In the church of St. Mary Magdalen, Taunton, is a monumental stone engraved with the following inscription:—

It is in memory of John Bond, M.A., the learned commentator on Horace and Persius. Educated at Winchester school, and then at New College, Oxford, he was elected master of the Taunton Grammar-school in the year 1579. For many years he presided over that seminary with great efficiency, and sent out into the world several eminent scholars. On arriving, however, at the middle age of life, he relinquished the mastership of the school, and turned his attention to the practice of medicine. His reputation and success as a physician were great—the worthy people of Taunton honouring him as "a wise man." He died August 3, 1612.

More than a century later than John Bond, schoolmaster and physician, appeared a greater celebrity in the person of James Jurin, who, from the position of a provincial pedagogue, raised himself to be regarded as first of the London physicians, and conspicuous amongst the philosophers of Europe. Jurin was born in 1684, and received his early education at Christ's Hospital—better known to the public as the Bluecoat school. After graduating in arts at Cambridge, he obtained the mastership of the grammar-school of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, January, 1710. In the following year he acquired the high academic distinction of a fellowship on the foundation of Trinity College; and the year after (1712) he published through the University press, his edition of Varenius's Geography, dedicated to Bentley. In 1718 and 1719 he contributed to the Philosophical Transactions the essays which involved him in controversies with Keill and Senac, and were, in the year 1732, reprinted in a collected form, under the title of "Physico-Mathematical Dissertations." Another of his important contributions to science was "An Essay on Distinct and Indistinct Vision," added to Smith's "System of Optics." Voltaire was not without good reason for styling him, in the Journal de Savans, "the famous Jurin."

Besides working zealously in his school, Jurin delivered lectures at Newcastle, on Experimental Philosophy. He worked very hard, his immediate object being to get and save money. As soon as he had laid by a clear thousand pounds, he left Newcastle, and returning to his University devoted himself to the study of medicine. From that time his course was a prosperous one. Having taken his M.D. degree, he settled in London, became a Fellow of the College of Physicians, a Fellow of the Royal Society (to which distinguished body he became secretary on the resignation of Dr. Halley in 1721), and a Physician of Guy's Hospital, as well as Governor of St. Thomas's. The friend of Sir Isaac Newton and Bentley did not lack patients. The consulting-rooms and ante-chambers of his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields received many visitors; so that he acquired considerable wealth, and had an estate and an imposing establishment at Clapton. Nichols speaks of him in one of his volumes as "James Jurin, M.D., sometime of Clapton in Hackney." It was, however, at his town residence that he died, March 22, 1750, of what the Gentleman's Magazine calls "a dead palsy," leaving by his will a considerable legacy to Christ's Hospital.

One might make a long list of Doctors Pedagogic, including poor Oliver Goldsmith, who used to wince and redden with shame and anger when the cant phrase, "It's all a holiday at Peckham," saluted his ears. Between Bond and Jurin, however, there were two tutors turned physicians, who may not be passed over without especial attention. Only a little prior to Jurin they knew many of his friends, and doubtless met him often in consultation. They were both authors—one of rare wit, and the other (as he himself boasted) of no wit; and they hated each other, as literary men know how to hate. In every respect, even down to the quarters of town which they inhabited, they were opposed to each other. One was a brilliant talker and frequented St. James's; the other was a pompous drone, and haunted the Mansion-house: a Jacobite the one, a Whig the other. The reader sees that these two worthies can be none other than Arbuthnot and Blackmore.

A wily, courtly, mirth-loving Scotchman, Arbuthnot had all the best qualities that are to be ordinarily found in a child of North Britain. Everybody knew him—nearly every one liked him. His satire, that was only rarely tinctured with bitterness—his tongue, powerful to mimic, flatter, or persuade—his polished manners and cordial bearing, would alone have made him a favourite with the ladies, had he not been what he was—one of the handsomest men about town. (Of course, in appearance he did not approach that magnificent gentleman, Beau Fielding). In conversation he was frank without being noisy; and there hung about him—tavern-haunting wit though he was—an air of simplicity, tempering his reckless fun, that was very pleasant and very winning. Pope, Parnell, Garth, Gay, were society much more to his taste than the stately big-wigs of Warwick Hall. And next to drinking wine with such men, the good-humoured doctor enjoyed flirting with the maids of honour, and taking part in a political intrigue. No wonder that Swift valued him as a priceless treasure—"loved him," as he wrote to Stella, "ten times as much" as jolly, tippling Dr. Freind.

It was arm in arm with him that the Dean used to peer about St. James's, jesting, snarling, laughing, causing dowagers to smile at "that dear Mr. Dean," and young girls, up for their first year at Court—green and unsophisticated—to blush with annoyance at his coarse, shameless badinage; bowing to this great man (from whom he hoped for countenance), staring insolently at that one (from whom he was sure of nothing but enmity), quoting Martial to a mitred courtier (because the prelate couldn't understand Latin), whispering French to a youthful diplomatist (because the boy knew no tongue but English), preparing impromptu compliments for "royal Anna" (as our dear worthy ancestors used to call Mrs. Masham's intimate friend), or with his glorious blue eyes sending a glance, eloquent of admiration and homage, at a fair and influential supporter; cringing, fawning, flattering—in fact, angling for the bishopric he was never to get. With Arbuthnot it was that Swift tried the dinners and wine of every hotel round Covent Garden, or in the city. From Arbuthnot it was that the Dean, during his periods of official exile, received his best and surest information of the battles of the cliques, the scandals of the Court, the contentions of parties, the prospects of ministers, and (most important subject by far) the health of the Queen.

Some of the most pleasant pictures in the "Journal to Stella" are those in which the kindly presence of the Doctor softens the asperity of the Dean. Most readers of these pages have accompanied the two "brothers" in their excursion to the course the day before the horse-races, when they overtook Miss Forrester, the pretty maid of honour, and made her accompany them. The lady was taking the air on her palfrey, habited in the piquant riding-dress of the period—the natty three-cornered cocked hat, ornamented with gold lace, and perched on the top of a long flowing periwig, powdered to the whiteness of snow, the long coat cut like a coachman's, the waistcoat flapped and faced, and lastly the habit-skirt. One sees the belle at this time smiling archly, with all the power of beauty, and shaking the handle of her whip at the divine and the physician. So they took her with them (and they weren't wrong in doing so). Then the old Queen came by, gouty and hypochondriac. Off went the hats of the two courtiers in the presence of her Majesty. The beauty, too, raised her little three-cornered cock-boat (rising on her stirrup as she did so), and returned it to the summit of the flowing wig, with a knowing side-glance, as much as to say, "See, sirs, we women can do that sort of thing quite as gracefully as the lords of the creation." (Oh, Mr. Spectator, how could you find it in you to quarrel with that costume?) Swift was charmed, and described enough of the scene to make that foolish Stella frantically jealous; and then, prudent, canny love-tyrant that he was, added with a sneer—"I did not like her, though she be a toast, and was dressed like a man." And you may be sure that poor little Stella was both fool enough and wise enough both to believe and disbelieve this assurance at the same time.

Arbuthnot owed his success in no degree whatever to the influence of his family, and only in a very slight degree to his professional knowledge. His father was only a poor episcopalian clergyman, and his M.D. degree was only an Aberdeen one. He rose by his wit, rare conversational powers, and fascinating address, achieving eminence at Court because he was the greatest master of fence with the weapon that is most used in courts—the tongue. He failed to get a living amongst rustic boors, who appreciated no effort of the human voice but a fox-hunter's whoop. Dorchester, where as a young man he endeavoured to establish himself in practice, refused to give him an income, but it doubtless maintained more than one dull empiric in opulence. In London he met with a different reception. For a time he was very poor, and resorted to the most hateful of all occupations—the personal instruction of the ignorant. How long he was so engaged is uncertain. Something of Goldsmith's "Peckham" sensibility made him not care in after-life to talk of the days when he was a teacher of mathematics—starving on pupils until he should be permitted to grow fat on patients.

The patients were not long in coming. The literary reputation he obtained by his "Examination of Dr Woodward's Account of the Deluge," elicited by Woodward's "Essay towards a Natural History of the Earth," instead of frightening the sick from him, brought them to him. Accidentally called in to Prince George of Denmark, when his Royal Highness was suddenly taken ill at Epsom, he made himself so agreeable that the casual introduction became a permanent connection. In 1709, on the illness of Hannes (a physician who also understood the art of rising in spite of obstacles) he was appointed physician-in-ordinary to Queen Anne.

To secure the good graces of his royal patient, and rise yet higher in them, he adopted a tone of affection for her as a person, as well as loyal devotion to her as a queen. The fall of Radcliffe warned him that he had need of caution in dealing with the weak-minded, querulous, crotchety, self-indulgent invalid.

"What's the time?" asked the Queen of him one day."Whatever it may please your Majesty," answered the court-physician, with a graceful bow.

After all, the best testimony of a man's merit is the opinion held of him by those of his acquaintance who know him intimately—at home as well as abroad. By all who came within the circle of Arbuthnot's privacy he was respected as much as loved. And his associates were no common men. Pope, addressing him as "the friend of his life," says:—

Pope's concluding wish—

"Oh, friend! may each domestic bliss be thine."

was ineffectual. Arbuthnot's health failed under his habits of intemperance, and during his latter years he was a terrible sufferer from asthma and melancholy. After the Queen's death he went for the benefit of his health on the continent, and visited his brother, a Paris banker. Returning to London he took a house in Dover Street, from which he moved to the residence in Cork Street, Burlington Gardens, where he died Feb. 27, 1734-5. He died in straitened circumstances; for unlike his fellow-countryman, Colonel Chartres, he had not the faculty of saving. But with failing energies, an excruciated frame, and the heart-burden of a family unprovided for, he maintained a philosophic equanimity, and displayed his old unvarying consideration for all who surrounded him.

Arbuthnot's epitaph on Colonel Chartres (almost as well known as Martinus Scriblerus) is a good specimen of his humour:—

"Here continueth to rot,
The Body of Francis Chartres.
Who, with an indefatigable constancy,
And inimitable Uniformity of life,
Persisted,
In spite of Age and Infirmities,
In the practice of every Human Vice,
Excepting Prodigality and Hypocrisy:
His insatiable Avarice exempting him from the First,
His matchless impudence from the Second.
Nor was he more singular in the Undeviating Pravity
Of his manners, than successful
In accumulating Wealth:
For, without Trade or Profession,
Without trust of public money,
And without bribe-worthy service,
He acquired, or more properly created,
A ministerial estate.
He was the only person of this time
Who could cheat without the Mask of Honesty,
Retain his primÆval meanness when possessed of
Ten thousand a-year:
And having duly deserved the Gibbet for what he did,
Was at last condemned to it for what he could not do.
Oh, indignant reader!
Think not his life useless to mankind:
Providence connived at his execrable designs,
To give to After-age a conspicuous
Proof and Example
Of how small estimation is exorbitant Wealth
In the sight of God, by His bestowing it on
The most unworthy of Mortals."

The history of the worthy person whose reputation is here embalmed is interesting. Beginning life as an ensign in the army, he was drummed out of his regiment, banished Brussels, and ignominiously expelled from Ghent, for cheating. As a miser he saved, and as a usurer he increased, the money which he won as a blackleg and card-sharper. Twice was he condemned to death for heinous offences, but contrived to purchase pardon; and, after all, he was fortunate enough to die in his own bed, in his native country, Scotland, A. D. 1731, aged sixty-two. At his funeral the indignant mob, feeling that justice had not been done to the dear departed, raised a riot, insulted the mourners, and, when the coffin was lowered into the grave, threw upon it a magnificent collection of dead dogs!

In a similar and scarcely less magnificent vein of humour, Arbuthnot wrote another epitaph—on a greyhound:—

"To the memory of
Signor Fido,
An Italian of Good Extraction:
Who came into England,
Not to bite us, like most of his countrymen,
But to gain an honest livelihood:
He hunted not after fame,
Yet acquired it:
Regardless of the Praise of his Friends,
But most sensible of their love:
Tho' he liv'd amongst the great,
He neither learn'd nor flatter'd any vice:
He was no Bigot,
Tho' he doubted of none of the thirty-nine articles;
And if to follow Nature,
And to respect the laws of Society,
Be Philosophy,
He was a perfect Phi losopher,
A faithful Friend,
An agreeable Companion,
A loving Husband,
Distinguished by a numerous Offspring,
All of which he lived to see take good courses;
In his old age he retired
To the House of a Clergyman in the Country,
Where he finished his earthly Race,
And died an Honour and an Example to the whole Species.
Reader,
This stone is guiltless of Flattery,
For he to whom it is inscribed
Was not a man,
But a
Greyhound."

In the concluding lines there is a touch of Sterne. They also call to mind Byron's epitaph on his dog.

These epitaphs put the writer in mind of the literary ambition of the eminent Dr. James Gregory of Edinburgh. His great aim was to be the Inscriptor (as he styled it) of his age. No distinguished person died without the doctor promptly striking off his characteristics in a mural legend. For every statue erected to heroes, real or sham, he composed an inscription, and interested himself warmly to have it adopted. Amongst the public monuments on which his compositions may be found are the Nelson Monument at Edinburgh, and the Duke of Wellington's shield at Gibraltar. On King Robert Bruce, Charles Edward Stuart, his mother, Sir James Foulis de Collington, and Robertson the historian, he also produced commemorative inscriptions of great excellence. As a very fair specimen of his style the inscription on the Seott Flagon is transcribed:—

"Gualterum Scott,
De Abbotsford,
Virum summi Ingenii
Scriptorem Elegantem
Poetarum sui seculi facile Principem
PatriÆ Decus
Ob varia ergo ipsam merita
In civium suorum numerum
Grata adscripsit Civitas Edinburgensis
Et hoc Cantharo donavit
A. D. MDCCCXIII."

Sir Richard Blackmore, the other pedagogue physician, was one of those good, injudicious mortals who always either praise or blame too much—usually the latter. The son of a Wiltshire attorney, he was educated at Westminster School and Oxford, taking his degree of M.A. June, 1676, and residing, in all, thirteen years in the university, during a portion of which protracted period of residence he was (though Dr. Johnson erroneously supposed the reverse) a laborious student. On leaving Oxford he passed through a course of searching poverty, and became a schoolmaster. In this earlier part of his life he travelled in France, Germany, the Low Countries, and Italy, and took his doctor's degree in the University of Padua. On turning his attention to medicine, he consulted Sydenham as to what authors he ought to read. "Don Quixote," replied the veteran. A similar answer has been attributed to Lord Erskine on being asked by a law student the best literary sources for acquiring legal knowledge and success. The scepticism of the reply reminds one of Garth, who, to an anxious patient inquiring what physician he had best call in in case of his (Garth's) death, responded, "One is e'en as good as t'other, and surgeons are not less knowing."

As a poet, Blackmore failed, but as a physician he was for many years one of the most successful men in his profession. Living at Sadler's Hall, Cheapside, he was the oracle of all the wealthiest citizens, and was blessed with an affluence that allowed him to drive about town in a handsome equipage, and make an imposing figure to the world. Industrious, honourable, and cordially liked by his personal friends, he was by no means the paltry fellow that Dryden and Pope represented him. Johnson, in his brilliant memoir, treated him very unfairly, and clearly was annoyed that his conscience would not allow him to treat him worse. On altogether insufficient grounds the doctor argued that his knowledge of ancient authors was superficial, and for the most part derived from secondary sources. Passages indeed are introduced to show that the ridicule and contempt showered on the poet by his adversaries, and re-echoed by the laughing world, were unjust; but the effect of these admissions, complete in themselves, is more than counterbalanced by the sarcasms (and some of them vulgar sarcasms too) which the biographer, in imitation of Colonel Codrington, Sir Charles Sedley, and Colonel Blount, directs against the city knight.

A sincerely religious man, Blackmore was offended with the gross licentiousness of the drama, and all those productions of the poets which constituted the light literature of the eighteenth century. To his eternal honour, Blackmore was the first man who had the courage to raise his voice against the evil, and give utterance to a manly indignation at the insults offered nightly in every theatre to public decency. Unskilled in the use of the pen, of an age when he could not hope to perfect himself in an art to which he had not in youth systematically trained himself, and immersed in the cares of an extensive practice, he set himself to work on the production of a poem, which should elevate and instruct, not vitiate and deprave youthful readers. In this spirit "Prince Arthur" was composed and published in 1695, when the author was between forty and fifty years of age. It was written, as he frankly acknowledged, "by such catches and starts, and in such occasional uncertain hours as his profession afforded, and for the greatest part in coffee-houses, or in passing up and down streets." The wits laughed at him for writing "to the rumbling of his chariot-wheels," but at this date, ridicule thrown on a man for doing good at odd scraps of a busy day, has a close similarity to the laughter of fools. Let any reader compare the healthy gentlemanlike tone of the preface to "Prince Arthur," with the mean animosity of all the virulent criticisms and sarcasms that were directed against the author and his works, and then decide on which side truth and good taste lie.

Blackmore made the fatal error of writing too much. His long poems wearied the patience of those who sympathized with his goodness of intention. What a list there is of them, in Swift's inscription, "to be put under Sir Richard's picture!"

Nor is this by any means a complete list of Sir Richard's works; for he was also a voluminous medical writer, and author of a "History of the Conspiracy against the Person and Government of King William the Third, of glorious memory, in the year 1695."

Dryden, unable to clear himself of the charge of pandering for gain to the licentious tastes of the age, responded to his accuser by calling him an "ass," a "pedant," a "quack," and a "canting preacher."

The former of the kings alluded to is James the Second, Blackmore having obtained his fellowship of the College of Physicians, April 12, 1687, under the new charter granted to the college by that monarch; the latter being William the Third, who, in recognition of the doctor's zeal and influence as a Whig, not less than of his eminence in his profession, made him a physician of the household, and knighted him.

Pope says:—

The bard of Twickenham had of course a few ill words for Blackmore. In the Dunciad he says:—

Elsewhere, in the same poem, the little wasp of poetry continues his hissing song:—

Such being the tone of the generals, the reader can imagine that of the petty scribblers, the professional libellers, the coffee-house rakes, and literary amateurs of the Temple, who formed the rabble of the vast army against which the doctor had pitted himself, in defence of public decency and domestic morality. Under the title of "Commendatory Verses, on the author of the two Arthurs, and the Satyr against Wit, by some of his particular friends," were collected, in the year 1700, upwards of forty sets of ribald verses, taunting Sir Richard with his early poverty, with his having been a school-master, with the unspeakable baseness of—living in the city. The writers of these wretched dirty lampoons, that no kitchen-maid could in our day read without blushing, little thought what they were doing. Their obscene stupidity has secured for them the lasting ignominy to which they imagined they were consigning their antagonist. What a crew they are!—with chivalric Steel and kindly Garth, forgetting their better natures, and joining in the miserable riot! To "The City Quack"; "The Cheapside Knight"; "The Illustrious Quack, Pedant, Bard"; "The Merry Poetaster of Sadler's Hall"—such are the titles by which they address the doctor, who had presumed to say that authors and men of wit ought to find a worthier exercise for their intellects than the manufacture of impure jests.

Colonel Codrington makes his shot thus—

The same dull sarcasms about killing patients and whipping boys into blockheads are repeated over and over again. As if to show, with the greatest possible force, the pitch to which the evil of the times had risen, the coarsest and most disgusting of all these lampoon-writers was a lady of rank—the Countess of Sandwich. By the side of her Ladyship, Afra Behn and Mistress Manley become timid blushing maidens. A better defence of Sir Richard than the Countess's attack on him it would be impossible to imagine.

And after all—the slander and the maledictions—Sir Richard Blackmore gained the victory, and the wits who never wearied of calling him "a fool" were defeated. The preface to "Prince Arthur" provoked discussion; the good sense and better taste of the country were roused, and took the reformer's side of the controversy. Pope and his myrmidons, it was true, were still able to make the beau monde merry about the city knight's presumption—but they could not refute the city knight's arguments; and they themselves were compelled to shape their conduct, as writers, in deference to a new public feeling which he was an important instrument in calling into existence. "Prince Arthur" appeared in 1695, and to the commotion caused by its preface may be attributed much of the success of Jeremy Collier's "Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the Stage," which was published some three years afterwards.

As a poet Sir Richard Blackmore can command only that praise which the charitable bestow on goodness of intention. His muse was a pleasant, well-looking, right-minded young lady, but nothing more. But it must be remembered, before we measure out our criticisms on his productions, that he never arrogated to himself the highest honours of poesy. "I am a gentleman of taste and culture, and though I cannot ever hope to build up the nervous lines of Dryden, or attain the polish and brilliance of Congreve, I believe I can write what the generation sorely needs—works that intelligent men may study with improvement, devout Christians may read without being offended, and pure-minded girls may peruse without blushing from shame. 'Tis true I am a hard-worked doctor, spending my days in coffee-houses, receiving apothecaries, or driving over the stones in my carriage, visiting my patients. Of course a man so circumstanced must fail to achieve artistic excellence, but still I'll do my best." Such was the language with which he introduced himself to the public.

His best poem, The Creation, had such merit that his carping biographer, Johnson, says, "This poem, if he had written nothing else, would have transmitted him to posterity one of the first favourites of the English muse"; and Addison designated the same poem "one of the most useful and noble productions in our English verse."

Of Sir Richard's private character Johnson remarks—"In some part of his life, it is not known when, his indigence compelled him to teach a school—a humiliation with which, though it certainly lasted but a little while, his enemies did not forget to reproach him when he became conspicuous enough to excite malevolence; and let it be remembered, for his honour, that to have been a schoolmaster is the only reproach which all the perspicacity of malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private life."