And Pericles, with his supposed dead wife in his arms, turning to Cerimon, who has saved her from the grave, says:—
“Reverend Sir,
The gods can have no mortal officer
More like a god than you.”
And Gower, speaking the concluding lines of the play, adds:—
“In reverend Cerimon there well appears
The worth that learned charity aye wears.”
“Cerimon: I hold it ever
Virtue and cunning (wisdom) were endowment greater
Than nobleness and riches....”
There was, perhaps, when Shakespeare wrote the above lines, some thought of the Elizabethan nobleman, Edmund, Earl of Derby, who “was famous for chirurgerie, bone-setting, and hospitalite,” as Ward says in his Diary; of the Marquis of Dorchester, who in his time was a Fellow of the College of Surgeons; or of the poet’s son-in-law, Dr. Hall, a gentleman who resided in Stratford-on-Avon, in a fine old half timber house still standing, and known as Hall’s Croft. To his wife, the poet’s elder daughter, Shakespeare bequeathed his house and grounds, which Dr. Hall occupied when he died. His grave is near that of his glorious father-in-law, and on it is the following inscription:—
“Here Lyeth Ye Body of John Hall,
Gent: He Marr: svsanna Ye daughter
and co heire of Will. Shakespeare,
Gent. Hee Deceased Nover 25 ao 1635
aged 60.
Hallius hic situs est medica celeberrimus arte
Expectans regni gaudia læta Dei
Dignus erat meritis qui Nestora vinceret annis,
In terris omnes, sed rapit aequa dies;
Ne tumulo, quid desit adest fidissima conjux
Et vitæ Comitem nunc quoque mortis habet.”
Dickens’ Doctors.
By Thomas Frost.