Part 10

To curb his tongue, out of respect to Abernethy's humour, was an impossibility to John Philpot Curran. Eight times Curran (who was personally unknown to Abernethy) had called on the great surgeon; and eight times Abernethy had looked at the orator's tongue (telling him that it was the most unclean and utterly abominable tongue in the world); had curtly advised him to drink less, and not abuse his stomach with gormandizing; had taken a guinea, and had bowed him out of the room. On the ninth visit, just as he was about to be dismissed in the same summary fashion, Curran said, "Mr. Abernethy, I have been here on eight different days, and I have paid you eight different guineas, but you have never yet listened to the symptoms of my complaint. I am resolved, sir, not to leave the room till you satisfy me by doing so." With a good-natured laugh, Abernethy leaned back in his chair and said, "Oh! very well, sir; I am ready to hear you out. Go on, give me the whole--your birth, parentage, and education. I wait your pleasure. Pray be as minute and tedious as you can." Curran gravely began:--"Sir, my name is John Philpot Curran. My parents were poor, but, I believe, honest people, of the province of Munster, where also I was born, at Newmarket, in the county of Cork, in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty. My father being employed to collect the rents of a Protestant gentleman of small fortune, in that neighbourhood, procured my admission into one of the Protestant free schools, where I obtained the first rudiments of my education. I was next enabled to enter Trinity College, Dublin, in the humble sphere of a sizar--." And so he went steadily on, till he had thrown Abernethy into convulsions of laughter.

WITTICISMS OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

"What is the difference," asked Archbishop Whately of a young clergyman he was examining, "between a form and a ceremony? The meaning seems nearly the same; yet there is a very nice distinction." Various answers were given. "Well," he said, "it lies in this: you sit upon a _form_, but you stand upon _ceremony_."

"Morrow's Library" is the Mudie's of Dublin, and the Rev. Mr. Day a popular preacher. "How inconsistent," said Archbishop Whately, "is the piety of certain ladies here! They go to _Day_ for a sermon, and to _Morrow_ for a novel!"

At a dinner-party Archbishop Whately called out suddenly to the host: "Mr. ----!" There was silence. "Mr. ----, what is the proper female companion of this John Dory?" After the usual number of guesses the answer came: "_Anne Chovy._"

WHITFIELD AND THE KINGSWOOD COLLIERS.

The crowds that attended the preaching of Whitfield, first suggested to him the thought of preaching in the open air. When he mentioned this to some of his friends, they judged it was mere madness; nor did he begin to practise it until he went to Bristol, when, finding the churches denied to him, he preached on a hill at Kingswood to the colliers. After he had done this three or four times, his congregation is said to have amounted to twenty thousand persons. He effected a great moral reform among these colliers by his preaching. "The first discovery," he tells us, "of their being affected, was to see the white gutters made by their tears, which plentifully fell down their black cheeks, as they came out of their coal-pits." After this he preached frequently in the open air in the vicinity of London, and in other parts of the country, to thousands of auditors.

SIR HANS SLOANE.

This illustrious physician, President of the Royal Society and the College of Physicians, and the founder of the British Museum, was born at Killaleagh, in the north of Ireland, in 1660. He settled in London in 1684, and was in great repute as a practitioner in the time of Radcliffe, with whom he was acquainted, though they were never friends. On his arrival in London, he waited on Sydenham with a letter of introduction, in which a friend had set forth his qualifications in glowing language, as "a ripe scholar, a good botanist, a skilful anatomist." Sydenham read the recommendation, and eyed the young man very narrowly; then he said, "All this is mighty fine, but it won't do. Anatomy--botany--nonsense! Sir, I know an old woman in Covent Garden who understands botany better; and as for anatomy, my butcher can dissect a joint just as well. No, no, young man, this is all stuff; you must go to the bedside,--it is there alone that you can learn disease." In spite of this mortifying reception, however, Sydenham afterwards took the greatest interest in Sloane, frequently making the young man accompany him in his chariot on his favourite airing. It was against the strongly expressed wish of Sydenham that Sloane went to Jamaica--where he gathered abundant materials for the book on the natural history of that island, which he published at intervals from 1707 till 1725. He neglected, when he was settled in successful practice in London, no means that could advance the interests of literature and science. He presented to the Apothecaries' Company the fee-simple of their gardens, on conditions as honourable to their fame as to his own. It was his public spirit and humanity that suggested the plan of the "Dispensary," the opposition to which gave rise to the beautiful and famous poem of Garth, which alone preserves the memory of the contest and the disputants on this much-vexed subject. Sloane was made a baronet in 1716; but his greatest glory was his succession to Sir Isaac Newton in the Presidency of the Royal Society. Sloane had previously acted as secretary; and an evidence is given of the high sense entertained by that body for his services and his virtues, by their expulsion of Dr. Woodward from the council, for affronting him by making grimaces, and by interrupting him, while reading a paper of his own composition, with a grossly insulting remark. Sir Isaac Newton was in the chair when the expulsion of Woodward came under discussion; and some one pleading in his favour that he was a good natural philosopher, Newton interfered with the remark, that "in order to belong to that Society, a man ought to be a good moral philosopher as well as a good natural one." In 1746 Sloane retired from practice; and in 1748 he was visited by the Prince of Wales, the father of George III., who went to see a collection and library that were the ornament of the nation. The Prince duly estimated the value and excellence of the collection, and at the same time remarked "how much it must conduce to the benefit of learning, and how great an honour must redound to Britain, to have it established for public use to the latest posterity." It is probable that by this time the intention of Sir Hans to bequeath his collection to the nation had transpired; at all events, when he died, in 1752, it was found by his will that his collections, which had cost £50,000, and included 50,000 books and manuscripts, had been left to the nation, on condition of the payment of £20,000 to his heirs. Parliament voted £100,000 to fulfil the bargain and increase the collection; and in 1759 the British Museum, founded on Sir Hans Sloane's bequest, was first opened at Montague House. Sir Hans had the reputation of being one of the most abstemious and parsimonious of eminent physicians--his absorbing love for his museum forbidding us to blame or sneer at a failing from which the country reaped such splendid fruit. He is said to have given up his winter soirees in Bloomsbury Square, to save the tea and bread and butter he had to dispense to the guests. At one of the latest of these entertainments, Handel was present, and gave grave offence to the scientific baronet by laying a muffin on one of his books. "To be sure it was a gareless trick," said the composer, a little brutally, when telling the story, "bud it tid no monsdrous mischief; bud it pode the old poog-vorm treadfully oud of sorts. I offered my best apologies, bud the old miser would not have done with it. If it had been a biscuit it would not have mattered; but muffin and pudder! And I said, 'Ah, mine Gotd, that is the rub!--it is the pudder!' Now, mine worthy friend, Sir Hans Sloane, you have a nodable excuse, you may save your doast and pudder, and lay it to that unfeeling gormandizing German; and den I knows it will add something to your life by sparing your burse.'"

THE REV. ROWLAND HILL,

While once travelling alone, was accosted by a footpad, who, by the agitation of his voice and manner, appeared to be new to his profession. After delivering to the assailant his watch and purse, curiosity prompted Mr. Hill to examine him as to the motives that had urged him to so desperate a course. The man candidly confessed, that being out of employment, with a wife and children who were perishing of want, despair had forced him to turn robber; but that this was the first act of the kind in which he had been engaged. Mr. Hill, struck with the apparent sincerity of the man, and feeling for his distress, gave his name and address, and asked him to call on him the next day. The man did so, and was immediately taken into the service of the humane divine, where he continued till his death. Nor did Mr. Hill ever divulge the circumstance, until he related it in the funeral sermon which he preached on the death of his domestic. The same clergyman being called to visit a sick man, found a poor emaciated creature in a wretched bed, without anything to alleviate his misery. Looking more narrowly, he observed that the man was actually without a shirt, on which Mr. Hill instantly stripped himself, and forced his own upon the reluctant but grateful object; then, buttoning himself up closely, he hastened homewards, sent all that was needed to relieve the destitute being he had left, provided medical aid, and had the satisfaction of restoring a fellow-creature to his family.

"MAKE THE MOST OF HIM."

Dr. Moore, the author of _Zeluco_, told the following little story, which suggests that physicians are not always disinclined to recoup themselves for their generosity, by making the rich and foolish pay through the nose:--"A wealthy tradesman, after drinking the Bath waters, took a fancy to try the effect of the Bristol hot wells. Armed with an introduction from a Bath physician to a professional brother at Bristol, the invalid set out on his journey. On the road he gave way to his curiosity to read the Doctor's letter of introduction, and cautiously prying into it read these instructive words: 'Dear sir, the bearer is a fat Wiltshire clothier--make the most of him.'"

A PACIFIC SHE.

Sir William Dawes, Archbishop of York, loved a pun very well. His clergy dining with him for the first time after he had lost his lady, he told them he feared they did not find things in so good order as they used to be in the time of poor Mary; and, looking extremely sorrowful, he added with a deep sigh, "She was, indeed, _Mare Pacificum_." A curate, who knew pretty well what the deceased lady had been in her domestic relations, said, "Aye, my Lord, but she was _Mare Mortuum_ first!"

TIME AND ETERNITY.

When Archbishop Leighton was minister of a parish in Scotland, the question was asked of the ministers in their Synod or provincial meeting, whether they preached the duties of the times. When it was found that Leighton did not, and he was blamed for his remissness, he made the answer and defence: "If all the brethren have preached on the _times_, may not one poor brother be suffered to preach on _eternity_?"

PHYSICIANS AND CLERGYMEN.

A peculiar sympathy has always existed between these two professions, when the second had need of the first; and the times were, and for some are not yet past, when the condition of the clergy gave them a very powerful claim on the generosity of the physicians. A poor clergyman, settled in London on a curacy of fifty pounds per annum, with a wife and numerous family, was known to the good Quaker, Dr. Fothergill. An epidemic disease seized upon the curate's wife and five children. In his distress he looked to the doctor for his assistance, but dared not apply to him, not being able to pay him for his attendance. A friend, who knew his situation, kindly offered to accompany him to the Doctor's house, and give him his fee. They took the advantage of his hour of audience; and, after a description of the several cases, the fee was offered, and rejected, but note was taken of the curate's place of residence. The Doctor called assiduously the next and every succeeding day, until his attendance was no longer necessary. The curate, anxious to return some mark of the sense he entertained of the Doctor's services, strained every nerve to accomplish it; but his astonishment was not to be described, when, instead of receiving the money he offered, with apologies for his situation, the Doctor put ten guineas into his hand, desiring him to apply without diffidence in future difficulties.--Dr. Wilson, of Bath, sent a present of £50 to an indigent clergyman, whom he had met in the course of practice. The gentleman who had engaged to convey the gift to the unfortunate priest, said, "Well, then, I'll take the money to him to-morrow." "Oh, my dear sir," said the Doctor, "take it to him to-night. Only think of the importance to a sick man of one good night's rest!"

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