"Then," rejoined Monsey, "you have very little wit, or very little money." The logic of this retort puts one in mind of the eccentric actor who, under somewhat similar circumstances, asked indignantly, "Then, sir, how dare you advance a statement in a public room which you are not prepared to substantiate with a bet!"
Monsey was a Unitarian, and not at all backward to avow his creed. As he was riding in Hyde Park with a Mr. Robinson, that gentleman, after deploring the corrupt morals of the age, said, with very bad taste, "But, Doctor, I talk with one who believes there is no God." "And I," retorted Monsey, "with one who believes there are three." Good Mr. Robinson was so horrified that he clapped spurs to his horse, galloped off, and never spoke to the doctor again.
Monsey's Whiggism introduced him to high society, but not to lucrative practice. Sir Robert Walpole always extoled the merits of his "Norfolk Doctor," but never advanced his interests. Instead of covering the great minister with adulation, Monsey treated him like an ordinary individual, telling him when his jokes were poor, and not hesitating to worst him in argument. "How happens it," asked Sir Robert, over his wine, "that nobody will beat me at billiards, or contradict me, but Dr. Monsey!" "Other people," put in the doctor, "get places—I get a dinner and praise." The Duke of Grafton treated him even worse. His Grace staved off paying the physician his bill for attending him and his family at Windsor, with promises of a place. When "the little place" fell vacant, Monsey called on the duke, and reminded him of his promise. "Ecod—ecod—ecod," was the answer, "but the Chamberlain has just been here to tell me he has promised it to Jack ——." When the disappointed applicant told the lord-chamberlain what had transpired, his Lordship replied, "Don't, for the world, tell his Grace; but before he knew I had promised it, here is a letter he sent me, soliciting for a third person."
Amongst the vagaries of this eccentric physician was the way in which he extracted his own teeth. Round the tooth sentenced to be drawn he fastened securely a strong piece of catgut, to the opposite end of which he affixed a bullet. With this bullet and a full measure of powder a pistol was charged. On the trigger being pulled, the operation was performed effectually and speedily. The doctor could only rarely prevail on his friends to permit him to remove their teeth by this original process. Once a gentleman who had agreed to try the novelty, and had even allowed the apparatus to be adjusted, at the last moment exclaimed, "Stop, stop, I've changed my mind!" "But I haven't, and you're a fool and a coward for your pains," answered the doctor, pulling the trigger. In another instant the tooth was extracted, much to the timid patient's delight and astonishment.
At Chelsea, to the last, the doctor saw on friendly terms all the distinguished medical men of his day. Cheselden, fonder of having his horses admired than his professional skill extolled, as Pope and Freind knew, was his frequent visitor. He had also his loves. To Mrs. Montague, for many years, he presented a copy of verses on the anniversary of her birth-day. But after his quarrel with Garrick, he saw but little of the lady, and was rarely, if ever, a visitor at her magnificent house in Portman Square. Another of his flames, too, was Miss Berry, of whom the loss still seems to be recent. In his old age, avarice—the very same failing he condemned so much in Garrick—developed itself in Monsey. In comparatively early life his mind was in a flighty state about money matters. For years he was a victim of that incredulity which makes the capitalist imagine a great and prosperous country to be the most insecure of all debtors. He preferred investing his money in any wild speculation to confiding it to the safe custody of the funds. Even his ready cash he for long could not bring himself to trust in the hands of a banker. When he left town for a trip, he had recourse to the most absurd schemes for the protection of his money. Before setting out, on one occasion, for a journey to Norfolk, incredulous with regard to cash-boxes and bureaus, he hid a considerable quantity of gold and notes in the fireplace of his study, covering them up artistically with cinders and shavings. A month afterwards, returning (luckily a few days before he was expected), he found his old house-maid preparing to entertain a few friends at tea in her master's room. The hospitable domestic was on the point of lighting the fire, and had just applied a candle to the doctor's notes, when he entered the room, seized on a pail of water that chanced to be standing near, and, throwing its contents over the fuel and the old woman, extinguished the fire and her presence of mind at the same time. Some of the notes, as it was, were injured, and the Bank of England made objections to cashing them.
To the last Monsey acted by his own rules instead of by those of other people. He lived to extreme old age, dying in his rooms in Chelsea College, on December 26th, 1788, in his ninety-fifth year; and his will was as remarkable as any other feature of his career. To a young lady mentioned in it, with the most lavish encomiums on her wit, taste, and elegance, was left an old battered snuff-box—not worth sixpence; and to another young lady, whom the testator says he intended to have enriched with a handsome legacy, he leaves the gratifying assurance that he changed his mind on finding her "a pert, conceited minx." After inveighing against bishops, deans, and chapters, he left an annuity to two clergymen who had resigned their preferment on account of the Athanasian doctrine. He directed that his body should not be insulted with any funeral ceremony, but should undergo dissection; after which, the "remainder of my carcase" (to use his own words) "may be put into a hole, or crammed into a box with holes, and thrown into the Thames." In obedience to this part of the will, Mr. Forster, surgeon, of Union Court, Broad Street, dissected the body, and delivered a lecture on it to the medical students in the theatre of Guy's Hospital. The bulk of the doctor's fortune, amounting to about £16,000, was left to his only daughter for life, and after her demise, by a complicated entail, to her female descendants. This only child, Charlotte Monsey, married William Alexander, a linen-draper in Cateaton Street, City, and had a numerous family. One of her daughters married the Rev. Edmund Rolfe, rector of Cockley Clay, Norfolk, of which union Robert Monsey Rolfe, Baron Cranworth of Cranworth, county of Norfolk, is the offspring.
Before making the above-named and final disposition of his body, the old man found vent for his ferocious cynicism and vulgar infidelity in the following epitaph, which is scarcely less characteristic of the society in which the writer had lived, than it is of the writer himself:—
"MOUNSEY'S EPITAPH, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF."
"Here lie my old bones; my vexation now ends;
I have lived much too long for myself and my friends.
As to churches and churchyards, which men may call holy,
'Tis a rank piece of priestcraft, and founded on folly.
What the next world may be never troubled my pate;
And be what it may, I beseech you, O fate,
When the bodies of millions rise up in a riot,
To let the old carcase of Mounsey be quiet."
Unpleasant old scamp though he in many respects was, Monsey retains even at this day so firm a hold of the affections of all students who like ferreting into the social history of the last century, that no chance letter of his writing is devoid of interest. The following specimen of his epistolary style, addressed to his fair patient, the accomplished and celebrated Mrs. Montague (his acquaintance with which lady has already been alluded to), is transcribed from the original manuscript in the possession of Dr. Diamond:—