Chapter II: Part 2

Doctor, afterwards Bishop, Kennet preached the funeral sermon of the first Duke of Devonshire in 1707. The sentiments of the sermon gave much umbrage; people complained that the preacher "had built a bridge to heaven for men of wit and parts, but excluded the duller part of mankind from any chance of passing it." The complaint was founded on this passage, in speaking of a late repentance: "This rarely happens but in men of distinguished sense and judgment. Ordinary abilities may be altogether sunk by a long vicious course of life; the duller flame is easily extinguished. The meaner sinful wretches are commonly given up to a reprobate mind, and die as stupidly as they lived; while the nobler and brighter parts have an advantage of understanding the worth of their souls before they resign them. If they are allowed the benefit of sickness, they commonly awake out of their dream of sin, and reflect, and look upwards. They acknowledge an infinite being; they feel their own immortal part; they recollect and relish the Holy Scriptures; they call for the elders of the church; they think what to answer at a judgment-seat. Not that God is a respecter of persons; but the difference is in men; and the more intelligent the nature is, the more susceptible of divine grace." The successor to the deceased Duke did not think ill of the sermon; and recommended Kennet to the Deanery of Peterborough, which he obtained in 1707.

A MAL APROPOS QUOTATION.

In one of the debates in the House of Lords, on the war with France in 1794, a speaker quoted the following lines from Bishop Porteous' _Poem on War_:--

"One murder makes a villain, Millions a hero! Princes are privileged To kill, and numbers sanctify the crime. Ah! why will kings forget that they are men, And men that they are brethren? Why delight In human sacrifice? Why burst the ties Of nature, that should knit their souls together In one soft bond of amity and love? They yet still breathe destruction, still go on, Inhumanly ingenious to find out New pains for life; new terrors for the grave; Artifices of Death! Still monarchs dream Of universal empire growing up From universal ruin. Blast the design, Great God of Hosts! nor let Thy creatures fall Unpitied victims at Ambition's shrine."

The Bishop, who was present, and who generally voted with the Ministry, was asked by an independent nobleman, if he were really the author of the lines that had been quoted. The Bishop replied, "Yes, my Lord; but--they were not composed for the present war."

CHARLES II. ON SERMON-READING.

The practice of reading sermons, now so prevalent, was reproved by Charles II., in the following ordinance on the subject, issued by the Chancellor of the University of Cambridge:--

"_Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen_,--Whereas his Majesty is informed, that the practice of reading sermons is generally taken up by the preachers before the University, and therefore continues even before himself; his Majesty hath commanded me to signify to you his pleasure, that the said practice, which took its beginning from the disorders of the late times, be wholly laid aside; and that the said preachers deliver their sermons, both in Latin and English, by memory without book; as being a way of preaching which his Majesty judgeth most agreeable to the use of foreign Churches, to the custom of the University heretofore, and to the nature of that holy exercise. And that his Majesty's command in these premises may be duly regarded and observed, his further pleasure is, that the names of all such ecclesiastical persons as shall continue the present supine and slothful way of preaching, be from time to time signified to me by the Vice-Chancellor for the time being, on pain of his Majesty's displeasure. October 8, 1674.

"MONMOUTH."

SOUTH ON THE COMMONWEALTH PREACHERS.

Dr. South, in one of his sermons, thus reflected on the untrained and fanatical preachers of the time of the Commonwealth--many of whom but too well deserved the strictures:--"It may not be amiss to take occasion to utter a great truth, as both worthy to be now considered, and never to be forgot,--namely, that if we reflect upon the late times of confusion which passed upon the ministry, we shall find that the grand design of the fanatic crew was to persuade the world that a standing settled ministry was wholly useless. This, I say, was the main point which they then drove at. And the great engine to effect this was by engaging men of several callings (and those the meaner still the better) to hold forth and harangue the multitude, sometimes in the streets, sometimes in churches, sometimes in barns, and sometimes from pulpits, and sometimes from tubs, and, in a word, wheresoever and howsoever they could clock the senseless and unthinking babble about them. And with this practice well followed, they (and their friends the Jesuits) concluded, that in some time it would be no hard matter to persuade the people, that if men of other professions were able to teach and preach the word, then to what purpose should there be a company of men brought up to it and maintained in it at the charge of a public allowance? especially when at the same time the truly godly so greedily gaped and grasped at it for their self-denying selves. So that preaching, we see, was their prime engine. But now what was it, which encouraged those men to set up for a work, which (if duly managed) was so difficult in itself, and which they were never bred to? Why, no doubt it was, that low, cheap, illiterate way, then commonly used, and cried up for the only gospel soul-searching way (as the word then went), and which the craftier set of them saw well enough, that with a little exercise and much confidence, they might in a short time come to equal, if not exceed; as it cannot be denied, but that some few of them (with the help of a few friends in masquerade) accordingly did. But, on the contrary, had preaching been made and reckoned a matter of solid and true learning, of theological knowledge and long and severe study (as the nature of it required it to be), assuredly no preaching cobbler amongst them all would ever have ventured so far beyond his last, as to undertake it. And consequently this their most powerful engine for supplanting the church and clergy had never been attempted, nor perhaps so much as thought on; and therefore of most singular benefit, no question, would it be to the public, if those who have authority to second their advice, would counsel the ignorant and the forward to consider what divinity is, and what they themselves are, and so to put up their preaching tools, their Medulla's note-books, their melleficiums, concordances, and all, and betake themselves to some useful trade, which nature had most particularly fitted them for."

PETER THE GREAT AS DENTIST.

The Czar Peter, impelled by natural curiosity and love of science, was very fond of witnessing dissections and operations. He first made these known in Russia, and gave orders to be informed when anything of the kind was going on at the hospitals, that he might, if possible, be present to gratify his love for such spectacles. He frequently aided the operator, and was able to dissect properly, to bleed, draw teeth, and perform other operations as well as one of the faculty. Along with a case of mathematical instruments, he always carried about with him a pouch furnished with surgical instruments. The wife of one of his valets had once a disagreeable experience of his skill. She was suspected of gallantry, and her husband vowed revenge. He sat in the ante-chamber with a sad and pensive face, provoking the Czar to inquire the occasion of his gloom. The valet said that nothing was wrong, except that his wife refused to have a tooth drawn that caused her great pain. The Czar desired that he should be allowed to cure her, and was at once taken to her apartment, where he made her sit down that he might examine her mouth, in spite of her earnest protestations that she had no toothache. The husband, however, alleging that she always said so when the physician was present, and renewed her lamentations when he departed, the Czar ordered him to hold her head and arms; and, pulling forth his instruments, promptly extracted the tooth which he supposed to be the cause of the pain, disregarding the piteous cries of the persecuted lady. But in a few days the Czar learned that the whole affair was a trick of the valet to torment his wife; and his Majesty thereupon, as his manner was, administered to him a very severe chastisement with his own hands.

A MILD CRITICISM.

While Sir Busick Harwood was Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge, he was called in, in a case of some difficulty, by the friends of a patient, who were anxious for his opinion of the malady. Being told the name of the medical man who had previously prescribed, Sir Busick exclaimed, "He! if he were to descend into the patient's stomach with a candle and lantern, when he ascended he would not be able to name the complaint!"

HOUR-GLASSES IN CHURCH.

To restrain over-eloquent or over-zealous preachers in the length of their discourses, hour-glasses were introduced in churches about the period of the Reformation. In the frontispiece prefixed to the Bible of the Bishops' Translation, printed in 1569, Archbishop Parker is represented with an hour-glass standing on his right hand. Clocks and watches being then but rarely in use, the hour-glass was had recourse to as the only convenient public remembrancer which the state of the arts could then supply. The practice of using them became generally prevalent, and continued till the period of the Revolution. The hour-glass was placed either on the side of the pulpit, or on a stand in front. "One whole houre-glasse," "one halfe houre-glasse," occur in an inventory taken about 1632 of the properties of the church of All Saints at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Daniel Burgess, a Nonconformist preacher at the commencement of last century, alike famous for the length of his pulpit harangues and the quaintness of his illustrations, was once vehemently declaiming against the sin of drunkenness. Having exhausted the customary time, he turned the hour-glass, and said, "Brethren, I have somewhat more to say on the nature and consequences of drunkenness; so let's have _the other glass and then_--" The jest, however, seems to have been borrowed from the frontispiece of a small book, entitled _England's Shame, or a Relation of the Life and Death of Hugh Peters_, published in 1663; where Peters is represented preaching, and holding an hour-glass in his left hand, in the act of saying, "I know you are good fellows; so let's have another glass."

THE METHODIST DOG.

In the early days of Methodism, meetings for preaching and prayer were held regularly about Bristol, and usually well attended. The people who had frequented these meetings had repeatedly observed a dog that came from a distance; and as at the house to which he belonged the Methodists were not respected, he always came alone. At that time, the preaching on Sunday began immediately after the church service ended; and this singular animal, invariably attending on those occasions, received the name of the "Methodist Dog." He was generally met by the congregation returning from the church, and abused and pelted by the boys belonging to that party. His regular attendance had often been the subject of public debate; and, merely to prove the sagacity of the animal, the meeting, for one evening, was removed to another house. Surprising as it may seem, at the proper and exact time he made his appearance. A few weeks after, his owner returning intoxicated from Leeds market, was drowned in a narrow shallow stream; and from that day the "Methodist Dog" ceased to attend the preaching. Concerning this odd fact, a good Methodist (John Nelson) used to say, "The frequent attendance of this dog at the meeting was designed to attract his master's curiosity, and engage him thereby to visit the place; where, hearing the gospel, he might have been enlightened, converted, and eternally saved. But the end to be answered being frustrated by the master's death, the means to secure it were no longer needful on the dog's part."

THE TWO GATES OF HEAVEN.

"God," says St. Pierre, in his _Harmonies of Nature_, "God has placed upon earth two gates that lead to heaven; He has set them at the two extremities of life--one at the entrance, the other at the issue. The first is that of innocence; the second, that of repentance."

GIBBON'S RETORT ON THE PHYSICIAN.

A good story of Gibbon the historian is told in Moore's Memoirs. Gibbon and an eminent French physician were rivals in courting the favour of Lady Elizabeth Foster. Impatient at Gibbon's occupying so much of her attention by his conversation, the doctor said crossly to him, "_Quand milady Elizabeth Foster sera malade de vos fadaises, je la guérirai_." [When my Lady Elizabeth Foster is made ill by your twaddle, I will cure her.] On which Gibbon, drawing himself up grandly, and looking disdainfully at the physician, replied, "_Quand milady Elizabeth Foster sera morte de vos recettes, je l'immortaliserai_." [When my Lady Elizabeth Foster is dead from your prescriptions, I will immortalize her.]

TRUMP CARDS.

Mrs. Bray relates the following instance of the power of a ruling passion or habit, concerning a Devonshire physician, boasting the not untradesmanlike name of Vial, who was a desperate lover of whist. One evening, in the midst of a deal, the doctor fell off his chair in a fit. Consternation seized on the company, who knew not whether he was alive or dead. At length he showed signs of returning life; and, retaining the last fond idea that had possessed him at the moment he fell into the fit, he exclaimed, "_What is trumps?_" A _bon-vivant_, brought to his deathbed by an immoderate use of wine, after having been told that he could not in all human probability survive many hours, and would die before eight o'clock next morning, summoned the small remnants of his strength to call the doctor back, and said, with the true recklessness of a gambler, "Doctor, I'll bet you a bottle that I live till nine!"

PERSUASIVENESS OF WHITFIELD.

Benjamin Franklin, in his memoirs, bears witness to the extraordinary effect that was produced by Whitfield's preaching in America, and tells an anecdote equally characteristic of the preacher and of himself. "I happened," says Franklin, "to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived that he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded, I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all. At this sermon there was also one of our club, who, being of my sentiments regarding the building in Georgia (the subject of Whitfield's appeal), and suspecting a collection might be intended, had by precaution emptied his pockets before he came from home. Towards the conclusion of the discourse, however, he felt a strong inclination to give, and applied to a neighbour who stood near him to lend him some money for the purpose. The request was fortunately made to perhaps the only man in the company who had the firmness not to be affected by the preacher. His answer was: 'At any other time, friend Hodgkinson, I would lend to thee freely; but not now, for thee seems to be out of thy right senses.'"

"PREACHING FOR A CROWN."

Howell Davies, who was Whitfield's Welsh coadjutor, walking one Sunday morning to preach, was accosted by a clergyman on horseback, who was bound on the same errand, and who complained of the unprofitable drudgery of his profession, saying that he could never get more than half-a-guinea for preaching. The Welshman replied that he for his part was content to preach _for a crown_. This so offended the mounted priest, that he upbraided the pedestrian for disgracing his cloth. "Perhaps," said Davies, "you will hold me still cheaper when I inform you that I am going nine miles to preach, and have only seven-pence in my pocket to bear my expenses out and in. But the crown for which I preach is a crown of glory."

SHEDDING HIS BLOOD FOR HIS COUNTRY.

Lord Radnor, who lived in the middle of last century, had a singular liking for the amateur employment of the lancet on the veins of his friends, or of persons whom he induced by gifts of money to allow him to display his skill upon them. It is told of Lord Chesterfield, that, desiring the vote of Lord Radnor in some division impending in the House of Lords, he went to him, and by and by, in the course of indifferent conversation, complained that he was suffering from a bad headache. Lord Radnor leaped at the opportunity of indulging his predilection for phlebotomy on such a _corpus nobile_; he told Lord Chesterfield that he ought to lose blood at once. "Do you indeed think so, my dear Lord? Then do me the favour to add to the service of your advice that of your skill. I know that you are a clever surgeon." In a moment Lord Radnor had pulled out his lancet case, and opened a vein in his visitor's arm; who subsequently, when the bandage was being put on, as if casually, asked the operator, "By the by, does your Lordship go down to the House to-day?" Lord Radnor answered that he had not intended going, not having information enough as to the question that was to be debated; "But on what side will you, that have considered the matter, vote?" Lord Chesterfield stated his views to his amateur surgeon, whose vanity he had so cleverly flattered; and left the house with the promise of Lord Radnor's vote--having literally, as he told an intensely amused party of his friends the same evening, "shed his blood for the good of his country."

DR. KIRWAN, DEAN OF KILLALA.

Towards the end of last century, there arose in Ireland an eminent preacher, who, to use the emphatic language of Grattan, "broke through the slumbers of the pulpit." This was Walter Blake Kirwan, originally a Catholic priest and Professor of Philosophy at Louvain, and afterwards chaplain to the Neapolitan embassy at London. In 1787 he resolved to conform to the Establishment, and preached for the first time to a Protestant congregation in St. Peter's Church at Dublin. He subsequently became Prebend of Howth, Rector of St. Nicholas, Dublin, and ultimately Dean of Killala. Wonders have been recorded of his attractiveness as a preacher. That he was a great orator, the manner in which he was attended abundantly proved. People crowded to hear him, who on no other occasion appeared within the walls of a church: men of the world, who had other pursuits, men of professions, physicians, lawyers, actors--in short, all to whom clergymen of the highest order had any charms. The pressure of the crowds was immense; guards were obliged to be stationed, and even palisades erected, to keep off from the largest churches the overflowing curiosity, which could not contribute adequately to the great charities for which he generally preached. The sums collected on these occasions exceeded anything ever before known. In one instance, such was the magical impression he produced, that many persons, ladies particularly, after contributing all the money they had about them, threw their watches, rings, and other valuable ornaments into the plate, and next day redeemed them with money. The produce of this triumph of pulpit oratory was indeed magnificent; it was no less than £1200--a much larger sum at that day than the figures represent in ours. Worn out by his labours, Dr. Kirwan died in 1805; and a book of sermons printed in 1814 is his sole literary memorial.

JEREMY TAYLOR.

Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down, from the fertility of his mind and the extent of his imagination, has been styled "the Shakespeare of English divines." His sermons abound with some of the most brilliant passages; and embrace such a variety of matter, and such a mass of knowledge and of learning, that even the acute Bishop Warburton said of him: "I can fathom the understandings of most men, yet I am not certain that I can fathom the understanding of Jeremy Taylor." His comparison between a married and a single life, in his sermon on the Blessedness of Marriage, is rich in tender sentiments and exquisitely elegant imagery. "Marriage," says the Bishop, "is the mother of the world, and preserves kingdoms, and fills cities, churches, and even heaven itself. Celibacy, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness; yet sits alone, and is confined, and dies in singularity. But marriage, like the useful bee, builds a house, and gathers sweetness from every flower, and labours and unites into societies and republics, and sends out colonies, and fills the world with delicacies, and obeys the king, keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the interest of mankind; and is that state of things to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world. Marriage hath in it the labour of love, and the delicacies of friendship; the blessings of society, and the union of hands and hearts. It hath in it less of beauty, but more of safety, than a single life; it is more merry and more sad; is fuller of joy and fuller of sorrow; it lies under more burthens, but is supported by the strength of love and charity; and these burthens are delightful."

A TWO-EDGED ACCUSATION.

Dr. Freind, like too many of the physicians of his time--under Queen Anne--was not very careful to keep his head clear and hand steady by moderation in tavern potations; and more often than not he was tipsy when he visited his patients. Once he entered the chamber of a lady of high rank in such a state of intoxicated confusion, that he could do nothing more than mutter to himself, "Drunk--drunk--drunk, by ----!" Happily, or unhappily, the lady, from the same cause, was not in any better case than the physician; and when she came to herself, she was informed by her maid that the doctor had briefly and gruffly described _her_ condition, and then abruptly taken his leave. Freind next day was puzzling as to the apology he should offer to his patient for his unfitness to deal with her ailment, when to his great joy there came a note from the lady, enclosing a handsome fee, and entreating him to keep his own counsel as to what he had seen.

RADCLIFFE AND KNELLER.

Sir Godfrey Kneller and Dr. Radcliffe lived next door to each other in Bow Street, just after the latter had come up to town, and were extremely intimate. Kneller had a very fine garden, and as the doctor was fond of flowers, he permitted him to have a door into it. Radcliffe's servants, however, gathering and destroying the flowers, Kneller sent to inform him that he would nail up the door; to which Radcliffe, in his rough manner, replied, "Tell him he may do anything but paint it."--"Well," retorted Kneller, "he may say what he will; for tell him, I will take anything from him, except physic."

SLAPS FOR SLEEPERS IN CHURCH.

A Methodist preacher once, observing that several of his congregation had fallen asleep, exclaimed with a loud voice, "A fire! a fire!" "Where? where?" cried his auditors, whom the alarm had thoroughly aroused from their slumbers. "In the place of judgment," said the preacher, "for those who sleep under the ministry of the holy gospel." Another preacher, of a different persuasion, more remarkable for drowsy hearers, finding himself in a like unpleasant situation with his auditory, or rather _dormitory_, suddenly stopped in his discourse, and, addressing himself in a whispering tone to a number of noisy children in the gallery, said, "Silence! silence! children; if you keep up such a noise, you will waken all the old folks below." Dr. South, chaplain of Charles II., once when preaching before the Court--then composed, as every one knows, of the most profligate and dissolute men in the nation--saw, in the middle of his discourse, that sleep had gradually made a conquest of his hearers. He immediately stopped short, and, changing his tone, called out to Lord Lauderdale three times. His Lordship standing up, Dr. South said, with great composure, "My Lord, I am sorry to interrupt your repose; but I must beg of you that you will not snore quite so loud, lest you awaken his Majesty."

Lassenius, chaplain to the Danish Court in the end of the seventeenth century, for a long time, to his vexation, had seen that during his sermon the greater part of the congregation fell asleep. One day he suddenly stopped, and, pulling shuttlecock and battledore from his pocket, began to play with them in the pulpit. This odd behaviour naturally attracted the attention of the hearers who were still awake; they jogged the sleepers, and in a very short time everybody was lively, and looking to the pulpit with the greatest astonishment. Then Lassenius began a very severe castigatory discourse, saying, "When I announce to you sacred and important truths, you are not ashamed to go to sleep; but when I play the fool, you are all eye and ear."

When Fenelon, as almoner, attended Louis XIV. to a sermon preached by a Capuchin, he fell asleep. The Capuchin perceived it, and breaking off his discourse, cried out, "Awake that sleeping Abbé, who comes here only to pay his court to the King;" a reproof which Fenelon himself often related with pleasure after he became Archbishop of Cambray.

A PRESCRIPTION FOR LONG LIFE.

In the reign of Francis I. of France, the saying went--

"_Lever à cinq, diner à neuf, Souper à cinq, coucher à neuf, Fait vivre d'ans nonante et neuf_;"

which we thus translate--

"Rising at five, and dining at nine, Supping at five, and bedding at nine, Brings the years of a man to ninety and nine."

ABERNETHY AND THE DUKE OF YORK.

The Duke of York once consulted Abernethy. During the time his Highness was in the room, the doctor stood before him with his hands in his pockets, waiting to be addressed, and whistling with great coolness. The Duke, naturally astonished at his conduct, said, "I suppose you know who I am?"--"Suppose I do; what of that? If your Highness of York wishes to be well, let me tell you," added the surgeon, "you must do as the Duke of Wellington often did in his campaigns,--_cut off the supplies_, and the enemy will quickly leave the citadel."

AN UNLUCKY COINCIDENCE.

Dean Ramsay "remembers in the parish church of Fettercairn, though it must be sixty years ago, a custom, still lingering in some parts of the country, of the precentor reading out each single line before it was sung by the congregation. This practice gave rise to a somewhat unlucky introduction of a line from the first Psalm. In most churches in Scotland the communion tables are placed in the centre of the church. After sermon and prayer, the seats round these tables are occupied by the communicants while a psalm is being sung. One communion Sunday, the precentor observed the noble family of Eglantine approaching the tables, and likely to be kept out by those who pressed in before them. Being very zealous for their accommodation, he called out to an individual whom he considered to be the principal obstacle in clearing the passage, 'Come back, Jock, and let in the noble family of Eglantine;' and then, turning to his psalm-book, he took up his duty, and went on to read the line, '_Nor stand in sinners' way_.'"

LICENSED LAY PREACHING.

In 1555, Mr. Tavernier, of Bresley, in Norfolk, had a special licence signed by Edward VI., authorizing him to preach in any part of his Majesty's dominions, though he was a layman; and he is said to have preached before the King at court, wearing a velvet bonnet or round cap, a damask gown, and a gold chain about his neck. In the reign of Mary he appeared in the pulpit of St. Mary's at Oxford, with a sword by his side and a gold chain about his neck, and preached to the scholars, opening his discourse in this wise: "Arriving at the mount of St. Mary's, in the stony stage where I now stand, I have brought you some fine biscuits, baked in the oven of charity, carefully conserved for the chickens of the church." This sort of style, especially the alliteration, was much admired in those days, even by the most accomplished scholars; and was long afterwards in high favour both with speakers and hearers. At the time Mr. Tavernier first received commission as a preacher, good preaching was so very scarce, that not only the King's chaplains were obliged to make circuits round the country to instruct the people, and to fortify them against Popery, but even laymen, who were scholars, were, as we have seen, employed for that purpose.

DR. BARROW'S RHYMES WITH REASON.

In the days of Charles II., candidates for holy orders were expected to respond in Latin to the various interrogatories put to them by the bishop or his examining chaplain. When the celebrated Barrow (who was fellow of Trinity College, and tutor to the immortal Newton) had taken his bachelor's degree, he presented himself before the bishop's chaplain, who, with the stiff stern visage of the times, said to Barrow--

"_Quid est fides?_" (What is faith?) "_Quod non vides_" (What thou dost not see),

answered Barrow with the utmost promptitude. The chaplain, a little annoyed at Barrow's laconic answer, continued--

"_Quid est spes?_" (What is hope?)

"_Magna res_" (A great thing),

replied the young candidate in the same breath.

"_Quid est caritas?_" (What is charity?)

was the next question.

"_Magna raritas_" (A great rarity),

was again the prompt reply of Barrow, blending truth and rhyme with a precision that staggered the reverend examiner, who went direct to the bishop and told him that a young Cantab had thought proper to give rhyming answers to three several moral questions, and added that he believed his name was Isaac Barrow, of Trinity College, Cambridge. "Barrow! Barrow!" said the bishop, who well knew the literary and moral worth of the young bachelor; "if that's the case, ask him no more questions, for he is much better qualified to examine us than we are to examine him." Barrow received his letters of orders forthwith.

HOW TO BE KEPT IN HEALTH.

Sir G. Staunton related a curious anecdote of old Kien Long, Emperor of China. He was inquiring of Sir George the manner in which physicians were paid in England. When, after some difficulty, his Majesty was made to comprehend the system, he exclaimed, "Is any man well in England, that can afford to be ill? Now, I will inform you," said he, "how I manage my physicians. I have four, to whom the care of my health is committed: a certain weekly salary is allowed them, but the moment I am ill, the salary stops till I am well again. I need not inform you that my illnesses are usually short."

JOHN HUNTER ROUTING THE ROUT.

Mr. Jeaffreson, in his amusing _Book about Doctors_, tells a good story about the great anatomist, John Hunter. "His wife, though devoted in her attachment to him, and in every respect a lady worthy of esteem, caused her husband at times no little vexation by her fondness for society. She was in the habit of giving enormous routs, at which authors and artists, of all shades of merit and demerit, used to assemble to render homage to her literary powers, which were very far from commonplace. Hunter had no sympathy with his wife's poetical aspirations, still less with the society which those aspirations led her to cultivate. Grudging the time which the labours of practice prevented him from devoting to the pursuits of his museum and laboratory, he could not restrain his too irritable temper when Mrs. Hunter's frivolous amusements deprived him of the quiet requisite for study.... Imagine the wrath of such a man, finding, on his return from a long day's work, his house full of musical professors, connoisseurs, and fashionable idlers--in fact, all the confusion and hubbub and heat of a grand party, which his lady had forgotten to inform him was that evening to come off! Walking straight into the middle of the principal reception-room, he faced round and surveyed his unwelcome guests, who were not a little surprised to see him--dusty, toil-worn, and grim--so unlike what 'the man of the house' ought to be on such an occasion. 'I knew nothing,' was his brief address to the astounded crowd--'I knew nothing of this kick-up, and I ought to have been informed of it beforehand; but, as I have now returned home to study, I hope the present company will retire.' Mrs. Hunter's drawing-rooms were speedily empty."

ANTICS OF THE FANATICS.

In concord, yet in contrast, with Dr. South's censure on the fanatics of the Commonwealth, noticed on a former page, we take this from the _Loyal Satirist, or Hudibras in Prose_, published among _Somers' Tracts_:--"Well, who's for Aldermanbury? You would think a phoenix preached there; but the birds will flock after an owl as fast; and a foot-ball in cold weather is as much followed as Calama (Calamy) by all his rampant dog-day zealots. But 'tis worth the crouding to hear the baboon expound like the ape taught to play on the cittern. You would think the church, as well as religion, were inversed, and the anticks which were used to be without were removed into the pulpit. Yet these apish tricks must be the motions of the spirit, his whimsie-meagrim must be an ecstatie, and Dr. G----, his palsy make him the father of the sanctified shakers. Thus, among Turks, dizziness is a divine trance, changlings and idiots are the chiefest saints, and 'tis the greatest sign of revelation to be out of one's wits.

"Instead of a dumb-shew, enter the sermon dawbers. O what a gracious sight is a silver inkhorn! How blessed a gift is it to write shorthand! What necessary implements for a saint are cotton wool and blotting-paper! These dablers turn the church into a scrivener's shop. A country fellow last term mistook it for the Six Clerks' Office. The parson looks like an offender upon the scaffold, and they penning his confession; or a spirit conjured up by their uncouth characters. By his cloak you would take him for the prologue to a play; but his sermon, by the length of it, should be a taylor's bill; and what treats it of but such buckram, fustian stuff? What a desperate green-sickness is the land fallen into, thus to doat on coals and dirt, and such rubbish divinity! Must the French cook our sermons too! and are frogs, fungos, and toadstools the chiefest dish in a spiritual collation? Strange Israelites! that cannot distinguish betwixt mildew and manna. Certainly in the brightest sunshine of the gospel clouds are the best guides; and woodcocks are the only birds of paradise. I wonder how the ignorant rabbies should differ so much, since most of their libraries consist only of a concordance. The wise men's star doubtless was an _ignis fatuus_ in a churchyard; and it was some such Will-o'-th'-Whisp steered prophetical Saltmarsh, when, riding post to heaven, he lost his way in so much of revelation as not to be understood; like the musick of the spheres, which never was heard."

POPE'S LAST EPIGRAM.

During Pope's last illness, it is said, a squabble happened in his chamber between his two physicians, Dr. Burton and Dr. Thomson, who mutually charged each other with hastening the death of the patient by improper treatment. Pope at length silenced them by saying, "Gentlemen, I only learn by your discourse that I am in a dangerous way; therefore, all I now ask is, that the following epigram may be added after my death to the next edition of the Dunciad, by way of postscript:--

'Dunces rejoice, forgive all censures past, The greatest dunce has kill'd your foe at last.'"

TRANSFUSION OF BLOOD.

The experiment of transferring the blood of one animal into the vascular system of another, by means of a tube connected with a vein of the receiving animal and an artery of the other--which had been unsuccessfully attempted in 1492 in the hope of saving the life of Pope Innocent VIII.--was first tried in England in the year 1657 by Clarke, who failed in his attempts. Lower, of Oxford, succeeded in 1665, and communicated his success to the Royal Society. This was on dogs. Coxe did it on pigeons; and Coxe and King afterwards exhibited the experiment on dogs before the Society, transfusing the blood from vein to vein. It was again performed from a sheep to a dog, and the experiment was frequently repeated. The first attempts at transfusion appear to have been instigated merely by curiosity, or by a disposition to inquire into the powers of animal economy. But higher views soon opened themselves; it was conceived that inveterate diseases, such as epilepsy, gout, and others, supposed to reside in the blood, might be expelled with that fluid; while with the blood of a sheep or calf the health and strength of the animal might be transferred to the patient. The most sanguine anticipations were indulged, and the new process was almost expected to realize the alchemical reveries of an elixir of life and immortality. The experiment was first tried in France, where the blood of a sheep, the most stupid of all animals, according to Buffon, was transfused into the veins of an idiotic youth, with the effect, as was asserted, of sharpening his wits; and a similar experiment was made without injury on a healthy man. Lower and King transferred blood from a sheep into the system of a literary man, who had offered himself for the experiment, at first without inconvenience, but afterwards with a less favourable result; the Royal Society still recommending perseverance in the trials. These events were not calculated to maintain the expectation of brilliant results that had been raised; and other occurrences produced still more severe disappointment. The French youth first mentioned died lethargic soon after the second transfusion; the physicians incurred great disgrace, and were judicially prosecuted by the relations. Not, however, discouraged by this unlucky event, they soon after transfused the blood of a calf into a youth related to the royal family, who died soon after of a local inflammation. The Parliament of Paris now interfered, and proscribed the practice; and two persons having died after transfusion at Rome, the Pope also issued a prohibitory edict. Since the publication in 1824, however, of Dr. Blundell's _Physiological and Pathological Researches_, transfusion has been recognised as a legitimate operation in obstetric surgery--the object being to obviate the effects of exhaustion from extreme loss of blood by hæmorrhage.

FATHER ANDRE BOULANGER.

France has produced several entertaining preachers, among whom was André Boulanger, better known as "little Father André," who died about the middle of the seventeenth century. His character has been variously drawn. He is by some represented as a buffoon in the pulpit; but others more judiciously observe, that he only indulged his natural genius, and uttered humorous and lively things to keep the attention of his audience awake. "He told many a bold truth," says the author of _Guerre des Auteurs, Anciens et Modernes_, "that sent bishops to their dioceses, and made many a coquette blush. He possessed the art of biting while he smiled; and more ably combated vice by his ingenious satire, than by those vague apostrophes which no one takes to himself. While others were straining their minds to catch at sublime thoughts which no one understood, he lowered his talents to the most humble situations, and to the minutest things." In fact, Father André seems to have been a sort of seventeenth century Spurgeon, as two samples may serve to show. In one of his sermons he compared the four doctors of the Latin Church to the four kings of cards. "St. Augustine," said he, "is the King of Hearts, for his great charity; St. Ambrose is the King of Clubs (_treflé_), by the flowers of his eloquence; St. Gregory is the King of Diamonds, for his strict regularity; and St. Jerome is the King of Spades (_pique_), for his piquant style." The Duke of Orleans once dared Father André to employ any ridiculous expression about him. This, however, the good father did, very adroitly. He addressed the Duke thus: "_Foin de vous, Monseigneur; foin de moi; foin de tous les auditeurs_." He saved himself from the consequences of his jest, by taking for his text the seventh verse of the tenth chapter of Isaiah, where it is said, "All the people are grass"--_Foin_ in French signifying hay, and being also an interjection, "Fie upon!"

AN INTERCESSOR FOR HIMSELF.

A Protestant renting a little farm under the second Duke of Gordon, a Catholic, fell behind in his payments; and the steward, in his master's absence, seized the farmer's stock and advertised it to be rouped on a certain day. In the interval, the Duke returned home, and the tenant went to him to entreat indulgence. "What is the matter, Donald?" said the Duke, seeing him enter with sad and downcast looks. Donald told his sorrowful tale concisely and naturally: it touched the Duke's heart, and produced a formal quittance of the debt. Donald, as he cheerily withdrew, was seen staring at the pictures and images he saw in the Duke's hall, and expressed to his Grace, in a homely way, a wish to know who they were. "These," said the Duke, "are the saints who intercede with God for me." "My Lord Duke," said the tenant, "would it not be better to apply yourself directly to God? I went to mickle Sandy Gordon, and to little Sandy Gordon; but if I had not come to your good Grace's self, I could not have got my discharge, and baith I and my bairns had been harried out of house and hame."

WHITFIELD'S INFLUENCE ON THE CHURCH.

Toplady speaks thus, in a sermon, of the Establishment to which he belonged, and the effect on its ministers of the work of Whitfield beyond its pale:--"I believe no denomination of professing Christians (the Church of Rome excepted) were so generally void of the light and life of godliness, so generally destitute of the doctrine and of the grace of the gospel, as was the Church of England, considered as a body, about fifty years ago. At that period, a _converted_ minister in the Establishment was as great a wonder as a comet; but now, blessed be God, since that precious, that great apostle of the English empire, the late dear Mr. Whitfield, was raised up in the spirit and power of Elias, the word of God has run and been glorified; many have believed and been added to the Lord all over the three kingdoms; and still, blessed be His name, the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls continues to issue His word; and great is the company of preachers, greater and greater every year." This was indeed a liberality far in advance of Toplady's time.

GENEROSITY OF DR. GREGORY.

It was the custom of the Professors of Edinburgh University, in the time of this amiable and learned man--as it is partly still--to receive at their own residences the fees from students intending to attend their lectures; some old students yet remembering that, when other material for the class-tickets failed, and sometimes even when it did not, the necessary formula was written on the back of a playing-card. While Dr. Gregory was one day at the receipt of fees, he left his room, in which was a single student, and went into an adjoining apartment for more admission cards. In this room there was a mirror, in which the doctor saw the student lift and pocket a portion of a pile of guineas that lay on the table. Dr. Gregory took no notice of what he had seen till he was showing the student out; but on the threshold he said, with a voice marked with deep emotion, "Young man, I saw what you did just now. Keep the money; I know what distress you must be in. But for God's sake never do it again; it can never succeed." The remorseful student sought in vain to persuade the Professor to take back the money: "No, this must be your punishment, that you must keep it now that you have taken it." The kind warning was not lost; the student, we are assured, turned out a good and honest man. At another time Gregory attended a poor medical student, ill of typhus fever, who offered him the customary fee of a guinea. The doctor refused it in silence, and with signs of annoyance and anger at the offer; whereupon the student hastily said, "I beg your pardon, Dr. Gregory; I did not know your rule. Dr. A. has always taken a fee." "Oh, he has, has he?" said Gregory; "then, my young friend, ask him to meet me here in consultation--and offer me the fee first." The consultation took place, and the student offered the fee; whereupon the good Gregory broke out: "Sir, do you mean to insult me? Is there a Professor in this University who would so far degrade himself, as to take payment from one of his brotherhood, and a junior?" Dr. A. did not enjoy the little scene that had been prepared for him; and that very day he returned the fees he had taken of the sick student.

RUDE TRUTH FOR A QUEEN.

It is well known to how great an extent Queen Elizabeth, with all her strength of mind, was beset by the weakness of her sex in what concerned her age and her personal appearance. "The majesty and gravity of a sceptre," says one of her contemporaries, "could not alter the nature of a woman in her. When Bishop Rudd was appointed to preach before her, he, wishing in a godly zeal, as well became him, that she should think sometimes of mortality, being then sixty-three years of age--he took his text fit for that purpose out of the Psalms, xc. 12: 'Teach us to _number_ our days, that we may incline our hearts unto wisdom;' which text he handled most learnedly. But when he spoke of some sacred and mystical numbers, as three for the Trinity, three times three for the heavenly hierarchy, seven for the Sabbath, and seven times seven for a jubilee; and lastly, nine times seven for the grand climacterical year (her age), she, perceiving whereto it tended, began to be troubled by it. The Bishop, discovering that all was not well, for the pulpit stood opposite her Majesty, he fell to treat of some more plausible (pleasing) numbers, as of the number 666, making _Latinus_, with which, he said, he could prove Pope to be Antichrist, etc. He still, however, interlarded his sermon with Scripture passages, touching the infirmities of age, as that in Ecclesiastes: 'When the grinders shall be few in number, and they wax dark that look out of the windows,' etc.; 'and the daughters of singing shall be abased;' and more to that purpose. The Queen, as the manner was, opened the window; but she was so far from giving him thanks or good countenance, that she said plainly: 'He might have kept his arithmetic for himself; but I see the greatest clerks are not the wisest men;' and so she went away discontented."

AN ARCHBISHOP'S INSTALLATION FEAST.

Fuller, in his _Church History_, relates that "George Nevill, brother to the great Earl of Warwick, at his instalment into the Archbishoprick of York, gave a prodigious feast to all the nobility, most of the prime clergy, and many of the great gentry, wherein, by his bill of fare, three hundred quarters of wheat, three hundred and thirty tuns of ale, one hundred and four tuns of wine, one pipe of spiced wine, eighty fat oxen, six wild bulls, one thousand and four wethers, three hundred hogs, three hundred calves, three thousand geese, three thousand capons, three hundred pigs, one hundred peacocks, two hundred cranes, two hundred kids, two thousand chickens, four thousand pigeons, four thousand rabbits, two hundred and four bitterns, four thousand ducks, two hundred pheasants, five hundred partridges, four thousand woodcocks, four hundred plovers, one hundred curlews, one hundred quails, one thousand egrets, two hundred roes, above four hundred bucks, does, and roebucks, one thousand five hundred and six hot venison pasties, four thousand cold venison pasties, one thousand dishes of jelly parted, four thousand dishes of plain jelly, four thousand cold custards, two thousand hot custards, three hundred pike, three hundred bream, eight seals, four porpoises, and four hundred tarts. At this feast the Earl of Warwick was steward, the Earl of Bedford, treasurer, the Lord of Hastings, comptroller, with many more noble officers; servitors, one thousand; cooks, sixty-two; kitcheners, five hundred and fifteen.... But," continues honest Fuller, "seven years after, the King seized on all the estate of this archbishop, and sent him over prisoner to Calais in France, where _vinctus jacuit in summa inopia_, he was kept bound in extreme poverty. Justice thus punished his former prodigality."

DA VINCI A GREAT ANATOMIST.

Leonardo Da Vinci, to his talents as a painter, added that of being the best anatomist and physiologist of his time, and was the first person who introduced the practice of making anatomical drawings. Vassari, in his _Lives of the Painters_, says that Leonardo made a book of studies, drawn with red chalk, and touched with a pen with great diligence, of such subjects as Marc Antonio de la Torre, an excellent philosopher of that day, had dissected. "And concerning those from part to part, he wrote remarks in letters of an ugly form, which are written by the left hand backwards, and not to be understood but by those who knew the method of reading them; for they are not to be read without a looking-glass." Those very drawings and writings alluded to by Vassari, were happily found to be preserved in the royal collection of original drawings, where Dr. Hunter was permitted to examine them. The Doctor, in noticing them, says: "I expected to see little more than such designs in anatomy as might be useful to the painter in his own profession; but I saw, and, indeed, with astonishment, that Leonardo had been a general and a deep student. When I consider what pains he has taken upon every part of the body, the superiority of his universal genius, his particular excellence in mechanics and hydraulics, and the attention with which such a man would examine and see objects which he was to draw, I am fully persuaded that Leonardo was the best anatomist at that time in the world."

EXTRAVAGANCES OF THE HERRNHUTERS.