Garth thus describes a prosperous physician:—
Triumphant Plenty, with a chearful grace
Basks in their Eyes, and sparkles in their Face.
How sleik their looks, how goodly is their Mien,
When big they strut behind a double Chin.
Each Faculty in blandishments they lull,
Aspiring to be venerably dull.
Like his descendant of modern times, who cannot possibly be clever in his profession unless he drives two horses to his brougham, the physician of Queen Anne's reign had to have his coach; but then it must have at least four horses—of course he must be vastly cleverer if he could drive six—but still, his equipage must be well appointed, and in the fashion. Of course he need not go to the extent Radcliffe did; but Radcliffe made himself the laughing-stock of the town, both by the gaiety of his turn-out and by a rumour getting abroad that he had started it with the idea of favourably impressing a young and wealthy lady, to whom this old Adonis of sixty would needs pay his addresses—in which scheme, alas for the doctor! he was not successful. Steele could not resist having a bit of fun over it. 'This day, passing through Covent garden, I was stopped in the piazza by Pacolet, to observe what he called the Triumph of Love and Youth. I turned to the object he pointed at, and there I saw a gay gilt Chariot, drawn by fresh prancing horses; the Coachman with a new Cockade, and the lacqueys with insolence and plenty in their countenances. I asked immediately, "What young heir or lover owned that glittering equipage?" But my companion interrupted: "Do you not see there the mourning Æsculapius?" "The mourning?" said I. "Yes, Isaac," said Pacolet, "he's in deep mourning, and is the languishing, hopeless lover of the divine Hebe,[535] the emblem of youth and beauty."'[536]
His rival Hannes set up a beautiful carriage, etc., and it excited universal attention. Some friend told him that Hannes' horses were the finest he had seen. 'Ah,' snarled old Radcliffe, 'then he'll he able to sell 'em for all the more.'
The principal physicians of Anne's reign were Dr. Radcliffe, Sir Samuel Garth, Sir Hans Sloane, and Dr. Mead.
The first was born in 1650, took his M.D. degree in 1682, came to London in 1684, and, somehow, at once got into good practice. He was called in to the poor little Duke of Gloucester, when too late to be of any service, and consoled himself by soundly rating the two physicians, Sir E. Hannes and Sir Rd. Blackmore, for their previous conduct of the case. But he was not the court physician, for which he had himself to thank. The Queen, when the Princess Anne, got somewhat hypochondriac, after the death of her sister Queen Mary, and sent for Radcliffe to come at once to see her. He was at a tavern in St. James's, enjoying his bottle. He knew there was nothing the matter, and physicians were not so smooth-tongued as they are now: so he very rudely refused to go, and sent back a message that it was all fancy, and that her Royal Highness was as well as anyone else. Next morning he presented himself at the palace, only to be informed that he had been dismissed, and that Dr. Gibbons had already received his appointment. The Queen would never forgive him; but, on her death-bed, he was sent for to attend her, when he returned as answer that 'he had taken physic and could not come.' The Queen died, and great was the popular wrath against the doctor for his refusal. He might have saved her life, said the people; and after the manner of their kind, they sent him threatening letters; nay, a friend of his moved that he might be summoned to attend in his place in Parliament (he was member for the town of Buckingham) in order to be censured for not attending her Majesty. He did not long survive her, dying on Nov. 1, 1714.
One anecdote told of him is too good not to be repeated. He would never even pay a tradesman without squabbling over the account. A paviour had been repairing the pavement in front of his house, and when he applied for his money was told he had spoiled it, and then covered it with earth to hide his bad work. 'Doctor,' replied the man, 'mine is not the only bad work the earth hides.'
Sir Samuel Garth took his degree of M.D. in 1691, was elected a Fellow of the College in 1692, and took a prominent part in the famous dispute as to the Dispensary—writing in 1699 his poem of that name, which had at once a large sale. Garth wrote many poems, translated Ovid, and it was to him that Dryden owed his public funeral, for, as Ward says, 'they had like to let him pass in private to his Grave, without those Funeral Obsequies suitable to his Greatness, had it not been for that true British Worthy, who, Meeting with the Venerable Remains of the neglected Bard passing silently in a Coach, unregarded, to his last Home, ordered the Corps, by the consent of his few Friends that Attended him to be Respited from so obscure an Interment; and most Generously undertook at his own Expence, to revive his Worth in the Minds of a forgetful People, by bestowing on his peaceful Dust a Solemn Funeral Answerable to his Merit.' He had the body removed to the College of Physicians, where it lay in state previous to its removal, with great pomp, to Westminster Abbey.
He was a member of the Kit Cat Club, and the story is told of him that one day at a meeting of that club he sat so long over his wine that Steele reminded him of his duty to his patients. Garth replied that 'it was no matter whether he saw them that night or next morning, for nine had such bad constitutions that no physician could save them, and the other six had such good ones that all the physicians in the world could not kill them.' He died Jan. 18, 1719.
The name of Sir Hans Sloane is undoubtedly the most familiar to the ears of this generation of all the doctors of that time; especially to Londoners, Sloane Street and Square, and Hans Place, being all reminiscences of him, through the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth with the second Baron Cadogan.