
”Yes, ma.s.sa doctor--me lub prayer much, but me lub money too.”
The ”bit or two” would then be paid, and the devotee would retire speedily from the scene. For an entire twelve-month was this _black_-mail exacted.
On his return to England, Wolcot, after a few unsuccessful attempts to establish himself in practice, relinquished the profession of physic as well as that of divinity, and, settling himself in London, made both fame and a good income by his writings. As a political satirist he was in his day almost without a rival, and the popularity of his numerous works would have placed a prudent man in lasting affluence.
Improvidence, however, necessitated him to sell the copyright of his works to Messrs. Robinson, Golding, and Walker for an annuity of ?250, payable half-yearly, during the remainder of his life. Loose agreements have always been the fas.h.i.+on between authors and publishers, and in the present case it was not clearly stated what ”copyright of his works” meant. The publishers interpreted it as the copyright of both what the author had written at the time of making the agreement, and also of what he should subsequently write. Wolcot, however, declared that he had in the transaction only had regard to his prior productions. After some litigation and more squabbling, the publishers consented to take Wolcot's view of the case; but he never forgave them the discomfort they had caused him. His rancour against ”the trade” increased with time, and inspired some of his most violent and unjust verses:--
”Fired with the love of rhyme, and, let me say, Or virtue, too, I sound the moral lay; Much like St. Paul (who solemnly protests He battled hard at Ephesus with beasts), I've fought with lions, monkeys, bulls, and bears, And got half Noah's ark about my ears; Nay, more (which all the courts of justice know), Fought with the brutes of Paternoster Row.”
For medicine Peter Pindar had even less respect than Garth had. He used to say ”that he did not like the practice of it as an art. He was entirely ignorant, indeed, whether the patient was cured by the vis _medicatrix natur?_, or the administration of a little pill, which was either directly or indirectly to reach the part affected.” And for the pract.i.tioners of the art held in such low esteem, he cherished a contempt that he would at times display with true Pindaric warmth. In his two-act farce, ”Physic and Delusion; or Jezebel and the Doctors,”
the dialogue is carried on in the following strain:--
”_Blister._-- By G.o.d, old prig!
Another word, and by my wig----
”_Bolus._--Thy wig? Great accoucheur, well said, 'Tis of more value than thy head; And 'mongst thy customers--poor ninnies!
Has helped thee much to bag thy guineas.”
Amongst Peter Pindar's good services to the world was the protection he afforded to Opie (or Oppy, as it was at one time less euphoniously spelt and p.r.o.nounced) the artist, when he was a poor country clown, rising at three o'clock in the summer mornings, to pursue his art with rude pieces of chalk and charcoal. Wolcot presented the boy with his first pencils, colours, and canvas, and put him in the way to paint portraits for the magnificent remuneration of half-a-guinea, and subsequently a guinea a-head. And it was to the same judicious friend that Opie, on leaving the provinces, owed his first success in London.
Wolcot used to tell some droll stories about his artist friend. Opie's indiscreet manner was a source of continual trouble to those who endeavoured to serve him; for, priding himself on being ”a rough diamond,” he took every pains that no one should fail to see the roughness. A lady sitter was anxious that her portrait should be ”very handsome,” and frankly told the painter so. ”Then, madam,” was the reply, ”you wish to be painted otherwise than you are. I see you do not want your own face.” Not less impudent was he at the close of his first year in London, in taking out writs against several sitters who were rather tardy in their payments.
Opie was not the only artist of celebrity deeply indebted to Peter Pindar. Bone, the painter in enamel, found an efficient friend in the same discerning lover of the arts. In this respect Wolcot was worthy of the profession which he deserted, and affected to despise; and his name will ever be honourably mentioned amongst those physicians who have fostered art, from the days of picture-loving Mead, down to those of the writer's very kind friend, Dr. Diamond, who gathered from remote quarters ”The Diamond Collection of Portraits,” which may be seen amongst the art treasures of Oxford.
One of the worthies of Dr. Diamond's family was Robertus Fludd, or De Fluctibus, the writer of Rosicrucian celebrity who gave Sterne more than one lesson in the arts of eccentricity. Sir Thomas Fludd of Milgate, Bearsted, co. Kent (grandson of David Fludd, _alias_ Lloyd of Morton, in Shrops.h.i.+re), had five sons and a daughter. Of this offspring, one son, Thomas, purchased Gore Court, and fixed there a family, the vicissitudes of which may be learnt by a reference to Hasted's Kent. From this branch of the Fludds descended Dr. Diamond, who, amongst other curious family relics, possesses the diploma of Robertus de Fluctibus.
When Robertus de Fluctibus died, Sept. 8, 1637, in Coleman St., London, his body, under the protection of a herald of arms, was conveyed to the family seat in Kent, and was then buried in Bearsted Church, under a stone which he had before laid for himself. The monument over his ashes was ordered by him in his last will to be made after that of William Camden in the Abbey at Westminster. The inscription which marks his resting-place declares his, rather than our, estimate of his intellectual greatness;
Magnificus non h?c sub odoribus urna vaporat, Crypta tegit cineres nec speciosa tuos.
Quod mortale minus, tibi te committimus unum; Ingenii vivent hic monumenta tui Nam tibi qui similis scribit, moriturque, sepulchrum Pro tot? ?ternum posteritate facit.
More modest, and at the same time more humorous, is the epitaph, in Hendon Church, of poor Thomas Crossfield, whose name, alike as surgeon and politician, has pa.s.sed from among men:--
”Underneath Tom Crossfield lies, Who cares not now who laughs or cries.
He always laughed, and when mellow Was a harum scarum sort of fellow.
To none gave designed offence, So--_Honi soit qui mal y pense_.”
Amongst the medical poets there is one whom all scholarly physicians jealously claim as of their body--John Keats; he who, dying at Rome, at the age of twenty-six, wished his epitaph to be, ”Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” After serving his apprentices.h.i.+p under an Edmonton surgeon, the author of ”Endymion” became a medical student at St. Thomas's hospital.
Mention here, too, may be made of Dr. Macnish, the author of ”The Anatomy of Drunkenness,” and ”The Modern Pythagorean”; and of Dr.
Moir, the poet, whose death, a few years since, robbed the world of a simple and pathetic writer, and his personal acquaintance of a n.o.ble-hearted friend.
But of all modern English poets who have had an intimate personal connection with the medical profession, the greatest by far is Crabbe--