Shakespere intended to convey the same political lesson, when he said “take physic pomp!” He used the word pomp instead of power, cautiously, for in those days it was a perilous thing to meddle with matters of state.
When the Philosopher Carneades undertook to confute Zeno the Stoic in public argument, (still reader Daniel loquitur) how did he prepare himself for the arduous disputation? by purging his head with hellebore, to the intent that the corrupt humours which ascended thither from the stomach should not disturb the seat of memory and judgment, and obscure his intellectual perception. The theory, Sir, was erroneous, but the principle is good. When we require best music from the instrument, ought we not first to be careful that all its parts are in good order, and if we find a string that jars, use our endeavours for tuning it?
It may have been the jest of a satirist that Dryden considered stewed prunes as the best means of putting his body into a state favourable for heroic composition; but that odd person George Wither tells us of himself that he usually watched and fasted when he composed, that his spirit was lost if at such times he tasted meat or drink, and that if he took a glass of wine he could not write a verse:—no wonder therefore that his verses were for the most part in a weak and watery vein.2 Father Paul Sarpi had a still more extraordinary custom; it is not to an enemy, but to his friend and admirers that we are indebted for informing us with what care that excellent writer attended to physical circumstance as affecting his intellectual powers. For when he was either reading or writing, alone, “his manner,” says Sir Henry Wotton, “was to sit fenced with a castle of paper about his chair, and over head; for he was of our Lord of St. Alban's opinion that all air is predatory, and especially hurtful when the spirits are most employed.”
2 The Greek Proverb, adverted to by Horace in i. Epist. xix., was in the Doctor's thoughts.
ὓδωρ δὲ πίνων οὐδὲν ἂν τέκοι σοφόν.
There should be a State Physician to the King, besides his Physicians ordinary and extraordinary,—one whose sole business should be to watch over the royal health as connected with the discharge of the royal functions, a head keeper of the King's health.
For the same reason there ought to be a Physician for the Cabinet, a Physician for the Privy Council, a Physician for the Bench of Bishops, a Physician for the twelve Judges, two for the House of Lords, four for the House of Commons, one for the Admiralty, one for the War Office, one for the Directors of the East India Company, (there was no Board of Controul in the Doctor's days, or he would certainly have advised that a Physician should be placed upon that Establishment also): one for the Lord Mayor, two for the Common Council, four for the Livery. (He was speaking in the days of Wilkes and Liberty). How much mischief, said he, might have been prevented by cupping the Lord Mayor, blistering a few of the Aldermen, administering salts and manna to lower the pulse of civic patriotism, and keeping the city orators upon a low regimen for a week before every public meeting.
Then in the Cabinet what evils might be averted by administering laxatives or corroborants as the case required.
In the Lords and Commons, by clearing away bile, evacuating ill humours and occasionally by cutting for the simples.3
3 The probable origin of this Proverb is given in Grose's Dictionary of the vulgar tongue.