The country doctor, such as we know him—a well-read and observant man, skilful in his art, with a liberal love of science, and in every respect a gentleman—is so recent a creation, that he may almost be spoken of as a production of the present century. There still linger in the provinces veteran representatives of the ignorance which, in the middle of the last century, was the prevailing characteristic of the rural apothecary. Even as late as 1816, the law required no medical education in a practitioner of the healing art in country districts, beyond an apprenticeship to an empiric, who frequently had not information of any kind, beyond the rudest elements of a druggist's learning, to impart to his pupils. Men who commenced business under this system are still to be found in every English county, though in most cases they endeavour to conceal their lack of scientific culture under German or Scotch diplomas—bought for a few pounds.

Scattered over these pages are many anecdotes of provincial doctors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from which a truthful but not complimentary picture of their order may be obtained. Indeed, they were for the most part vulgar drunken knaves, with just learning enough to impose on the foolish crowds who resorted to them. The most brilliant of the fraternity in Henry the Eighth's reign was Andrew Borde, a Winchester practitioner. This gentleman was author and buffoon, as well as physician. He travelled about the country from market to fair, and from fair to market, making comic orations to the crowds who purchased his nostrums, singing songs, and enlivening the proceedings when they were becoming dull with grimaces of inexpressible drollery. It was said of Sir John Hill,

Borde's physic doubtless was a farce; but if his wit resembled physic, it did so, not (like Hill's) by making men sick, but by rousing their spirits and bracing their nerves with good hearty laughter. Everywhere he was known as "Merry Andrew," and his followers, when they mounted the bank, were proud to receive the same title.

Mr. H. Fleetwood Sheppard communicated in the year 1855, some amusing anecdotes to "Notes and Queries" about the popular Dorsetshire doctor—little Dr. Grey. Small but warlike, this gentleman, in the reign of James the First, had a following of well-born roisterers that enabled him to beard the High Sheriff at the assizes. He was always in debt, but as he always carried a brandy-flask and a brace of loaded pistols in his pocket or about his neck, he neither experienced the mental harass of impecuniosity nor feared bailiffs. In the hour of peril he blew a horn, which he wore suspended to his person, and the gentlemen of his body-guard rallied round him, vowing they were his "sons," and would die for him. Says the MS.—"This Doctor Grey was once arreste by a pedler, who coming to his house knocked at ye dore as yey (he being desirous of Hobedyes) useth to doe, and ye pedler having gartars upon his armes, and points, &c., asked him whether he did wante any points or gartars, &c., pedler like. Grey hereat began to storme, and ye other tooke him by ye arme, and told him that he had no neede be so angry, and holdinge him fast, told him y he had ye kinge's proces for him, and showed him his warrant. 'Hast thou?' quoth Grey, and stoode stil awhile; but at length, catchinge ye fellowe by both ends of his collar before, held him fast, and drawinge out a great rundagger, brake his head in two or three places."

Again, Dr. Grey "came one day at ye assizes, wheare ye sheriffe had some sixty men, and he wth his twenty sonnes, ye trustyest young gentlemen and of ye best sort and rancke, came and drancke in Dorchester before ye sheriffe, and bad who dare to touch him; and so after awhile blew his horn and came away." On the same terms who would not like to be a Dorsetshire physician?

In 1569 (vide "Roberts' History of the Southern Counties") Lyme had no medical practitioner. And at the beginning of the seventeenth century Sir Symonds D'Ewes was brought into the world at Coxden Hall, near Axminster, by a female practitioner, who deformed him for life by her clumsiness. Yet more, Mrs. D'Ewes set out with her infant for London, when the babe, unable to bear the jolting of the carriage, screamed itself into a violent illness, and had to be left behind at Dorchester under the care of another doctress—Mrs. Margaret Waltham. And two generations later, in 1665, the Rev. Giles Moore, of Essex, had to send twenty-five miles for an ordinary medical man, who was paid 12s. per visit, and the same distance for a physician, whose fee was £1—a second physician, who came and stayed two days, being paid £1 10s.

Of the country doctors of the middle and close of the last century, Dr. Slop is a fair specimen. They were a rude, vulgar, keen-witted set of men, possessing much the same sort of intelligence, and disfigured by the same kind of ignorance, as a country gentleman expects now to find in his farrier. They had to do battle with the village nurses at the best on equal terms, often at a disadvantage; masculine dignity and superior medical erudition being in many districts of less account than the force of old usage, and the sense of decorum that supported the lady practitioners. Mrs. Shandy had an express provision in her marriage settlement, securing her from the ignorance of country doctors. Of course, in respect to learning and personal acquirements, the rural practitioners, as a class, varied very much, in accordance with the intelligence and culture of the district in which their days were spent, with the class and character of their patients, and with their own connections and original social condition. On his Yorkshire living Sterne came in contact with a rought lot. The Whitworth Taylors were captains and leaders of the army in which Dr. Slop was a private. The original of the last-mentioned worthy was so ill-read that he mistook LithopÆdii Senonensis Icon for the name of a distinguished surgical authority, and, under this erroneous impression, quoted LithopÆdus Senonensis with the extreme of gravity.

This LithopÆdus Senonensis story is not without its companions. A prescription, in which a physician ordered extract, rad valer., and immediately under it, as an ingredient in the same mixture, a certain quantity of tinctura ejusdem, sorely perplexed the poor apothecary to who it was sent to be dispensed. Tinctura ejusdem! What could it be! Ejusdem! In the whole pharmacopoeia such a drug was not named. Nothing like it was to be found on any label in his shop. At his wits' end, the poor fellow went out to a professional neighbour, and asked, in an off-hand way, "How are you off for Tinctura Ejusdem? I am out of it. So can you let me have a little of yours." The neighbour, who was a sufficiently good classical scholar to have idem, eadem, idem at his tongue's end, lamented that he too was "out of the article." and sympathizingly advised his confrÈre, without loss of time, to apply for some at Apothecaries' Hall. What a delightful blunder to make to a friend, of all the people in the world! The apothecary must have been a dull as well as an unlettered fellow, or he would have known the first great rule of his art—"When in doubt—Use water!" A more awkward mistake still was that made by the young dispenser, who, for the first time in his life, saw at the end of a prescription the words pro re natÂ. What could they mean? pro re natÂ! What could pro re nat have to do with a mixture sent to a lady who had just presented her husband with an heir. With the aid of a Latin Dictionary, the novice rendered pro re nat "for the thing born." Of course. Clearly the mixture was for the baby. And in a trice the compound to be taken by an adult, as circumstances should indicate a necessity for a dose, was sent off for the "little stranger."

May not mention here be made of thee, ancient friend of childhood, Roland Trevor? The whole country round, for a circle of which the diameter measured thirty fair miles, thou wert one of the most popular doctors of East Anglia. Who rode better horses? Who was the bolder in the hunt, or more joyous over the bottle? Cheery of voice, with hearty laughter rolling from purple lips, what company thou wert to festive squires! The grave some score years since closed over thee, when ninety-six years had passed over thy head—covering it with silver tresses, and robbing the eye of its pristine fire, and the lip of its mirthful curl. The shop of a country apothecary had been thy only Alma Mater; so, surely, it was no fault of thine if thy learning was scanty. Still, in the pleasant vales of Loes and Wilford is told the story of how, on being asked if thou wert a believer in phrenology, thou didst answer with becoming gravity, "I never keep it, and I never use it. But I think it highly probable that, given frequently and in liberal doses, it would be very useful in certain cases of irregular gout."

Another memory arises of a country doctor of the old school. A huge, burly, surly, churlish old fellow was Dr. Standish. He died in extremely advanced age, having lived twenty-five years in the present century. A ferocious radical, he was an object of considerable public interest during the period of political excitement consequent on the French Revolution. Tom Paine, the Thetford breeches-maker of whom the world has heard a little, was his familiar friend and correspondent. It was rumoured throughout the land that "government" had marked the doctor out for destruction.

"Thar sai," the humbler Suffolk farmers used to gossip amongst themselves, "thar sai a picter-taikin chap hav guv his poortright to the King. And Billy Pitt ha'sin it. And oold King Georgie ha' swaren as how that sooner nor later he'll hav his hid" (i. e. head).

The "upper ten" of Holmnook, and the upper ten-times-ten of the distance round about Holmnook, held themselves aloof from such a dangerous character. But the common folk believed in and admired him. There was something of romance about a man whom George III. and Billy Pitt were banded together to destroy.

Standish was a man of few words. "Down with the bishops!" "Up with the people!" were his stock sentiments. He never approached nearer poetry than when (yellow being then the colour of the extreme liberal party in his district) he swore "there worn't a flower in the who' o' crashun warth lookin' at but a sunflower, for that was yallow, and a big un."

The man had no friends in Holmnook or the neighbourhood; but every evening for fifty years he sate, in the parlour of the chief inn, drinking brandy-and-water, and smoking a "churchwarden." His wife—(his wooing must have been of a queer sort)—a quiet, inoffensive little body, sometimes forgot she was but a woman, and presumed to have an opinion of her own. On such occasions Standish thrashed her soundly with a dog-whip. In consequence of one of these castigations she ran away from her tyrant. Instead of pursuing her, Dr. Standish merely inserted the following advertisement in the county paper:—

"Dr Standish to all whom it may concern.—Dr Standish's wife having run away, he wants a housekeeper. Dr Standish doesn't want good looks in a woman: but she must know how to hold her tongue and cook a plain joint. He gives ten pounds. Mrs Standish needn't apply—she's too much of a lady."

But poor Mrs. Standish did apply, and, what is more, obtained the situation. She and her lord never again had any quarrel that obtained publicity; and so the affair ended more happily than in all probability it would have done had Sir Creswell Creswell's court been then in existence. Standish's practice lay principally amongst the mechanics and little farmers of the neighborhood. Much of his time was therefore spent in riding his two huge lumbering horses about the country. In his old age he indulged himself in a gig (which, out of respect to radical politics, he painted with a flaring yellow paint); but, at the commencement of the present century, the by-roads of Suffolk—now so good that a London brougham drawn by one horse can with ease whisk over the worst of them at the rate of ten miles an hour—were so bad that a doctor could not make an ordinary round on them in a wheeled carriage. Even in the saddle he ran frequent risk of being mired, unless his horse had an abundance of bone and pluck.

Standish's mode of riding was characteristic of the man. Straight on he went, at a lumbering six miles an hour trot—dash, dosh, dush!—through the muddy roads, sitting loosely in his seat, heavy and shapeless as a sack of potatoes, looking down at his brown corduroy breeches and his mahogany top-boots (the toes of which pointed in directly opposite directions), wearing a perpetual scowl on his brows, and never either rising in his stirrups or fixing himself to the saddle with his knees. Not a word would he speak to a living creature in the way of civil greeting.

"Doctor, good morning to you," an acquaintance would cry out; "'tis a nice day!"

"Ugh!" Standish would half grunt, half roar, trotting straight on—dish, dosh, dush!

"Stop, doctor, I am out of sorts, and want some physic," would be the second form of address.

"Then why the —— —— didn't you say so, instead of jawing about the weather?" the urbane physician would say, checking his horse.

Standish never turned out an inch for any wayfarer. Sullen and overbearing, he rode straight on upon one side of the road; and, however narrow the way might be, he never swerved a barley-corn from his line for horse or rider, cart or carriage. Our dear friend Charley Halifax gave him a smart lesson in good manners on this point. Charley had brought a well-bred hackney, and a large fund of animal spirits, down from Cambridge to a title for orders in mid-Suffolk. He had met Standish in the cottages of some of his flock, and afterwards meeting elsewhere, had greeted him, and had no greeting in return. It was not long ere Charley learnt all about the clownish apothecary, and speedily did he devise a scheme for humbling him. The next time he saw Standish in the distance, trotting on towards him, Charley put his heels to his horse, and charged the man of drugs at full gallop. Standish came lumbering on, disdaining to look before him and ascertain who was clattering along at such a pace. On arriving within six feet of Standish's horse, Halifax fell back on his curb-rein, and pulled up sharp. Astonished, but more sensible than his master, Standish's horse (as Charley knew would be the case) suddenly came to a dead stop, on which Standish rolled over its head into the muddy highway. As he rolled over, he threw out a volley of oaths. "Ah, doctor," cried Charley, good-humoredly, "I said I would make you speak to me." Standish was six feet high, and a powerful man. For a few moments, on recovering his legs, he looked as if he contemplated an assault on the young parson. But he thought better of it; and, climbing into his seat once more, trotted on, without another word—dish, dosh, dush! The incident didn't tend to soften his feelings toward the Established Church.

The country doctor of the last century always went his rounds on horseback booted and spurred. The state of the roads rendered any other mode of travelling impracticable to men who had not only to use the highways and coach-roads, but to make their way up bridle-paths, and drifts, and lanes, to secluded farmsteads and outlying villages. Even as late as the last generation, in Suffolk, where now people drive to and fro at the rate of twelve miles an hour, a doctor (whom the writer of these pages has reason to think of with affection) was more than once mired, on a slightly-built blood horse, so effectually, that he had to dismount ere the animal could be extricated; and this happened in roads that at the present time are, in all seasons, firm as a garden walk.

Describing the appearance of a country doctor of this period, a writer observes—"When first I saw him, it was on Frampton Green. I was somewhat his junior in years, and had heard so much of him that I had no small curiosity to see him. He was dressed in a blue coat and yellow buttons, buckskins, well-polished jockey-boots, with handsome silver spurs, and he carried a smart whip with a silver handle. His hair, after the fashion, was done up in a club, and he wore a broad-brimmed hat." Such was the appearance of Jenner, as he galloped across the vale of Gloucester, visiting his patients. There is little to remind us of such a personage as this in the statue in Trafalgar Square, which is the slowly-offered tribute of our gratitude to Edward Jenner for his imperishable services to mankind. The opposition that Jenner met with in his labours to free our species from a hideous malady that, destroying life and obliterating beauty, spared neither the cottage nor the palace, is a subject on which it is painful to reflect. The learned of his own profession and the vulgar of all ranks combined to persecute and insult him; and when the merit of his inestimable discovery was acknowledged by all intelligent persons, he received from his country a remuneration that was little better than total neglect.

While acting as an apprentice to a country surgeon he first conceived the possibility of checking the ravages of small-pox. A young servant woman, who accidentally said that she was guarded from that disease by having "had cow-pox," first apprized him that amongst the servants of a rural population a belief existed that the virus from the diseased cow, on being absorbed by the human system, was a preventive against small-pox. From that time, till the ultimate success of his inquiries, he never lost sight of the subject.

The ridicule and misrepresentation to which he was subjected are at this date more pleasant for us to laugh at than, at the time, they were for him to bear. The ignorant populace of London was instructed that people, on being vaccinated, ran great risks of being converted into members of the bovine family. The appearance of hair covering the whole body, of horns and a tail, followed in many cases the operation. The condition of an unhappy child was pathetically described, who, brutified by vaccine ichor, persisted in running on all-fours and roaring like a bull. Dr. Woodville and Dr. Moseley opposed Jenner, the latter with a violence that little became a scientific inquirer. Numerous were the squibs and caricatures the controversy called forth. Jenner was represented as riding on a cow—an animal certainly not adapted to show the doctor ("booted and spurred" as we have just seen him) off to the best advantage. Of Moseley the comic muse sung:

If London was unjust to him, the wiseacres of Gloucestershire thought that burning was his fit punishment. One dear old lady, whenever she saw him leaving his house, used to run out and attack him with indescribable vivacity. "So your book," cried this charming matron, in genuine Gloucestershire dialect, "is out at last. Well! I can tell you that there bean't a copy sold in our town, nor shan't neither, if I can help it." On hearing, subsequent to the publication of the book (a great offence to the old lady!), some rumours of vaccination failures, the same goodie bustled up to the doctor and cried, with galling irony, "Shan't us have a general inoculation now?"

But Jenner was compensated for this worthy woman's opposition in the enthusiastic support of Rowland Hill, who not only advocated vaccination in his ordinary conversation, but from the pulpit used to say, after his sermon to his congregation, wherever he preached, "I am ready to vaccinate to-morrow morning as many children as you choose; and if you wish them to escape that horrid disease, the small-pox, you will bring them." A Vaccine Board was also established at the Surrey Chapel—i. e. the Octagon Chapel, in Blackfriars Road.

"My Lord," said Rowland Hill once to a nobleman, "allow me to present to your Lordship my friend, Dr. Jenner, who has been the means of saving more lives than any other man."

"Ah!" observed Jenner, "would that I, like you, could say—souls."

There was no cant in this. Jenner was a simple, unaffected, and devout man. His last words were, "I do not marvel that men are grateful to me, but I am surprised that they do not feel gratitude to God for making me a medium of good."

Of Jenner's more sprightly humour, the following epigrams from his pen (communicated to the writer of these pages by Dr. E. D. Moore of Salop), are good specimens.

"TO MY SPANISH CIGAR.

"ON THE DEATH OF JOHN AND BETTY COLE.

"ON MISS JENNER AND MISS EMILY WORTHINGTON TEARING THE "GLOBE" NEWSPAPER.

Dr. Jenner was very fond of scribbling currente calamo such verses as these. The following specimens of his literary prowess have, we believe, never before been published.

HANNAH BALL.—A SONG.

This is a happy little satire on a vilage scandal. The Methodist parson and Roger were amongst the doctor's rustic neighbours.

On a quarrel between Butler, the Methodist parson of Frampton, and Roger his clerk. Butler accused the clerk of stealing his liquors, and the clerk accused Butler of stealing his bacon.

"Quoth good parson Butler to Rogers his clerk,
'How things come to light that are done in the dark!
My wine is all pilfer'd,—a sad piece of work,—
But a word with thee, Richard—I see thou'rt no Turk.'

"'What evil befall us!'—quoth Dick in reply,
Whilst contempt methodistical glanced from his eye,—
'My bacon's slipt off too—alas, sir! 'tis true,
And the fact seems to whisper that—you are no Jew.'"

The most daring of Jenner's epigrams, out of the scores that we have perused, is the following—

ON READING ADAM SMITH.

"The priests may exclaim against cursing and swearing,
And tell us such things are quite beyond bearing;
But 'tis clear as the day their denouncing's a sham;
For a thousand good things may be learnt from Adam."

Babbage, in his "Decline of Science in England," has remarked that "some of the most valuable names which adorn the history of English science have been connected with this (the medical) profession." Of those names many have belonged to country doctors; amongst which Jenner has a conspicuous place.[22]

Jenner was a bright representative of that class of medical practitioners—sagacious, well-instructed, courageous, and self-dependent in intellect—who, at the close of the last century, began to spring up in all parts of the country, and have rapidly increased in number; so that now the prejudiced, vulgar, pedantic doctors of Sterne's and Smollett's pages are extinct—no more to be found on the face of the earth than are the drunken squires who patronized and insulted them.

Of such a sort was Samuel Parr, the father of the famous classic scholar and Whig politician of the same name. The elder Parr was a general practitioner at Harrow, "a man" (as his son described him) "of a very robust and vigorous intellect." Educated in his early years at Harrow School, Samuel Parr (the son) was taken from that splendid seminary at the age of fourteen years and apprenticed to his father. For three or four years he applied himself to the mastery of the elements of surgical and medical knowledge—dispensing medicines, assisting at operations, and performing all the duties which a country doctor's pupil was expected to perform. But he had not nerve enough for the surgical department of the profession. "For a physician," he used to say, "I might have done well, but for a surgeon never." His father consequently sent him to Cambridge, and allowed him to turn his intellects to those pursuits in which Nature had best fitted him to excel. Dr. Parr's reminiscences of this period of medical instruction were nearly all pleasant—and some of them were exquisitely droll. At that early age his critical taste and faculty caused him to subject the prescriptions that came under his notice to a more exact scrutiny than the dog-Latin of physicians usually undergoes.

"Father," cried the boy, glancing his eye over a prescription, "here's another mistake in the grammar!"

"Sam," answered the irritable sire, "d—— the prescription, make up the medicine."

Laudanum was a preparation of opium just then coming into use. Mr. Parr used it at first sparingly and cautiously. On one occasion he administered a small quantity to a patient, and the next day, pleased with the effects of the dose, expressed his intention (but hesitatingly) to repeat it.

"You may do that safely, sir," said the son.

"Don't be rash, boy. Beginners are always too bold. How should you know what is safe?" asked the father.

"Because, sir," was the answer, "when I made up the prescription yesterday, I doubled the dose."

"Doubled the dose! How dared you do that?" exclaimed the angry senior.

"Because, sir," answered little Sam, coolly, "I saw you hesitate."

The father who would not feel pride in such a son would not deserve to have him.

Though Parr made choice of another profession he always retained a deep respect for his father's calling and the practitioners of it; medical men forming a numerous and important portion of his acquaintance. In his years of ripest judgment he often declared that "he considered the medical professors as the most learned, enlightened, moral, and liberal class of the community."

How many pleasant reminiscences this writer has of country surgeons—a class of men interesting to an observer of manners, as they comprise more distinct types of character than any other professional body. Hail to thee, Dr. Agricola! more yeoman than savant, bluff, hearty, and benevolent, hastening away from fanciful patients to thy farm, about which it is thy pleasure, early and late, to trudge, vigilant and canny, clad in velveteen jacket and leathern gaiters, armed with spud-stick or double-barrel gun, and looking as unlike Andrew Borde or Dr. Slop as it is possible to conceive mortal! What an eccentric, pious, tyrannical, most humane giant thou art! When thou wast mayor of thy borough, what lawless law didst thou maintain! With thine own arm and oaken stick didst thou fustigate the drunken poacher who beat his wife; and the little children, who made a noise in the market-square on a Sunday, thou didst incarcerate (for the sake of public morality) in "the goose-house" for two hours; but (for the sake of mercy) thou didst cause to be served out to each prisoner one large gingerbread bun—to soften the hardships of captivity. When the ague raged, and provisions were scarce in what the poor still refer to as "the bad year," what prescriptions didst thou, as parish doctor, shower down on the fever-ridden?—Mutton and gin, beef and wine—such were thy orders! The parsons said bravo! and clapt thee on the back; but the guardians of the poor and the relieving officers were up in arms, and summoned thee before a solemn tribunal at the union-house—"the board!" in fact. What an indignant oath and scream of ridicule didst thou give, when an attorney (Sir Oracle of "the board") endeavoured to instil into thy mind the first principles of supply and demand, and that grandest law of political economy—to wit, if there are too many poor people in a neighbourhood, they must be starved out of it into one where they will not be in the way; and if there are too many poor people in the entire world, they must be starved out of that also into another, where there'll be more room for them! And what was thy answer to the chairman's remark, "Doctor, if mutton and gin are the only medicines that will cure the sick poor, you must supply them yourself, in accordance with your contract"? What was thy answer? Why, a shower of butchers' and vintners' bills, pulled from the pockets of thy ancient gray coat—bills all receipted, and showing that, before asking the ratepayers for a doit, thou hadst expended every penny of thy salary of £150 on mutton and gin, beef and wine—for the sick poor! What a noble answer to a petty taunt! The chairman blushed. The attorney hurried away, saying he had to be present at an auction. The great majority of "the board" came to a resolution, engaging to support you in your schemes for helping the poor through the bad year. But the play was not yet at an end. Some rumours of what had occurred at the board reaching the ears of a few poor peasants, they made bold to thank thee for thy exertions in their behalf. How didst thou receive them?—With a violent harrangue against their incorrigible laziness and dishonesty—an assurance that half their sufferings sprung from their own vices—and a vehement declaration that, far from speaking a good word for them to the guardians, thou didst counsel the sternest and cruellest of measures.

A man of another mould and temper was the writer's dear friend, Felix. Gentle and ardent, tranquil as a summer evening, and unyielding as a rock, modest but brave, unobtrusive but fearless, he had a mind that poets only could rightly read. Delicate in frame, as he was refined in intellect, he could not endure rude exertion or vulgar pleasure. Active in mind, he still possessed a vein of indolence, thoroughly appreciating the pleasure of dreaming the whole day long on a sunny chair in a garden, surrounded with bright flowers and breathing a perfumed air. In the hot season the country people used to watch their doctor traversing the country in his capacious phaeton. Alone, without a servant by his side, he held the reins in his hands, but in his reveries altogether forgot to use them. Sometimes he would fall asleep, and travel for miles in a state of unconsciousness, his great phlegmatic horse pounding the dust at the rate of five miles an hour. The somni-driverous doctor never came to harm. His steed knew how to keep on the left-hand side of the road, under ordinary circumstances passing all vehicles securely, but never thinking of overtaking any; and the country people, amongst whom the doctor spent his days, made his preservation from bodily harm an object of their especial care. Often did a rustic wayfarer extricate the doctor's equipage from a perilous position, and then send it onwards without disturbing the gentleman by waking him. The same placid, equable man was Felix in society, that he was on these professional excursions—nothing alarming or exciting him. It was in his study that the livelier elements of his nature came into play. Those who, for the first time, conversed with him in private on his microscopic and chemical pursuits, his researches in history, or his labours in speculative or natural philosophy, caught fire from his fire and were inspired with his enthusiasm.

Felix belonged to a class daily becoming more numerous; Miles was of a species that has already become rare—the army surgeon. The necessities of the long war caused the enrolment of numbers of young men in the ranks of the medical profession, whose learning was not their highest recommendation to respect. An old navy surgeon, of no small wit, and an infinite capacity for the consumption of strong liquors—wine, brandy, whisky, usquebaugh (anything, so long as it was strong)—gave a graphic description to this writer of his examination on things pertaining to surgery by the Navy Board.

"Well," said the narrator, putting down his empty glass and filling it again with Madeira—"I was shown into the examination-room. Large table, and half-a-dozen old gentlemen at it. 'Big-wigs, no doubt,' thought I; 'and sure as my name is Symonds, they'll pluck me like a pigeon.'

"'Well, sir, what do you know about the science of your profession?' asked the stout man in the chair.

"'More than he does of the practice, I'll be bound,' tittered a little wasp of a dandy—a West End ladies' doctor.

"I trembled in my shoes.

"'Well, sir,' continued the stout man, 'what would you do if a man was brought to you during action with his arms and legs shot off? Now, sir, don't keep the Board waiting! What would you do? Make haste!'

"'By Jove, sir!' I answered—a thought just striking me—'I should pitch him overboard, and go on to some one else I could be of more service to.'

"By — —! every one present burst out laughing; and they passed me directly, sir—passed me directly!"

The examiners doubtless felt that a young man who could manifest such presence of mind on such an occasion, and so well reply to a terrorizing question, might be trusted to act wisely on other emergencies.

Many stories of a similar kind are very old acquaintances of most of our readers.

"What"—an examiner of the same Board is reported to have said to a candidate—"would you have recourse to if, after having ineffectually tried all the ordinary diaphoretics, you wanted to throw your patient, in as short a time as possible, into a profuse perspiration?"

"I should send him here, sir, to be examined," was the reply.

Not less happy was the audacity of the medical student to Abernethy.

"What would you do," bluntly inquired the surgeon, "if a man was brought to you with a broken leg?"

"Set it, sir," was the reply.

"Good—very good—you're a very pleasant, witty young man; and doubtless you can tell me what muscles of my body I should set in motion if I kicked you, as you deserve to be kicked, for your impertinence."

"You would set in motion," responded the youth, with perfect coolness, "the flexors and extensors of my right arm; for I should immediately knock you down."

If the gentlemen so sent forth to kill and cure were not overstocked with professional learning, they soon acquired a knowledge of their art in that best of all schools—experience. At the conclusion of the great war they were turned loose upon the country, and from their body came many of the best and most successful practitioners of every county of the kingdom. The race is fast dying out. A Waterloo banquet of medical officers, serving in our army at that memorable battle, would at the present time gather together only a small number of veterans. This writer can remember when they were plentiful; and, in company with two or three of the best of their class, he spent many of the happiest days of his boyhood. An aroma of old camp life hung about them. They rode better horses, and more boldly, than the other doctors round about. However respectable they might have become with increased years and prosperity, they retained the military knack of making themselves especially comfortable under any untoward combination of external circumstances. To gallop over a bleak heath, through the cold fog of a moonless December night; to sit for hours in a stifling garret by a pauper's pallet; to go for ten days without sleeping on a bed, without undressing, and with the wear of sixteen hours out of every twenty-four spent on horseback—were only features of "duty," and therefore to be borne manfully, and with generous endurance, at the time—and, in the retrospect, to be talked of with positive contentment and hilarity. They loved the bottle, too—as it ought to be loved: on fit occasions drinking any given quantity, and, in return, giving any quantity to drink; treating claret and the thinner wines with a levity at times savouring of disdain; but having a deep and unvarying affection for good sound port, and, at the later hours, very hot and very strong whisky and water, with a slice of lemon in each tumbler. How they would talk during their potations! What stories and songs! George the Fourth (even according to his own showing) had scarce more to do in bringing about the victory at Waterloo than they. Lord Anglesey's leg must have been amputated thrice; for this writer knew three surgeons who each—separately and by himself—performed the operation. But this sort of boasting was never indulged in before the —th tumbler.

May a word not be here said on the toping country doctor? Shame on these times! ten years hence one will not be able to find a bibulous apothecary, though search be made throughout the land from Dan to Beersheba! Sailors, amongst the many superstitions to which they cling with tenacity, retain a decided preference for an inebrious to a sober surgeon. Not many years since, in a fishing village on the eastern coast, there flourished a doctor in great repute amongst the poor; and his influence over his humble patients literally depended on the fact that he was sure, once in the four-and-twenty hours, to be handsomely intoxicated. Charles Dickens has told the public how, when he bought the raven immortalised in "Barnaby Rudge," the vendor of that sagacious bird, after enumerating his various accomplishments and excellences, concluded, "But, sir, if you want him to come out very strong, you must show him a drunk man." The simple villagers of Flintbeach had a firm faith in the strengthening effects of looking at a tipsy doctor. They always postponed their visits to Dr. Mutchkin till evening, because then they had the benefit of the learned man in his highest intellectual condition. "Dorn't goo to he i' the mornin', er can't doctor noways to speak on tills er's had a glass," was the advice invariably given to a stranger not aware of the doctor's little peculiarities.Mutchkin was unquestionably a shrewd fellow, although he did his best to darken the light with which nature had endowned him. One day, accompanied by his apprentice, he visited a small tenant farmer who had been thrown on his bed with a smart attack of bilious fever. After looking at his patient's tongue and feeling his pulse, he said somewhat sharply:—

"Ah! 'tis no use doing what's right for you, if you will be so imprudent."

"Goodness, doctor, what do you mean?" responded the sick man; "I have done nothing imprudent."

"What!—nothing imprudent? Why, bless me, man, you have had green peas for dinner."

"So I have, sir. But how did you find that out?"

"In your pulse—in your pulse. It was very foolish. Mind, you mayn't commit such an indiscretion again. It might cost you your life."

The patient, of course, was impressed with Mutchkin's acuteness, and so was the apprentice. When the lad and his master had retired, the former asked:—

"How did you know he had taken peas for dinner, sir? Of course it wasn't his pulse that told you."

"Why, boy," the instructor replied, "I saw the pea-shells that had been thrown into the yard, and I drew my inference."

The hint was not thrown away on the youngster. A few days afterwards, being sent to call on the same case, he approached the sick man, and, looking very observant, felt the pulse.

"Ah!—um—by Jove!" exclaimed the lad, mimicking his master's manner, "this is very imprudent. It may cost you your life. Why, man, you've eaten a horse for your dinner."

The fever patient was so infuriated with what he naturally regarded as impertinence, that he sent a pathetic statement of the insult offered him to Mutchkin. On questioning his pupil as to what he meant by accusing a man, reduced with sickness, of having consumed so large and tough an animal, the doctor was answered—

"Why, sir, as I passed through from the yard I saw the saddle hanging up in the kitchen."

This story is a very ancient one. It may possibly be found in one of the numerous editions of Joe Miller's facetiÆ. The writer has, however, never met with it in print, and the first time he heard it, Dr. Mutchkin, of Flintbeach, was made to figure in it in the matter above described.

The shrewdness of Mutchkin's apprentice puts us in mind of the sagacity of the hydropathic doctor, mentioned in the "Life of Mr Assheton Smith." A gentleman devoted to fox-hunting and deep potations was induced, by the master of the Tedworth Hunt, to have recourse to the water cure, and see if it would not relieve him of chronic gout, and restore something of the freshness of youth. The invalid acted on the advice, and in obedience to the directions of a hydropathic physician, proceeded to swathe his body, upon going to his nightly rest, with wet bandages. The air was chill, and the water looked—very—cold. The patient shivered as his valet puddled the bandages about in the cold element. He paused, as a schoolboy does, before taking his first "header" for the year on a keen May morning; and during the pause much of his noble resolve oozed away.

"John," at last he said to his valet, "put into that d—— water half a dozen bottles of port wine, to warm it."

John having carried out the direction, the bandages, saturated with port wine and water, were placed round the corpulent trunk of the invalid. The next morning the doctor, on paying his visit and inspecting the linen swathes, instead of expressing astonishment at their discoloration with the juice of the grape, observed, with the utmost gravity:—

"Ah, the system is acting beautifully. See, the port wine is already beginning to leave you!"

A different man from Dr. Mutchkin was jovial Ambrose Harvey. Twenty years ago no doctor throughout his county was more successful—no man more beloved. By natural strength of character he gained leave from society to follow his own humours without let, hindrance, or censure. Ladies did not think the less highly of his professional skill because he visited them in pink, and left their bedsides to ride across the country with Lord Cheveley's hounds. Six feet high, handsome, hearty, well-bred, Ambrose had a welcome wherever there was joy or sickness. To his little wife he was devotedly attached and very considerate; and she in return was very fond, and—what with woman is the same thing—very jealous of him. He was liked, she well knew, by the country ladies, many of whom were so far her superiors in rank and beauty and accomplishments, that it was only natural in the good little soul to entertain now and then a suspicious curiosity about the movements of her husband. Was it nothing but the delicate health of Lady Ellin that took him so frequently to Hove Hall? How it came about, from what charitable whisperings on the part of kind friends, from what workings of original sin in her own gentle breast, it would be hard to say; but 'tis a fact that, when Hove Hall was mentioned, a quick pain seized the little wife's heart and colour left her cheek, to return again quickly, and in increased quantity. The time came when she discovered the groundlessness of her fears, and was deeply thankful that she had never, in any unguarded moment, by clouded brow, or foolish tears, or sharp reply, revealed the folly of her heart. Just at the time that Mrs. Ambrose was in the midst of this trial of her affection, Ambrose obtained her permission to drive over to a town twelve miles distant, to attend the hunt dinner. The night of that dinner was a memorable one with the doctor's wife. Ambrose had promised to be home at eleven o'clock. But twelve had struck, and here he had not returned. One o'clock—two o'clock! No husband! The servants had been sent to bed four hours ago; and Mrs. Ambrose sate alone in her old wainscotted parlour, with a lamp by her side, sad, and pale, and feverish—as wakeful as the house-dog out of doors, that roamed round the house, barking out his dissatisfaction at the prolonged absence of his master.

At length, at half-past two, a sound of wheels was at the door, and in another minute Ambrose entered the hall, and greeted his little wife. Ah, Mrs. Ellis, this writer will not pain you by entering into details in this part of his story. In defence of Ambrose, let it be said that it was the only time in all his married life that he paid too enthusiastic homage to the god of wine. Something he mumbled about being tired, and having a headache, and then he walked, not over-steadily, upstairs. Poor Mrs. Ambrose! It was not any good asking him, what had kept him out so late. Incensed, frightened, and jealous, the poor little lady could not rest. She must have one doubt resolved. Where had her husband been all this time? Had he been round by Hove Hall? Had she reflected, she would have seen his Bacchic drowsiness was the best possible evidence that he had not come from a lady's drawing-room. But jealousy is love's blindness. A thought seized the little woman's head; she heard the step of Ambrose's man in the kitchen, about to retire to rest. Ah, he could tell her. A word from him would put all things right. Quick as thought, without considering her own or her husband's dignity, the angry little wife hastened down-stairs, and entered the kitchen where John was paying his respects to some supper and mild ale that had been left out for him. As evil fortune would have it, the step she had taken to mend matters made them worse.

"Oh, John," said the lady, telling a harmless fib, "I have just come to see if cook left you out a good supper."

John—most civil and trustworthy of grooms—rose, and posing himself on his heels, made a respectful obeisance to his mistress, not a little surprised at her anxiety for his comfort. But, alas! the potations at the hunt-dinner had not been confined to the gentlemen of the hunt. John had, in strong ale, taken as deep draughts of gladness as Ambrose had in wine. At a glance his mistress saw the state of the case, and in her fright, losing all caution, put her question point-blank, and with imperious displeasure—"John, where have you and your master been?—tell me instantly."

An admirable servant—honest and well-intentioned at all times—just then confused and loquacious—John remembered him how often his master had impressed upon him that it was his duty not to gossip about the places he stopped at in his rounds, as professional secrecy was a virtue scarcely less necessary in a doctor's man-servant than in a doctor. Acting on a muddle-headed reminiscence of his instructions, John reeled towards his mistress, endeavouring to pacify her with a profusion of duteous bobbings of the head, and in a tone of piteous sympathy, and with much incoherence, made this memorable answer to her question: "I'm very sorry, mum, and I do hope, mum, you won't be angry. I allus wish to do you my best duty—that I do, mum—and you're a most good, affable missus, and I, and cook, and all on us are very grateful to you."

"Never mind that. Where have you and your master been? That's my question."

"Indeed, mum—I darnatellye, it would bes goodasmeplace wi' master. I dare not say where we ha' been. For master rekwested me patikler not to dewulge."

But thou hadst not wronged thy wife. It was not thine to hurt any living thing, dear friend. All who knew thee will bear witness that to thee, and such as thee, Crabbe pointed not his bitter lines:—

THE END.