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 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 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."
MATHEWS OH HIS DEATHBED.
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."
BISHOP BERKELEY'S BERMUDA SCHEME.
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 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."
A HOME-THRUST AT STERNE.
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."
THE GOSPEL A NOVELTY.
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, 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."