Chapter 6

[#] He is a saint in the English calendar, and his day is March 2.We will ascend Pentonville Hill again to Penton Street, at the corner of which stands Belvedere Tavern, formerly Busby's Folly, and, going up Penton Street a little way, we come to what was once the site of White Conduit House, the present White Conduit House, tavern covering a portion of the old gardens. It took its name from a conduit, built in the reign of Henry VI., and repaired by Sutton, the founder of the Charter House. The house was at first small, having only four windows in front; but in the middle of the last century the then owner could advertise that 'for the better accommodation of gentlemen and ladies he had completed a long walk, with a handsome circular fish-pond, a number of shady, pleasant arbours, enclosed with a fence seven feet high to prevent being incommoded by people in the fields; hot loaves and butter every day, milk directly from the cows, coffee, tea, and all manners of liquors in the greatest perfection; also a handsome long-room, from whence is the most copious prospects and airy situation of any now in vogue.' A long poem in praise of the house appeared in theGentleman's Magazinein 1760. It was written by William Woty, a Grub Street poet. A frequent visitor to White Conduit House was Goldsmith, who used to repair thither with some of his friends, after he had discovered the place, as he relates in Letter 122 of the 'Citizen of the World.' The passage, I must confess, does little honour to his genius or his taste, and I wonder he did not have it expunged from his collected writings. As is customary with such places of amusement, in course of time the company did not improve, though in 1826 it was attempted to revive the reputation of the place, partly by calling it a Minor Vauxhall; but nightly disturbances and the encouragement of immorality thereby, caused it to be suppressed by magisterial authority on the proprietor's application for the renewal of his license. About 1827 the grounds were let for archery practice, and in 1828 the old house was pulled down and a new one erected in its place, which was opened in 1829. The new building was somewhat in the gin-palace style: stucco front, pilasters, cornices and plate glass. It contained large refreshment rooms, and a long and lofty ballroom above, where the dancing, if not very refined, was vigorous. Gentlemen went through country dances with their hats on and their coats off. Eventually the master of the ceremonies objected to the hats, and they were left off, as the coats continued to be. In 1849 this elegant place of amusement was demolished and streets built on its grounds, as also the present White Conduit Tavern.A former proprietor of White Conduit House, Christopher Bartholomew, died in positive poverty in Angel Court, Windmill Street, 'at his lodgings, two pair of stairs room,' as theGentleman's Magazine, March, 1809, says. He once owned the freehold of White Conduit House and of the neighbouring Angel inn, and was worth £50,000; but he was seized with the lottery mania, and paid as much as £1,000 a day for insurances. By degrees he sank into poverty, but a friend having supplied him with the means of obtaining a thirty-second share, that number turned up a prize of £20,000. He purchased an annuity of £60 per annum, but foolishly disposed of it and lost it all. A few days before he died he begged a few shillings to buy him necessaries. But does his fate, and that of many others equally deluded, act as a warning to anyone? We fear not.White Conduit House was sold in 1864, by order of the proprietor, in consequence of ill-health. The lease had then about eighty years to run, at the rent of £80 per annum. The property fetched £8,990. What price would it fetch now? Public-houses have gone up tremendously since then.Close to White Conduit House was another famous house of entertainment, that is to say, Copenhagen House, which was opened by a Dane when the King of Denmark paid a visit to James I., but the house did not attract much attention till after the Restoration, when the once public-house became a tea-garden, with the customary amusements, fives-playing being a favourite. Hazlitt, who was enthusiastic about the game, immortalized one Cavanagh, an Irish player, who distinguished himself at Copenhagen House by playing matches for wagers and dinners. The wall against which they played was that which supported the kitchen chimney, and when the ball resounded louder than usual the cooks exclaimed, 'Those are the Irishman's balls!' 'And the joints trembled on their spits,' says Hazlitt. The next landlord encouraged dog-fighting and bull-baiting, in consequence of which he lost his license in 1816. The fields around Copenhagen House, now all built over, were the scene of many riotous assemblies at the time of the French Revolution, Thelwall, Horne Tooke, and other sympathizers with France being the chief instigators and leaders of those meetings.Going considerably northward, we reach Highbury Barn, which, with lands belonging thereto, was leased in 1482 by the Prior of the monastery of St. John of Jerusalem to John Mantell, described as citizen and butcher of London. The property thus leased comprised the Grange place, with Highbury Barn, a garden, and 'castell Hilles,' two little closures containing five acres, and a field called Snoresfeld, otherwise Bushfield. Highbury Barn was at first a small ale and cake house, and as such is mentioned early in the eighteenth century. Gradually it grew into a tavern and tea-garden. A Mr. Willoughby, who died in 1785, increased the business, and his successor added a bowling-green, a trap-ball ground, and more gardens. The barn could accommodate 2,000 persons at once, and 800 people have been seen dining together, with seventy geese roasting for them at one fire. Early in this century a dancing and a dining room were added. Near this house there was, in 1868, found in a field a vase containing nearly 1,000 silver coins, consisting of silver pennies, groats and half-groats, two gold coins of Edward III., and an amber rosary. The manor of Highbury having, as we have seen, belonged to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, the coins may have been buried by them at the time of the insurrection of Wat Tyler, whose followers destroyed the monastery and also made an attack on the Prior's house at Highbury. The coins are now in the British Museum.But we find we have got to the end of the space allotted to us, and though we have only, as it were, dipped into the bulk of our subject, we must defer for some other opportunity the description of the large number of old tea-gardens still to be noticed. We will here only indicate the most important of them: Camberwell Grove, Cuper's Gardens, Chalk Farm, Canonbury House, Cumberland Gardens, Cupid Gardens, Sluice House, Eel-pie House, St. Helen's, Hornsey Wood, Hoxton, Kilburn Wells, Mermaid, Marylebone, Montpellier, Ranelagh, Paris Gardens, Shepherd and Shepherdess, Union Gardens, Yorkshire Stingo, Jew's Harp, Adam and Eve, Tottenham Court Road; Adam and Eve, St. Pancras; the Brill, Mulberry Gardens, Springfield, and others of less note.XIII.WILLIAM PATERSON AND THE BANK OF ENGLAND.Some London streets have strange and unsuitable names; thus you will find an alley of wretched hovels, with muddy yards, containing nothing but cabbage-stumps and broken dustbins, called Prospect Place; whilst a lane adjoining the shambles styles itself Paradise Row. And what a curious name for a street is that of Threadneedle[#] Street! How came the street to be so named? However, such is its name, and in this case it is not inappropriate. For lives there not in that street the Old Lady who is, year in, year out, everlastingly threading her diamond needle with gold and silver threads, and working the gorgeous embroidery of the financial flags of her own and of almost every other country in the world? Her dwelling is palatial; to be merely admitted into her parlour is in itself a positive proof of your respectability, for you gain no entrance thereto unless you are a stockholder; as to her drawing-room, the glories of Versailles and the Escurial are as miserable shanties, forherdrawing-room contains, leaving alone other treasures, engravings worth from five pounds each to fifty thousand—nay, a hundred thousand pounds each. There is no five o'clock tea there, but plenty of music all day long; its notes, indeed, are silent, but the gold and silver instruments, whose fascinating and entrancing sounds have more magic in them than has the finest orchestra, vocal or instrumental, are audible enough. And as to her cellars, the treasures the Old Lady keeps there would buy up half a dozen such caves as that into which Aladdin descended.[#] Stow calls it Three Needle Street, as Hatton supposes, from such a sign. It has also been written Thrid Needle and Thred Needle Street, but our ancestors were not so particular as to spelling as we are.The reader has by this time discovered who the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street is—namely, the Bank of England—the most gigantic monetary establishment in the world, the financial reservoir, the opening or shutting of whose sluices causes not only the commercial ebb and flow of east and west, of north and south, but sets in motion or prevents the 'pomp and circumstance of glorious war.'The history of this mighty establishment has often been told, but it seems to us that but scant justice has as yet been done to its founder, William Paterson. The injustice done to him, in fact, dates from an early day, for soon after the foundation of the Bank, of which he naturally was one of the directors, intrigue drove him from that position, and envy and obloquy pursued him ever after. But let us briefly recount his early history.Born on a farm in Dumfriesshire in 1658 of a family notable in old Scottish history, he was, at the age of sixteen, transferred to the care of a kinswoman at Bristol, on whose death he inherited some property. Bristol was then a great commercial emporium, doing with much legitimate business a little in the slave trade, and his connection with that town was afterwards injurious to him, for whilst his friends said that he visited the New World as a missionary, his enemies asserted that he was mixed up with slave-dealing, and occasionally indulged in piracy. But the fact of his marrying the widow of a Puritan minister at Boston is more in accordance with the statements of his friends than with those of his enemies. Anderson, the historian of commerce, who as a lad must have known him in his old age, speaks of him as 'a merchant who had been much in foreign countries, and had entered far into speculations relating to commerce and the colonies.'He was in England in 1681, and, among the various schemes he started, he took a leading part in the project for bringing water into the north of London from the Hampstead and Highgate hills. He made a heavy investment in the City of London Orphans' Fund; in the improved management and distribution of that charity he took a profound interest, a fact which leaves no doubt of his philanthropic and public spirit. It was in 1684 that he first conceived the idea of the Darien scheme, and though this turned out so unfortunate, he from first to last acted with rare disinterestedness; his errors were those such as a well-balanced and generous mind might fall into without reproach. Nor is the failure of that enterprise to be attributed to him, but to the conduct of William III., who had sanctioned, but afterwards, at the instigation of the East India Companies of England and Holland, discouraged and positively thwarted, it. How deeply he felt the disastrous results of the expedition is shown by the fact that for a time his mind was deranged in consequence of it. And who will now deny that Paterson was right in calling the Isthmus of Panama the 'door of the seas and the key of the universe'? In 1825 Humboldt recommended the scheme of a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the enterprise of Lesseps will yet be carried to a successful issue.However, we have to deal with Paterson chiefly as the founder of the Bank of England, and with the long and fierce battle he had to fight to accomplish his object, for there was great opposition to it from interest and prejudice. Paterson had been long in Holland, and when he propounded his scheme of a Bank of England, the people objected to it as coming from Holland; 'they had too many Dutch things already,' just as now there is a prejudice against things 'made in Germany.' Moreover, they doubted the stability of the Government of William III. At last, however, they consented to the Bank, on the express condition that £1,200,000 should be subscribed and lent to the Government. The money was subscribed in ten days. The Bank Act was obtained in spite of all opposition, which perhaps would have prevailed had not Queen Mary, acting on the instruction of William (then in Flanders), during a six hours' sitting, carried the point, and the company received their royal charter of incorporation in July, 1694. Almost as soon as it had been established the Bank was called upon to assist the Government in the re-coinage of the silver money. The notes of the new Bank were destined to fill up the vacuum occasioned by the calling in of the old coin, but as the notes were payable on demand, they were returned faster than coin could be obtained from the Mint; a crisis ensued, during which the notes of the Bank fell to a discount of 20 per cent. But the Bank passed safely through its difficulties, as also through the troubles caused by the South Sea Bubble. The opposition in the first crisis was due chiefly to the goldsmiths, who detested the new corporation because it interfered with their system of private banking, hitherto monopolized by them. Paterson's advice was of the greatest assistance in his capacity of director, yet such was the animus against him that, as we mentioned above, in 1695 he sold out the stock he held (£2,000), which from the first was a director's qualification, and retired from his office. But he did not withdraw from public life. The Darien Expedition already referred to was organized by him in 1698, and its disastrous results were, as we have shown, in nowise attributable to him, and this was, in fact, eventually admitted by the nation, Parliament in 1715 passing an Act awarding him an indemnity of upwards of £18,000 for his losses in that enterprise. In other ways Paterson continued to interest himself in matters affecting the public welfare; he rendered his Sovereign signal services by the wise and shrewd advice he gave him during the latter part of his troubled reign; he published many tracts on the management of the National Debt and the system of auditing public accounts; he was a zealous advocate of Free Trade, and his views on the subject of taxation were far ahead of the ideas of his day. His undoubtedly great talents, his thorough honesty and genuine patriotism, fully entitle him to the praise given him by his friend Daniel Defoe, as 'a worthy and noble patriot, one of the most eminent, to whom we owe more than ever he would tell us, or, I am afraid, we shall ever be sensible of, whatever fools, madmen, or Jacobites may asperse him with.'We cannot attempt to give a history of the Bank of England in our limited space, but a short account of the Bank building may not unfitly close this notice of the founder of the establishment. The business was originally started at Mercers' Hall, and next removed to, and for many years carried on at, Grocers' Hall in the Poultry. In August, 1732, the governors and directors laid the first stone of their new building in Threadneedle Street, on the site of the house and garden formerly belonging to Sir John Houblon, the first Governor of the Bank. At first the buildings comprised only the centre of the principal or south front, the Hall, Bullion Court, and the Courtyard, and were surrounded by St. Christopher-le-Stocks Church, three taverns, and several private houses. From the year 1766 onwards considerable additions were made to the building. All the adjoining houses on the east side to Bartholomew Lane, and those occupying the west side of that lane almost to Lothbury, were taken down, and their places occupied by offices of the Bank. The south side buildings, forming the eastern continuation of the establishment, presented a range of fluted columns in pairs, with arched intervals between, pointing out where windows should have been placed, which, however, were filled up with stone. This necessitated the rooms within being lighted by small glass domes in the roof, a circumstance much complained of at the time by the clerks as injuriously affecting their eyes. It was intended to extend the façade on the western side by taking down the Church of St. Christopher, which by the removal of that part of Threadneedle Street had been deprived of a great part of its parish. Noorthouck, who wrote in 1773, says: 'How far so extensive a plan may answer the vast expense it will call for to complete it is a question proper for the consideration of those who are immediately concerned; an indifferent spectator cannot view this expanded fabric without comparing it with the growth of public debts negotiated here, and trembling more for the safety of the one than of the other.' Could he see the Bank now, covering nearly four acres of ground, what would he say?One Ralph, architect, whose 'Critical Review of the Buildings, Statues, and Ornaments in and about London' was published in 1783, says: 'The building erected for the Bank is liable to the very same objection, in point of place, with the Royal Exchange, and even in a greater, too. It is monstrously crowded on the eye, and unless the opposite houses could be pulled down, and a view obtained into Cornhill, we might as well be entertained with a prospect of the model through a microscope. As to the structure itself, it is grand ... only the architect seems to be rather too fond of decoration; this appears pretty eminently by the weight of his cornices ... rather too heavy for the building.' The objectionable buildings here referred to were the triangular block of houses which formerly stood in front of the old Royal Exchange, but was removed on the building of the new.At the beginning of this century the Bank on the south side was of the same extent as now; on the east side also it extended to Lothbury, on the west it reached to about half the length of the present Princes Street, which, however, then did not proceed in a straight line, as it does now, but took a sharp turn to north-east, coming into Lothbury at a point nearly opposite St. Margaret's Church, and thus cutting off a corner of the Bank site, which would otherwise have been nearly square. But when, early in this century, Princes Street was extended in a straight line to Lothbury, the condensed portion of the street, together with a block of houses on the west side of it, were added to the Bank site, and the Bank assumed its present shape. But great architectural improvements had in the meantime been introduced. The original or central portion, eighty feet in length, which was of the Ionic order raised on a rusticated basement, was altered to what it now is; the attic seen on it was added in 1850. This original portion was from the design of George Sampson. The east and west wings were added by Sir Robert Taylor, after whom Sir John Soane was appointed the Bank architect, and he rebuilt many of those parts constructed by Sampson and Taylor; and on Sir John's death in 1837 Mr. Cockerell succeeded him in the position. He again greatly modified many features of the building. The eighty feet of the original south side now extend to 365 feet; the length of the west side is 440 feet, of the north side 410 feet, and of the east side 245 feet. Both internally and externally classical models have been followed. The hall known as the Three Per Cent. Consol (three per cent., alas! gone) Office, ninety feet long by fifty wide, is designed from models of the Roman baths, as are the Dividend and Bank Stock Offices. The chief cashier's office is forty-five feet by thirty, and designed after the Temple of the Sun and Moon at Rome. The Court Room of the composite order, about sixty feet long and thirty-one wide, is lighted by large Venetian windows on the south, overlooking what once was the churchyard of St. Christopher's Church, and into which in 1852 a fountain was placed, which throws a single jet, thirty feet high, amongst the branches of two of the finest lime-trees in London. The north side of the Court Room is remarkable for three exquisite chimney-pieces of statuary marble. The original Rotunda was roofed in with timber, but in 1794 it was found advisable to take it down, and the present Rotunda was built, which measures fifty-seven feet in diameter, and about the same in height; it is of incombustible material, as are all the offices erected by Sir John Soane. There are a number of courts within the outer walls of the buildings; they are all of great architectural beauty; the one entered from Lothbury is truly magnificent. It has screens of fluted Corinthian columns, supporting a lofty entablature, surmounted by vases. This part of the edifice was copied from the beautiful temple of the Sybils, near Tivoli. A noble arch, an imitation of the arch of Constantine at Rome, gives access to the Bullion Court, in which is another row of Corinthian columns, supporting an entablature, decorated with statues representing the four quarters of the globe. The north-west corner of the Bank is modelled on the temple of Vesta at Rome. We have yet to mention the Old Lady's Drawing-Room, or the pay-office, where bank-notes are issued, or exchanged for cash. It is a fine hall, seventy-nine feet long by forty wide, and we have left the mention of it to the last because it suggests to us some particular reflections. We have seen that Paterson was the real founder of the Bank of England, and we may take this opportunity of adding that Charles Montague and Michael Godfrey are entitled to share in Paterson's glory for the assistance they lent him in this undertaking; but the Bank ignores its founder, and had not even a portrait of him till Mr. James Hogg, the founder ofLondon Society, presented them with one. In the Pay Hall stands the statue of William III., and in the Latin inscription underneath he is called 'founder of the Bank.' It is the old story: when a prize is taken at sea the biggest share of it, the lion's share, goes to the 'Flag'; the real fighters must put up with the leavings.Let us end with another philosophical reflection.Facts are more astounding than fiction, as we will show by two facts. Gaboriau's novel 'La Dégringolade' (The Downfall), in one of its earliest chapters describes the opening of a grave in the Parisian cemetery of Montmartre, to discover whether it contains the body of a certain person or not. The coffin is found to be empty. This is a fiction, but are we not likely to see its realization shortly? Paul Féval's romance 'Les Mystères de Londres' gives a long account of the fictitious attempt of some villains to get at the treasures in the cellars of the Bank of England by digging a tunnel under Threadneedle Street; they are, of course, foiled in the end. But now, according to accounts published at the end of the month of November, 1898, in theDaily Mail, the tunnel is actually dug by a railway company, and so close to the walls of the Bank as to actually compel its governors and directors to call in the assistance of Sir John Wolfe Barry to advise means to avert the danger which threatens the building, already affected by the excavations. Trulyfact is stranger than fiction.XIV.THE OLD DOCTORS.The lines of modern doctors have fallen in pleasant places. Their position is certainly somewhat different from what it was in the days when they were contemptuously called leeches, when their scientific investigations exposed them to persecution and death. Vesalius, the father of modern anatomy, was condemned to death by the Inquisition for dissecting a human body, but by the intervention of King Philip II., whose physician he was, the punishment was reduced to a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; on his return the ship was lost on the island of Zante, where he perished of starvation in 1564. Now Government licenses doctors to practise vivisection! At Dijon, in 1386, a physician was fined by the bailiff fifty golden francs, and imprisoned for not having completed the cures of some persons whose recovery he had undertaken. In a schedule of the offices, fees, and services which the Lord Wharton had with the Wardenry of the city and castle of Carlisle in 1547, a trumpeter was rated at 16d. per day, and a surgeon only at 12d. Edward III. granted Counsus de Gangeland, an apothecary of London, 6d. a day for his care and attendance on him while he formerly lay sick in Scotland. A knowledge of astrology was in those days requisite for a physician; the herbs were not to be gathered except when the sun and the planets were in certain constellations, and certificates of their being so were necessary to give them reputation. Sometimes patients applied to astrologers, who were astrologers only, whether the constellations were favourable to the doctor's remedies. Then, if the man died, the astrologer ascribed the death to the inefficacy of the remedies, while the doctor threw the blame on the astrologer, he not having properly observed the constellations. Then the latter would exclaim that his case was extremely hard; if he made a mistake, his calculation being wrong, heaven discovered it, whilst if a physician was guilty of a blunder, the earth covered it. Even then doctors were considered like the potato plant, whose fruit is underground. To see the doctor's carriage, whose motto should be 'Live or die,' or 'Morituri te salutant,' attending a funeral, reminds a cynic of a cobbler taking home his work.In England the medical profession rose in public estimation from the time when Henry VIII., with that view, incorporated several members of the profession into a body, community, and perpetual college, since called the College of Physicians. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with their opposite characteristics of vulgarity and romance, of squalor and luxury, of ignorance and grand discoveries in science, of prejudice and intelligence, were highly conducive to the formation and cultivation of individualism and originality of character; hence those two centuries abounded in 'oddities' and 'eccentricities,' and in no section of society more than in the medical. The members of that profession could very readily and appropriately then be divided into two great schools—the Rough and the Smooth, the fierce dispensers of Brimstone and the gentle administrators of Treacle. The present century, with its levelling tendencies, opposed to all originality and so-called eccentricity in speech, custom, and costume, reducing all gentlemen in full dress to the rank of waiters, has nearly abolished the sulphury Galen; in fact, he would scarcely be tolerated now. People submit to certain foolish pretensions now, such as those of thought-reading and pin-hunting cranks, and similar mental eccentricities; but they must be administered mildly, there must be a treacly flavour about them, for—'This is an age of flatness, dull and dreary,Society is like a washed-out chintz,Which scandal renders somewhat foul and smeary;And yet, without its malice, lies, and hints,E'en fashion's children would at last grow wearyOf looking at the faded cotton printsTo which respectability subduesOur uncontrolled imagination's hues.'Hence the medical showmen of the present day must accompany the 'exhibition' of their nostrums with dulcet sounds and honeyed speeches, especially when treating those nursed in the lap of affluence; and, accustomed as they are to adulation, the medico who can condescend to feed them with well-disguised flattery, or assume the tone of abject servility, has too often the credit of possessing superior skill and science. And the patients, in the words of Byron, travestied—'They swallow filthy draughts and nauseous pills,But yet there is no end of human ills.'It was, of course, not every doctor who could, at the beginning of his career, go in for the brimstone system. Unless he was backed by very powerful patronage, or wrote a book or pamphlet which attracted attention—as Elliotson's practice rose from £500 to £5,000 a year through his papers in theLancet—or was by some lucky accident pitched into a position which by itself alone inspired the public with an overwhelming belief in his skill, the experiment of treating his patients with rudeness and indifference would have been fatal to his prospects. But let him once make a hit, either by being luckily on the spot when a king or prince was thrown off his horse, or by a successful operation, or by writing a book which 'caught on,' and the public were at his feet, and he could trample on them as much as he liked. But it did not follow that, after such success, he must necessarily abuse his privileges. Dr. Arbuthnot, the son of a non-juring clergyman in Scotland, came to London about the time of the Restoration, and at first earned a living by teaching mathematics, though he had studied medicine. He happened to be at Epsom on one occasion when Prince George, who was also there, was suddenly taken ill. Arbuthnot was called in, and having effected a cure, was soon afterwards appointed one of the physicians in ordinary to the Queen. And, of course, his practice was established on a solid foundation, and he carried it on with considerable professional distinction. But his success did not spoil him, for he was a man of a genial disposition, who turned neither to brimstone nor to treacle, but always maintained a dignified demeanour. He was a wit and a man of letters, and enjoyed the esteem of such men as Swift, Pope, and Gay. Before coming to London he had chosen Dorchester as a place to practise as a physician, but the salubrity of the air was opposed to his success, and he took horse for London. A friend meeting him, asked him where he was going. 'To leave your confounded place, where I can neither live nor die.' It was said of him that his wit and pleasantry sometimes assisted his prescriptions, and in some cases rendered them unnecessary. He died at the age of sixty from a complication of disorders, so little is the physician able to cure himself.Sir Astley Cooper (b. 1768, d. 1841) also did not belong to the brimstone school. His surgical skill was very great, and he liked to display it. He always retained perfect self-command in the operating theatre, and during the most critical and dangerous performances on a patient, he tried to keep up the latter's courage by lively and facetious remarks. When he was in the zenith of his fame, a satirical Sawbones said of him:'Nor Drury Lane nor Common GardenAre, to my fancy, worth a farden;I hold them both small beer.Give me the wonderful exploits,And jolly jokes between the sleights,OfAstley's Amphitheatre.'When Sir Astley lived in Broad Street, City, he had every day a numerous morning levee of City patients. The room into which they were shown would hold from forty to fifty people, and often callers, after waiting for hours, were dismissed without having seen the doctor. His man Charles, with more than his master's dignity, would say to disappointed applicants when they reappeared on the following morning: 'I am not sure that we shall be able to attend to you, for our list is full for the day; but if you will wait, I will see what we can do for you.' During the first nine years of his practice Sir Astley's earnings progressed thus: First year, £5 5s.; second, £26; third, £64; fourth, £96; fifth, £100; sixth, £200; seventh, £400; eighth, £600; ninth, £1,100. Eventually his annual income rose to more than £15,000; the largest sum he ever made in one year was £21,000. A West Indian millionaire gave him his highest fee; he had successfully undergone a painful operation, and sitting up in bed, he threw his nightcap at Cooper, saying, 'Take that!' 'Sir,' replied Sir Astley, 'I'll pocket the affront;' and on reaching home he found in the cap a cheque for one thousand guineas.Dr. Matthew Baillie (b. 1761, d. 1823) was a physician who occasionally indulged in the brimstone temper, and was disinclined to attend to the details of an uninteresting case. After listening on one occasion to a long-drawn account from a lady, who ailed so little that she was going that evening to the opera, he had made his escape, when he was urged to step upstairs again that the lady might ask him whether, on her return from the opera, she might eat some oysters. 'Yes, madam,' said Baillie; 'shells and all!'Dr. Richard Mead (b. 1673, d. 1754) was physician to George II., and the friend of Drs. Radcliffe, Garth, and Arbuthnot, and a great patron of literary and artistic genius. In his house in Great Ormond Street he established what may be called the first academy of painting in London. His large collection of paintings and antiquities, as well as his valuable library, was sold by auction on his death in 1754. In 1740 he had a quarrel with Dr. Woodward, like himself a Gresham professor; the two men drew their swords, and Mead having obtained the advantage, he commanded Woodward to beg his life. 'No, doctor,' said the vanquished combatant, 'that I will not till I am your patient.' But, nevertheless, at last he wisely submitted. In Ward's 'Lives of the Gresham Professors' is a view of Gresham College, with a gateway, entering from Broad Street, marked 25. Within are the figures of two persons, the one standing, the other kneeling; they represent Dr. Mead and Dr. Woodward. Dr. Mead was of a generous nature. In 1723, when the celebrated Dr. Friend was sent to the Tower, Mead kindly took his practice, and, on his release by Sir Robert Walpole, presented the escaped Jacobite with the result, £5,000.Dr. Mead, about 1714, lived at Chelsea; about the same date there lived in the same locality Dr. Alexander Blackwell, whom we introduce here chiefly on account of his singularly unfortunate life and very tragical end. Blackwell was a native of Aberdeen, studied physic under Boerhaave at Leyden, and took the degree of M.D. On his return home he married, and for some time practised as a physician in London. But not meeting with success, he became corrector of the press for Mr. Wilkins, a printer, and some time after commenced business in the Strand on his own account, and promised to do well, when, under an antiquated and unjustly restrictive law, a suit was brought against him for setting up as a printer without his having served his apprenticeship to it. Mr. Blackwell defended the suit, but at the trial in Westminster Hall a dunderheaded jury, probably of narrow-minded tradesmen, all anxious to uphold their objectionable privileges, found a verdict against him, in consequence of which he became bankrupt, and one of his creditors kept him in prison for nearly two years. By the help of his wife, who was a clever painter and engraver, he was released. She prepared all the plates for the 'Herbal,' a work figuring most of the plants in the Physic Garden at Chelsea, close to which she lived. A copy of this book eventually fell into the hands of the Swedish Ambassador, who sent it over to his Court, where it was so much liked that Dr. Blackwell was engaged in the Swedish service, and went to reside at Stockholm. He was appointed physician to the King, who under his treatment had recovered from a serious illness. Dr. Blackwell had left his wife in England; she was to follow him as soon as his position was placed on a solid basis. But ere this could take place he was accused of having been engaged with natives and foreigners in plotting to overturn the constitution of the kingdom. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be broken alive on the wheel, his heart and bowels to be torn out and burnt, and his body to be quartered. He was said, under torture, to have made confession of such an attempt, but the real extent of his guilt must always remain problematical. That he, a person of no influence, and unconnected with any person of rank, should have aimed at overthrowing the constitution seems very improbable. It is more likely that he was made a scapegoat to strike terror into the party then opposed to the Ministry. The awful sentence passed on him, however, was commuted to beheading, which fate he underwent on July 29, 1747. He must have been a man of great nerve and a humorist, for, having laid his head wrong, he remarked jocosely that this being his first experiment, no wonder he should want a little instruction!The Dr. Woodward we mentioned above seems to have been a very irascible and objectionable individual. He so grossly insulted Sir Hans Sloane, when he was reading a paper of his own before the Royal Society in 1710, that, under the presidency of Sir Isaac Newton, he was expelled from the Society.Among medical oddities of the rougher sort we may reckon Mounsey, a friend of Garrick, and physician to Chelsea Hospital. His way of extracting teeth was original. Round the tooth to be drawn he fastened a strong piece of catgut, to the opposite end of which he fastened a bullet, with which and a strong dose of powder he charged a pistol. On the trigger being pulled, the tooth was drawn out. Of course, it was but seldom he could prevail on anyone to try the process. Once, having induced a gentleman to submit to the operation, the latter at the last moment exclaimed: 'Stop! stop! I've changed my mind.' 'But I have not, and you are a fool and a coward for your pains,' answered the doctor, pulling the trigger, and in another instant the tooth was extracted.Once, before setting out on a journey, being incredulous as to the safety of cash-boxes and safes, he hid a considerable quantity of gold and notes in the fireplace of his study, covering them with cinders and shavings. A month after, returning luckily sooner than he was expected, he found his housemaid preparing to entertain a few friends at tea in her master's room. She was on the point of lighting the fire, and had just applied a candle to the doctor's notes, when he entered the room, seized a pail of water which happened to be standing near, and throwing its contents over the fuel and the servant, extinguished the fire and her presence of mind at the same time. Some of the notes were injured, and the Bank of England made some difficulty about cashing them.'When doctors disagree,' etc. Do they ever agree? Yes, when, after a consultation over a mild case which has no interest for any of them, they over wine and biscuits agree that the treatment hitherto pursued had better be continued. To discuss it further would interrupt the pleasant chat over the news of the day! But when they meet over a friendly glass at the coffee-house they go at it hammer and tongs. Dr. Buchan, the author of 'Domestic Medicine,' of which 80,000 copies were sold during the author's lifetime, and which, according to modern medical opinion, killed more patients than that—doctors like cheap medicine as little as lawyers like cheap law—Dr. Gower, the urbane and skilled physician of Middlesex Hospital, and Dr. Fordyce, a fashionable physician, whose deep potations never affected him, used to meet at the Chapter Coffee-House, and hold discussions on medical topics; but they never agreed, and with boisterous laughter used to ridicule each other's theories. But they all agreed in considering the Chapter punch as a safe remedy for all ills.Dr. Garth, the author of the 'Dispensary,' a poem directed against the Apothecaries and Anti-Dispensarians, a section of the College of Physicians, was very good-natured, but too fond of good living. One night, when he lingered over the bottle at the Kit-Kat Club, though patients were longing for him, Steele reproved him for his neglect of them. 'Well, it's no great matter at all,' replied Garth, pulling out a list of fifteen, 'for nine of them have such bad constitutions that not all the physicians in the world can save them, and the other six have such good constitutions that all the physicians in the world cannot kill them.' The doctor here plainly admitted the uselessness of his supposed science, as in his 'Dispensary' he admitted drugs to be not only useless, but murderous.'High where the Fleet Ditch descends in sable streams,To wash the sooty Naiads in the Thames,There stands a structure[#] on a rising hill,Where Tyros take their freedom out to kill.'[#] Apothecaries' Hall. A doctor, I forget his name, having obtained some mark of distinction from the Company of Apothecaries, mentioned at a party that the glorious Company of Apothecaries had conferred much honour on him. 'But,' said a lady, 'what about the noble army of martyrs of patients?'In Blenheim Street lived Joshua Brookes, the famous anatomist, whose lectures were attended by upwards of seven thousand pupils. His museum was almost a rival of that of John Hunter, and was liberally thrown open to visitors. One evening a coach drew up at his door, a heavy sack was taken out and deposited in the hall, and the servants, accustomed to such occurrences, since their master was in the habit of buying subjects, were about to carry it down the back-stairs into the dissecting-room, when a living subject thrust his head and neck out of one end and begged for his life. The servants in alarm ran to fetch pistols, but the subject continued to beg for mercy in such tones as to assure them they had nothing to fear from him. He had been drunk, and did not know how he got into the sack. Dr. Brookes ordered the sack to be tied loosely round his chin, and sent him in a coach to the watch-house. How he got into the sack may easily be surmised: Some body-snatchers, a tribe then very much to the fore, had no doubt found the man dead drunk in the street, and knowing the doctor to be a buyer of subjects, had taken him there, in the hope that the doctor might begin operating on the body before it recovered consciousness, so as to enable them afterwards to claim the price. In the days when there were dozens of executions in one morning at Newgate, the doctors had a good time of it, for the bodies of the malefactors were handed over to them for dissection. In fact, under the steps leading up to the front-door of Surgeons' Hall, a handsome building which stood next to Newgate Prison, there was a small door, through which the corpses were introduced into the building. Surgeons' Hall was pulled down in 1809, to make room for the new Sessions House.The doctors of the previous two centuries were mostly Sangrados, who bled and purged their patients most unmercifully; but we must say this to their credit, they did not descend to the sublime atrocity of microbes, bacilli, and all the other horrors of the microscopic mania now sending unnumbered nervous people into lunatic asylums. And so they had not, like their modern compeers, the chance of amusing themselves and paying one another professional compliments by sending glass tubes, filled with the deadly spawn, from one country to another by ship and rail. Fancy one of those tubes getting accidentally broken, or being intentionally smashed for a lark on board a passenger steamer. Why, this would speedily become a vessel laden with corpses! At least, according to modern teaching, which,entre nous, we have no more faith in than we have in many other medical dicta. A man is ill from over gorging or drinking, a child ails from a surfeit of sweets or from catching a disease playing with other children in the streets or at school. The doctor is called in, and instead of telling the man, 'You have made a beast of yourself,' or correctly indicating the cause of the child's illness, he sniffs about and says: 'There is something the matter with your drains: I can smell sewer-gas.' And presently the sanitary inspector arrives, and orders the pulling up and renewal of the drains, and for days the house is filled with the effluvia supposed to be poisonous. How is it the whole family do not die off? Well, scavengers who daily deal with offal and garbage of the most offensive kind, the men who work down in the sewers, enjoy robust health; the latter only suffer when they are suddenly plunged into an excess of sewer-gas, but it is the quantity and not the quality that injures.The excessive treacliness of modern doctors, as we have just shown, is as objectionable as was the brimstone treatment of some of their predecessors. A principle with modern doctors is never to acknowledge themselves nonplussed. The old doctors now and then confessed themselves beaten. Said an Æsculapius who had been called in to prescribe for a child, after diagnosing, as the ridiculous farce of tongue-speering and pulse-squeezing is called: 'This here babe has got a fever; now, I ain't posted up in fevers, but I will send her something that will throw her into fits, and I'm a stunner on fits.' And modern doctors, indeed, have no occasion to admit ignorance since the invention of the liver. When they cannot tell what is the matter with a man, or they are too urbane to reproach him with his excesses, his liver is out of order—and that is an organ which cannot possibly be examined and its condition be verified so as to prove or disprove the practitioner's assertion. I assume that nine out of ten people don't know where or what the liver is—I'm sure I don't, and don't want to; but as Sancho Panza blessed the man who invented sleep, the doctors should bless their colleague who invented the liver! Abernethy, of whom more hereafter, with all his eccentricity, was honest enough to confess that he never cured or pretended to cure anyone, which only quacks did. He despised the humbug of the profession, and its arts to mislead and deceive patients. He only attempted to second Nature in her efforts. He admitted that he could not remove rheumatism, that opprobrium of the faculty, and no doctor can; a residence in a warm and ever sunny clime, or a long course of Turkish baths, can do it. Hence sings Allan Ramsay's 'Gentle Shepherd':'I sits with my feet in a brook,And if they ax me for why,In spite of the physic I took,It's rheumatiz kills me, says I.'[#]

[#] He is a saint in the English calendar, and his day is March 2.

We will ascend Pentonville Hill again to Penton Street, at the corner of which stands Belvedere Tavern, formerly Busby's Folly, and, going up Penton Street a little way, we come to what was once the site of White Conduit House, the present White Conduit House, tavern covering a portion of the old gardens. It took its name from a conduit, built in the reign of Henry VI., and repaired by Sutton, the founder of the Charter House. The house was at first small, having only four windows in front; but in the middle of the last century the then owner could advertise that 'for the better accommodation of gentlemen and ladies he had completed a long walk, with a handsome circular fish-pond, a number of shady, pleasant arbours, enclosed with a fence seven feet high to prevent being incommoded by people in the fields; hot loaves and butter every day, milk directly from the cows, coffee, tea, and all manners of liquors in the greatest perfection; also a handsome long-room, from whence is the most copious prospects and airy situation of any now in vogue.' A long poem in praise of the house appeared in theGentleman's Magazinein 1760. It was written by William Woty, a Grub Street poet. A frequent visitor to White Conduit House was Goldsmith, who used to repair thither with some of his friends, after he had discovered the place, as he relates in Letter 122 of the 'Citizen of the World.' The passage, I must confess, does little honour to his genius or his taste, and I wonder he did not have it expunged from his collected writings. As is customary with such places of amusement, in course of time the company did not improve, though in 1826 it was attempted to revive the reputation of the place, partly by calling it a Minor Vauxhall; but nightly disturbances and the encouragement of immorality thereby, caused it to be suppressed by magisterial authority on the proprietor's application for the renewal of his license. About 1827 the grounds were let for archery practice, and in 1828 the old house was pulled down and a new one erected in its place, which was opened in 1829. The new building was somewhat in the gin-palace style: stucco front, pilasters, cornices and plate glass. It contained large refreshment rooms, and a long and lofty ballroom above, where the dancing, if not very refined, was vigorous. Gentlemen went through country dances with their hats on and their coats off. Eventually the master of the ceremonies objected to the hats, and they were left off, as the coats continued to be. In 1849 this elegant place of amusement was demolished and streets built on its grounds, as also the present White Conduit Tavern.

A former proprietor of White Conduit House, Christopher Bartholomew, died in positive poverty in Angel Court, Windmill Street, 'at his lodgings, two pair of stairs room,' as theGentleman's Magazine, March, 1809, says. He once owned the freehold of White Conduit House and of the neighbouring Angel inn, and was worth £50,000; but he was seized with the lottery mania, and paid as much as £1,000 a day for insurances. By degrees he sank into poverty, but a friend having supplied him with the means of obtaining a thirty-second share, that number turned up a prize of £20,000. He purchased an annuity of £60 per annum, but foolishly disposed of it and lost it all. A few days before he died he begged a few shillings to buy him necessaries. But does his fate, and that of many others equally deluded, act as a warning to anyone? We fear not.

White Conduit House was sold in 1864, by order of the proprietor, in consequence of ill-health. The lease had then about eighty years to run, at the rent of £80 per annum. The property fetched £8,990. What price would it fetch now? Public-houses have gone up tremendously since then.

Close to White Conduit House was another famous house of entertainment, that is to say, Copenhagen House, which was opened by a Dane when the King of Denmark paid a visit to James I., but the house did not attract much attention till after the Restoration, when the once public-house became a tea-garden, with the customary amusements, fives-playing being a favourite. Hazlitt, who was enthusiastic about the game, immortalized one Cavanagh, an Irish player, who distinguished himself at Copenhagen House by playing matches for wagers and dinners. The wall against which they played was that which supported the kitchen chimney, and when the ball resounded louder than usual the cooks exclaimed, 'Those are the Irishman's balls!' 'And the joints trembled on their spits,' says Hazlitt. The next landlord encouraged dog-fighting and bull-baiting, in consequence of which he lost his license in 1816. The fields around Copenhagen House, now all built over, were the scene of many riotous assemblies at the time of the French Revolution, Thelwall, Horne Tooke, and other sympathizers with France being the chief instigators and leaders of those meetings.

Going considerably northward, we reach Highbury Barn, which, with lands belonging thereto, was leased in 1482 by the Prior of the monastery of St. John of Jerusalem to John Mantell, described as citizen and butcher of London. The property thus leased comprised the Grange place, with Highbury Barn, a garden, and 'castell Hilles,' two little closures containing five acres, and a field called Snoresfeld, otherwise Bushfield. Highbury Barn was at first a small ale and cake house, and as such is mentioned early in the eighteenth century. Gradually it grew into a tavern and tea-garden. A Mr. Willoughby, who died in 1785, increased the business, and his successor added a bowling-green, a trap-ball ground, and more gardens. The barn could accommodate 2,000 persons at once, and 800 people have been seen dining together, with seventy geese roasting for them at one fire. Early in this century a dancing and a dining room were added. Near this house there was, in 1868, found in a field a vase containing nearly 1,000 silver coins, consisting of silver pennies, groats and half-groats, two gold coins of Edward III., and an amber rosary. The manor of Highbury having, as we have seen, belonged to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, the coins may have been buried by them at the time of the insurrection of Wat Tyler, whose followers destroyed the monastery and also made an attack on the Prior's house at Highbury. The coins are now in the British Museum.

But we find we have got to the end of the space allotted to us, and though we have only, as it were, dipped into the bulk of our subject, we must defer for some other opportunity the description of the large number of old tea-gardens still to be noticed. We will here only indicate the most important of them: Camberwell Grove, Cuper's Gardens, Chalk Farm, Canonbury House, Cumberland Gardens, Cupid Gardens, Sluice House, Eel-pie House, St. Helen's, Hornsey Wood, Hoxton, Kilburn Wells, Mermaid, Marylebone, Montpellier, Ranelagh, Paris Gardens, Shepherd and Shepherdess, Union Gardens, Yorkshire Stingo, Jew's Harp, Adam and Eve, Tottenham Court Road; Adam and Eve, St. Pancras; the Brill, Mulberry Gardens, Springfield, and others of less note.

XIII.

WILLIAM PATERSON AND THE BANK OF ENGLAND.

Some London streets have strange and unsuitable names; thus you will find an alley of wretched hovels, with muddy yards, containing nothing but cabbage-stumps and broken dustbins, called Prospect Place; whilst a lane adjoining the shambles styles itself Paradise Row. And what a curious name for a street is that of Threadneedle[#] Street! How came the street to be so named? However, such is its name, and in this case it is not inappropriate. For lives there not in that street the Old Lady who is, year in, year out, everlastingly threading her diamond needle with gold and silver threads, and working the gorgeous embroidery of the financial flags of her own and of almost every other country in the world? Her dwelling is palatial; to be merely admitted into her parlour is in itself a positive proof of your respectability, for you gain no entrance thereto unless you are a stockholder; as to her drawing-room, the glories of Versailles and the Escurial are as miserable shanties, forherdrawing-room contains, leaving alone other treasures, engravings worth from five pounds each to fifty thousand—nay, a hundred thousand pounds each. There is no five o'clock tea there, but plenty of music all day long; its notes, indeed, are silent, but the gold and silver instruments, whose fascinating and entrancing sounds have more magic in them than has the finest orchestra, vocal or instrumental, are audible enough. And as to her cellars, the treasures the Old Lady keeps there would buy up half a dozen such caves as that into which Aladdin descended.

[#] Stow calls it Three Needle Street, as Hatton supposes, from such a sign. It has also been written Thrid Needle and Thred Needle Street, but our ancestors were not so particular as to spelling as we are.

The reader has by this time discovered who the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street is—namely, the Bank of England—the most gigantic monetary establishment in the world, the financial reservoir, the opening or shutting of whose sluices causes not only the commercial ebb and flow of east and west, of north and south, but sets in motion or prevents the 'pomp and circumstance of glorious war.'

The history of this mighty establishment has often been told, but it seems to us that but scant justice has as yet been done to its founder, William Paterson. The injustice done to him, in fact, dates from an early day, for soon after the foundation of the Bank, of which he naturally was one of the directors, intrigue drove him from that position, and envy and obloquy pursued him ever after. But let us briefly recount his early history.

Born on a farm in Dumfriesshire in 1658 of a family notable in old Scottish history, he was, at the age of sixteen, transferred to the care of a kinswoman at Bristol, on whose death he inherited some property. Bristol was then a great commercial emporium, doing with much legitimate business a little in the slave trade, and his connection with that town was afterwards injurious to him, for whilst his friends said that he visited the New World as a missionary, his enemies asserted that he was mixed up with slave-dealing, and occasionally indulged in piracy. But the fact of his marrying the widow of a Puritan minister at Boston is more in accordance with the statements of his friends than with those of his enemies. Anderson, the historian of commerce, who as a lad must have known him in his old age, speaks of him as 'a merchant who had been much in foreign countries, and had entered far into speculations relating to commerce and the colonies.'

He was in England in 1681, and, among the various schemes he started, he took a leading part in the project for bringing water into the north of London from the Hampstead and Highgate hills. He made a heavy investment in the City of London Orphans' Fund; in the improved management and distribution of that charity he took a profound interest, a fact which leaves no doubt of his philanthropic and public spirit. It was in 1684 that he first conceived the idea of the Darien scheme, and though this turned out so unfortunate, he from first to last acted with rare disinterestedness; his errors were those such as a well-balanced and generous mind might fall into without reproach. Nor is the failure of that enterprise to be attributed to him, but to the conduct of William III., who had sanctioned, but afterwards, at the instigation of the East India Companies of England and Holland, discouraged and positively thwarted, it. How deeply he felt the disastrous results of the expedition is shown by the fact that for a time his mind was deranged in consequence of it. And who will now deny that Paterson was right in calling the Isthmus of Panama the 'door of the seas and the key of the universe'? In 1825 Humboldt recommended the scheme of a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the enterprise of Lesseps will yet be carried to a successful issue.

However, we have to deal with Paterson chiefly as the founder of the Bank of England, and with the long and fierce battle he had to fight to accomplish his object, for there was great opposition to it from interest and prejudice. Paterson had been long in Holland, and when he propounded his scheme of a Bank of England, the people objected to it as coming from Holland; 'they had too many Dutch things already,' just as now there is a prejudice against things 'made in Germany.' Moreover, they doubted the stability of the Government of William III. At last, however, they consented to the Bank, on the express condition that £1,200,000 should be subscribed and lent to the Government. The money was subscribed in ten days. The Bank Act was obtained in spite of all opposition, which perhaps would have prevailed had not Queen Mary, acting on the instruction of William (then in Flanders), during a six hours' sitting, carried the point, and the company received their royal charter of incorporation in July, 1694. Almost as soon as it had been established the Bank was called upon to assist the Government in the re-coinage of the silver money. The notes of the new Bank were destined to fill up the vacuum occasioned by the calling in of the old coin, but as the notes were payable on demand, they were returned faster than coin could be obtained from the Mint; a crisis ensued, during which the notes of the Bank fell to a discount of 20 per cent. But the Bank passed safely through its difficulties, as also through the troubles caused by the South Sea Bubble. The opposition in the first crisis was due chiefly to the goldsmiths, who detested the new corporation because it interfered with their system of private banking, hitherto monopolized by them. Paterson's advice was of the greatest assistance in his capacity of director, yet such was the animus against him that, as we mentioned above, in 1695 he sold out the stock he held (£2,000), which from the first was a director's qualification, and retired from his office. But he did not withdraw from public life. The Darien Expedition already referred to was organized by him in 1698, and its disastrous results were, as we have shown, in nowise attributable to him, and this was, in fact, eventually admitted by the nation, Parliament in 1715 passing an Act awarding him an indemnity of upwards of £18,000 for his losses in that enterprise. In other ways Paterson continued to interest himself in matters affecting the public welfare; he rendered his Sovereign signal services by the wise and shrewd advice he gave him during the latter part of his troubled reign; he published many tracts on the management of the National Debt and the system of auditing public accounts; he was a zealous advocate of Free Trade, and his views on the subject of taxation were far ahead of the ideas of his day. His undoubtedly great talents, his thorough honesty and genuine patriotism, fully entitle him to the praise given him by his friend Daniel Defoe, as 'a worthy and noble patriot, one of the most eminent, to whom we owe more than ever he would tell us, or, I am afraid, we shall ever be sensible of, whatever fools, madmen, or Jacobites may asperse him with.'

We cannot attempt to give a history of the Bank of England in our limited space, but a short account of the Bank building may not unfitly close this notice of the founder of the establishment. The business was originally started at Mercers' Hall, and next removed to, and for many years carried on at, Grocers' Hall in the Poultry. In August, 1732, the governors and directors laid the first stone of their new building in Threadneedle Street, on the site of the house and garden formerly belonging to Sir John Houblon, the first Governor of the Bank. At first the buildings comprised only the centre of the principal or south front, the Hall, Bullion Court, and the Courtyard, and were surrounded by St. Christopher-le-Stocks Church, three taverns, and several private houses. From the year 1766 onwards considerable additions were made to the building. All the adjoining houses on the east side to Bartholomew Lane, and those occupying the west side of that lane almost to Lothbury, were taken down, and their places occupied by offices of the Bank. The south side buildings, forming the eastern continuation of the establishment, presented a range of fluted columns in pairs, with arched intervals between, pointing out where windows should have been placed, which, however, were filled up with stone. This necessitated the rooms within being lighted by small glass domes in the roof, a circumstance much complained of at the time by the clerks as injuriously affecting their eyes. It was intended to extend the façade on the western side by taking down the Church of St. Christopher, which by the removal of that part of Threadneedle Street had been deprived of a great part of its parish. Noorthouck, who wrote in 1773, says: 'How far so extensive a plan may answer the vast expense it will call for to complete it is a question proper for the consideration of those who are immediately concerned; an indifferent spectator cannot view this expanded fabric without comparing it with the growth of public debts negotiated here, and trembling more for the safety of the one than of the other.' Could he see the Bank now, covering nearly four acres of ground, what would he say?

One Ralph, architect, whose 'Critical Review of the Buildings, Statues, and Ornaments in and about London' was published in 1783, says: 'The building erected for the Bank is liable to the very same objection, in point of place, with the Royal Exchange, and even in a greater, too. It is monstrously crowded on the eye, and unless the opposite houses could be pulled down, and a view obtained into Cornhill, we might as well be entertained with a prospect of the model through a microscope. As to the structure itself, it is grand ... only the architect seems to be rather too fond of decoration; this appears pretty eminently by the weight of his cornices ... rather too heavy for the building.' The objectionable buildings here referred to were the triangular block of houses which formerly stood in front of the old Royal Exchange, but was removed on the building of the new.

At the beginning of this century the Bank on the south side was of the same extent as now; on the east side also it extended to Lothbury, on the west it reached to about half the length of the present Princes Street, which, however, then did not proceed in a straight line, as it does now, but took a sharp turn to north-east, coming into Lothbury at a point nearly opposite St. Margaret's Church, and thus cutting off a corner of the Bank site, which would otherwise have been nearly square. But when, early in this century, Princes Street was extended in a straight line to Lothbury, the condensed portion of the street, together with a block of houses on the west side of it, were added to the Bank site, and the Bank assumed its present shape. But great architectural improvements had in the meantime been introduced. The original or central portion, eighty feet in length, which was of the Ionic order raised on a rusticated basement, was altered to what it now is; the attic seen on it was added in 1850. This original portion was from the design of George Sampson. The east and west wings were added by Sir Robert Taylor, after whom Sir John Soane was appointed the Bank architect, and he rebuilt many of those parts constructed by Sampson and Taylor; and on Sir John's death in 1837 Mr. Cockerell succeeded him in the position. He again greatly modified many features of the building. The eighty feet of the original south side now extend to 365 feet; the length of the west side is 440 feet, of the north side 410 feet, and of the east side 245 feet. Both internally and externally classical models have been followed. The hall known as the Three Per Cent. Consol (three per cent., alas! gone) Office, ninety feet long by fifty wide, is designed from models of the Roman baths, as are the Dividend and Bank Stock Offices. The chief cashier's office is forty-five feet by thirty, and designed after the Temple of the Sun and Moon at Rome. The Court Room of the composite order, about sixty feet long and thirty-one wide, is lighted by large Venetian windows on the south, overlooking what once was the churchyard of St. Christopher's Church, and into which in 1852 a fountain was placed, which throws a single jet, thirty feet high, amongst the branches of two of the finest lime-trees in London. The north side of the Court Room is remarkable for three exquisite chimney-pieces of statuary marble. The original Rotunda was roofed in with timber, but in 1794 it was found advisable to take it down, and the present Rotunda was built, which measures fifty-seven feet in diameter, and about the same in height; it is of incombustible material, as are all the offices erected by Sir John Soane. There are a number of courts within the outer walls of the buildings; they are all of great architectural beauty; the one entered from Lothbury is truly magnificent. It has screens of fluted Corinthian columns, supporting a lofty entablature, surmounted by vases. This part of the edifice was copied from the beautiful temple of the Sybils, near Tivoli. A noble arch, an imitation of the arch of Constantine at Rome, gives access to the Bullion Court, in which is another row of Corinthian columns, supporting an entablature, decorated with statues representing the four quarters of the globe. The north-west corner of the Bank is modelled on the temple of Vesta at Rome. We have yet to mention the Old Lady's Drawing-Room, or the pay-office, where bank-notes are issued, or exchanged for cash. It is a fine hall, seventy-nine feet long by forty wide, and we have left the mention of it to the last because it suggests to us some particular reflections. We have seen that Paterson was the real founder of the Bank of England, and we may take this opportunity of adding that Charles Montague and Michael Godfrey are entitled to share in Paterson's glory for the assistance they lent him in this undertaking; but the Bank ignores its founder, and had not even a portrait of him till Mr. James Hogg, the founder ofLondon Society, presented them with one. In the Pay Hall stands the statue of William III., and in the Latin inscription underneath he is called 'founder of the Bank.' It is the old story: when a prize is taken at sea the biggest share of it, the lion's share, goes to the 'Flag'; the real fighters must put up with the leavings.

Let us end with another philosophical reflection.Facts are more astounding than fiction, as we will show by two facts. Gaboriau's novel 'La Dégringolade' (The Downfall), in one of its earliest chapters describes the opening of a grave in the Parisian cemetery of Montmartre, to discover whether it contains the body of a certain person or not. The coffin is found to be empty. This is a fiction, but are we not likely to see its realization shortly? Paul Féval's romance 'Les Mystères de Londres' gives a long account of the fictitious attempt of some villains to get at the treasures in the cellars of the Bank of England by digging a tunnel under Threadneedle Street; they are, of course, foiled in the end. But now, according to accounts published at the end of the month of November, 1898, in theDaily Mail, the tunnel is actually dug by a railway company, and so close to the walls of the Bank as to actually compel its governors and directors to call in the assistance of Sir John Wolfe Barry to advise means to avert the danger which threatens the building, already affected by the excavations. Trulyfact is stranger than fiction.

XIV.

THE OLD DOCTORS.

The lines of modern doctors have fallen in pleasant places. Their position is certainly somewhat different from what it was in the days when they were contemptuously called leeches, when their scientific investigations exposed them to persecution and death. Vesalius, the father of modern anatomy, was condemned to death by the Inquisition for dissecting a human body, but by the intervention of King Philip II., whose physician he was, the punishment was reduced to a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; on his return the ship was lost on the island of Zante, where he perished of starvation in 1564. Now Government licenses doctors to practise vivisection! At Dijon, in 1386, a physician was fined by the bailiff fifty golden francs, and imprisoned for not having completed the cures of some persons whose recovery he had undertaken. In a schedule of the offices, fees, and services which the Lord Wharton had with the Wardenry of the city and castle of Carlisle in 1547, a trumpeter was rated at 16d. per day, and a surgeon only at 12d. Edward III. granted Counsus de Gangeland, an apothecary of London, 6d. a day for his care and attendance on him while he formerly lay sick in Scotland. A knowledge of astrology was in those days requisite for a physician; the herbs were not to be gathered except when the sun and the planets were in certain constellations, and certificates of their being so were necessary to give them reputation. Sometimes patients applied to astrologers, who were astrologers only, whether the constellations were favourable to the doctor's remedies. Then, if the man died, the astrologer ascribed the death to the inefficacy of the remedies, while the doctor threw the blame on the astrologer, he not having properly observed the constellations. Then the latter would exclaim that his case was extremely hard; if he made a mistake, his calculation being wrong, heaven discovered it, whilst if a physician was guilty of a blunder, the earth covered it. Even then doctors were considered like the potato plant, whose fruit is underground. To see the doctor's carriage, whose motto should be 'Live or die,' or 'Morituri te salutant,' attending a funeral, reminds a cynic of a cobbler taking home his work.

In England the medical profession rose in public estimation from the time when Henry VIII., with that view, incorporated several members of the profession into a body, community, and perpetual college, since called the College of Physicians. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with their opposite characteristics of vulgarity and romance, of squalor and luxury, of ignorance and grand discoveries in science, of prejudice and intelligence, were highly conducive to the formation and cultivation of individualism and originality of character; hence those two centuries abounded in 'oddities' and 'eccentricities,' and in no section of society more than in the medical. The members of that profession could very readily and appropriately then be divided into two great schools—the Rough and the Smooth, the fierce dispensers of Brimstone and the gentle administrators of Treacle. The present century, with its levelling tendencies, opposed to all originality and so-called eccentricity in speech, custom, and costume, reducing all gentlemen in full dress to the rank of waiters, has nearly abolished the sulphury Galen; in fact, he would scarcely be tolerated now. People submit to certain foolish pretensions now, such as those of thought-reading and pin-hunting cranks, and similar mental eccentricities; but they must be administered mildly, there must be a treacly flavour about them, for—

'This is an age of flatness, dull and dreary,Society is like a washed-out chintz,Which scandal renders somewhat foul and smeary;And yet, without its malice, lies, and hints,E'en fashion's children would at last grow wearyOf looking at the faded cotton printsTo which respectability subduesOur uncontrolled imagination's hues.'

'This is an age of flatness, dull and dreary,

Society is like a washed-out chintz,

Which scandal renders somewhat foul and smeary;

And yet, without its malice, lies, and hints,

E'en fashion's children would at last grow weary

Of looking at the faded cotton prints

To which respectability subdues

Our uncontrolled imagination's hues.'

Hence the medical showmen of the present day must accompany the 'exhibition' of their nostrums with dulcet sounds and honeyed speeches, especially when treating those nursed in the lap of affluence; and, accustomed as they are to adulation, the medico who can condescend to feed them with well-disguised flattery, or assume the tone of abject servility, has too often the credit of possessing superior skill and science. And the patients, in the words of Byron, travestied—

'They swallow filthy draughts and nauseous pills,But yet there is no end of human ills.'

'They swallow filthy draughts and nauseous pills,

But yet there is no end of human ills.'

It was, of course, not every doctor who could, at the beginning of his career, go in for the brimstone system. Unless he was backed by very powerful patronage, or wrote a book or pamphlet which attracted attention—as Elliotson's practice rose from £500 to £5,000 a year through his papers in theLancet—or was by some lucky accident pitched into a position which by itself alone inspired the public with an overwhelming belief in his skill, the experiment of treating his patients with rudeness and indifference would have been fatal to his prospects. But let him once make a hit, either by being luckily on the spot when a king or prince was thrown off his horse, or by a successful operation, or by writing a book which 'caught on,' and the public were at his feet, and he could trample on them as much as he liked. But it did not follow that, after such success, he must necessarily abuse his privileges. Dr. Arbuthnot, the son of a non-juring clergyman in Scotland, came to London about the time of the Restoration, and at first earned a living by teaching mathematics, though he had studied medicine. He happened to be at Epsom on one occasion when Prince George, who was also there, was suddenly taken ill. Arbuthnot was called in, and having effected a cure, was soon afterwards appointed one of the physicians in ordinary to the Queen. And, of course, his practice was established on a solid foundation, and he carried it on with considerable professional distinction. But his success did not spoil him, for he was a man of a genial disposition, who turned neither to brimstone nor to treacle, but always maintained a dignified demeanour. He was a wit and a man of letters, and enjoyed the esteem of such men as Swift, Pope, and Gay. Before coming to London he had chosen Dorchester as a place to practise as a physician, but the salubrity of the air was opposed to his success, and he took horse for London. A friend meeting him, asked him where he was going. 'To leave your confounded place, where I can neither live nor die.' It was said of him that his wit and pleasantry sometimes assisted his prescriptions, and in some cases rendered them unnecessary. He died at the age of sixty from a complication of disorders, so little is the physician able to cure himself.

Sir Astley Cooper (b. 1768, d. 1841) also did not belong to the brimstone school. His surgical skill was very great, and he liked to display it. He always retained perfect self-command in the operating theatre, and during the most critical and dangerous performances on a patient, he tried to keep up the latter's courage by lively and facetious remarks. When he was in the zenith of his fame, a satirical Sawbones said of him:

'Nor Drury Lane nor Common GardenAre, to my fancy, worth a farden;I hold them both small beer.Give me the wonderful exploits,And jolly jokes between the sleights,OfAstley's Amphitheatre.'

'Nor Drury Lane nor Common Garden

Are, to my fancy, worth a farden;

I hold them both small beer.

Give me the wonderful exploits,

And jolly jokes between the sleights,

OfAstley's Amphitheatre.'

When Sir Astley lived in Broad Street, City, he had every day a numerous morning levee of City patients. The room into which they were shown would hold from forty to fifty people, and often callers, after waiting for hours, were dismissed without having seen the doctor. His man Charles, with more than his master's dignity, would say to disappointed applicants when they reappeared on the following morning: 'I am not sure that we shall be able to attend to you, for our list is full for the day; but if you will wait, I will see what we can do for you.' During the first nine years of his practice Sir Astley's earnings progressed thus: First year, £5 5s.; second, £26; third, £64; fourth, £96; fifth, £100; sixth, £200; seventh, £400; eighth, £600; ninth, £1,100. Eventually his annual income rose to more than £15,000; the largest sum he ever made in one year was £21,000. A West Indian millionaire gave him his highest fee; he had successfully undergone a painful operation, and sitting up in bed, he threw his nightcap at Cooper, saying, 'Take that!' 'Sir,' replied Sir Astley, 'I'll pocket the affront;' and on reaching home he found in the cap a cheque for one thousand guineas.

Dr. Matthew Baillie (b. 1761, d. 1823) was a physician who occasionally indulged in the brimstone temper, and was disinclined to attend to the details of an uninteresting case. After listening on one occasion to a long-drawn account from a lady, who ailed so little that she was going that evening to the opera, he had made his escape, when he was urged to step upstairs again that the lady might ask him whether, on her return from the opera, she might eat some oysters. 'Yes, madam,' said Baillie; 'shells and all!'

Dr. Richard Mead (b. 1673, d. 1754) was physician to George II., and the friend of Drs. Radcliffe, Garth, and Arbuthnot, and a great patron of literary and artistic genius. In his house in Great Ormond Street he established what may be called the first academy of painting in London. His large collection of paintings and antiquities, as well as his valuable library, was sold by auction on his death in 1754. In 1740 he had a quarrel with Dr. Woodward, like himself a Gresham professor; the two men drew their swords, and Mead having obtained the advantage, he commanded Woodward to beg his life. 'No, doctor,' said the vanquished combatant, 'that I will not till I am your patient.' But, nevertheless, at last he wisely submitted. In Ward's 'Lives of the Gresham Professors' is a view of Gresham College, with a gateway, entering from Broad Street, marked 25. Within are the figures of two persons, the one standing, the other kneeling; they represent Dr. Mead and Dr. Woodward. Dr. Mead was of a generous nature. In 1723, when the celebrated Dr. Friend was sent to the Tower, Mead kindly took his practice, and, on his release by Sir Robert Walpole, presented the escaped Jacobite with the result, £5,000.

Dr. Mead, about 1714, lived at Chelsea; about the same date there lived in the same locality Dr. Alexander Blackwell, whom we introduce here chiefly on account of his singularly unfortunate life and very tragical end. Blackwell was a native of Aberdeen, studied physic under Boerhaave at Leyden, and took the degree of M.D. On his return home he married, and for some time practised as a physician in London. But not meeting with success, he became corrector of the press for Mr. Wilkins, a printer, and some time after commenced business in the Strand on his own account, and promised to do well, when, under an antiquated and unjustly restrictive law, a suit was brought against him for setting up as a printer without his having served his apprenticeship to it. Mr. Blackwell defended the suit, but at the trial in Westminster Hall a dunderheaded jury, probably of narrow-minded tradesmen, all anxious to uphold their objectionable privileges, found a verdict against him, in consequence of which he became bankrupt, and one of his creditors kept him in prison for nearly two years. By the help of his wife, who was a clever painter and engraver, he was released. She prepared all the plates for the 'Herbal,' a work figuring most of the plants in the Physic Garden at Chelsea, close to which she lived. A copy of this book eventually fell into the hands of the Swedish Ambassador, who sent it over to his Court, where it was so much liked that Dr. Blackwell was engaged in the Swedish service, and went to reside at Stockholm. He was appointed physician to the King, who under his treatment had recovered from a serious illness. Dr. Blackwell had left his wife in England; she was to follow him as soon as his position was placed on a solid basis. But ere this could take place he was accused of having been engaged with natives and foreigners in plotting to overturn the constitution of the kingdom. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be broken alive on the wheel, his heart and bowels to be torn out and burnt, and his body to be quartered. He was said, under torture, to have made confession of such an attempt, but the real extent of his guilt must always remain problematical. That he, a person of no influence, and unconnected with any person of rank, should have aimed at overthrowing the constitution seems very improbable. It is more likely that he was made a scapegoat to strike terror into the party then opposed to the Ministry. The awful sentence passed on him, however, was commuted to beheading, which fate he underwent on July 29, 1747. He must have been a man of great nerve and a humorist, for, having laid his head wrong, he remarked jocosely that this being his first experiment, no wonder he should want a little instruction!

The Dr. Woodward we mentioned above seems to have been a very irascible and objectionable individual. He so grossly insulted Sir Hans Sloane, when he was reading a paper of his own before the Royal Society in 1710, that, under the presidency of Sir Isaac Newton, he was expelled from the Society.

Among medical oddities of the rougher sort we may reckon Mounsey, a friend of Garrick, and physician to Chelsea Hospital. His way of extracting teeth was original. Round the tooth to be drawn he fastened a strong piece of catgut, to the opposite end of which he fastened a bullet, with which and a strong dose of powder he charged a pistol. On the trigger being pulled, the tooth was drawn out. Of course, it was but seldom he could prevail on anyone to try the process. Once, having induced a gentleman to submit to the operation, the latter at the last moment exclaimed: 'Stop! stop! I've changed my mind.' 'But I have not, and you are a fool and a coward for your pains,' answered the doctor, pulling the trigger, and in another instant the tooth was extracted.

Once, before setting out on a journey, being incredulous as to the safety of cash-boxes and safes, he hid a considerable quantity of gold and notes in the fireplace of his study, covering them with cinders and shavings. A month after, returning luckily sooner than he was expected, he found his housemaid preparing to entertain a few friends at tea in her master's room. She was on the point of lighting the fire, and had just applied a candle to the doctor's notes, when he entered the room, seized a pail of water which happened to be standing near, and throwing its contents over the fuel and the servant, extinguished the fire and her presence of mind at the same time. Some of the notes were injured, and the Bank of England made some difficulty about cashing them.

'When doctors disagree,' etc. Do they ever agree? Yes, when, after a consultation over a mild case which has no interest for any of them, they over wine and biscuits agree that the treatment hitherto pursued had better be continued. To discuss it further would interrupt the pleasant chat over the news of the day! But when they meet over a friendly glass at the coffee-house they go at it hammer and tongs. Dr. Buchan, the author of 'Domestic Medicine,' of which 80,000 copies were sold during the author's lifetime, and which, according to modern medical opinion, killed more patients than that—doctors like cheap medicine as little as lawyers like cheap law—Dr. Gower, the urbane and skilled physician of Middlesex Hospital, and Dr. Fordyce, a fashionable physician, whose deep potations never affected him, used to meet at the Chapter Coffee-House, and hold discussions on medical topics; but they never agreed, and with boisterous laughter used to ridicule each other's theories. But they all agreed in considering the Chapter punch as a safe remedy for all ills.

Dr. Garth, the author of the 'Dispensary,' a poem directed against the Apothecaries and Anti-Dispensarians, a section of the College of Physicians, was very good-natured, but too fond of good living. One night, when he lingered over the bottle at the Kit-Kat Club, though patients were longing for him, Steele reproved him for his neglect of them. 'Well, it's no great matter at all,' replied Garth, pulling out a list of fifteen, 'for nine of them have such bad constitutions that not all the physicians in the world can save them, and the other six have such good constitutions that all the physicians in the world cannot kill them.' The doctor here plainly admitted the uselessness of his supposed science, as in his 'Dispensary' he admitted drugs to be not only useless, but murderous.

'High where the Fleet Ditch descends in sable streams,To wash the sooty Naiads in the Thames,There stands a structure[#] on a rising hill,Where Tyros take their freedom out to kill.'

'High where the Fleet Ditch descends in sable streams,

To wash the sooty Naiads in the Thames,

There stands a structure[#] on a rising hill,

Where Tyros take their freedom out to kill.'

[#] Apothecaries' Hall. A doctor, I forget his name, having obtained some mark of distinction from the Company of Apothecaries, mentioned at a party that the glorious Company of Apothecaries had conferred much honour on him. 'But,' said a lady, 'what about the noble army of martyrs of patients?'

In Blenheim Street lived Joshua Brookes, the famous anatomist, whose lectures were attended by upwards of seven thousand pupils. His museum was almost a rival of that of John Hunter, and was liberally thrown open to visitors. One evening a coach drew up at his door, a heavy sack was taken out and deposited in the hall, and the servants, accustomed to such occurrences, since their master was in the habit of buying subjects, were about to carry it down the back-stairs into the dissecting-room, when a living subject thrust his head and neck out of one end and begged for his life. The servants in alarm ran to fetch pistols, but the subject continued to beg for mercy in such tones as to assure them they had nothing to fear from him. He had been drunk, and did not know how he got into the sack. Dr. Brookes ordered the sack to be tied loosely round his chin, and sent him in a coach to the watch-house. How he got into the sack may easily be surmised: Some body-snatchers, a tribe then very much to the fore, had no doubt found the man dead drunk in the street, and knowing the doctor to be a buyer of subjects, had taken him there, in the hope that the doctor might begin operating on the body before it recovered consciousness, so as to enable them afterwards to claim the price. In the days when there were dozens of executions in one morning at Newgate, the doctors had a good time of it, for the bodies of the malefactors were handed over to them for dissection. In fact, under the steps leading up to the front-door of Surgeons' Hall, a handsome building which stood next to Newgate Prison, there was a small door, through which the corpses were introduced into the building. Surgeons' Hall was pulled down in 1809, to make room for the new Sessions House.

The doctors of the previous two centuries were mostly Sangrados, who bled and purged their patients most unmercifully; but we must say this to their credit, they did not descend to the sublime atrocity of microbes, bacilli, and all the other horrors of the microscopic mania now sending unnumbered nervous people into lunatic asylums. And so they had not, like their modern compeers, the chance of amusing themselves and paying one another professional compliments by sending glass tubes, filled with the deadly spawn, from one country to another by ship and rail. Fancy one of those tubes getting accidentally broken, or being intentionally smashed for a lark on board a passenger steamer. Why, this would speedily become a vessel laden with corpses! At least, according to modern teaching, which,entre nous, we have no more faith in than we have in many other medical dicta. A man is ill from over gorging or drinking, a child ails from a surfeit of sweets or from catching a disease playing with other children in the streets or at school. The doctor is called in, and instead of telling the man, 'You have made a beast of yourself,' or correctly indicating the cause of the child's illness, he sniffs about and says: 'There is something the matter with your drains: I can smell sewer-gas.' And presently the sanitary inspector arrives, and orders the pulling up and renewal of the drains, and for days the house is filled with the effluvia supposed to be poisonous. How is it the whole family do not die off? Well, scavengers who daily deal with offal and garbage of the most offensive kind, the men who work down in the sewers, enjoy robust health; the latter only suffer when they are suddenly plunged into an excess of sewer-gas, but it is the quantity and not the quality that injures.

The excessive treacliness of modern doctors, as we have just shown, is as objectionable as was the brimstone treatment of some of their predecessors. A principle with modern doctors is never to acknowledge themselves nonplussed. The old doctors now and then confessed themselves beaten. Said an Æsculapius who had been called in to prescribe for a child, after diagnosing, as the ridiculous farce of tongue-speering and pulse-squeezing is called: 'This here babe has got a fever; now, I ain't posted up in fevers, but I will send her something that will throw her into fits, and I'm a stunner on fits.' And modern doctors, indeed, have no occasion to admit ignorance since the invention of the liver. When they cannot tell what is the matter with a man, or they are too urbane to reproach him with his excesses, his liver is out of order—and that is an organ which cannot possibly be examined and its condition be verified so as to prove or disprove the practitioner's assertion. I assume that nine out of ten people don't know where or what the liver is—I'm sure I don't, and don't want to; but as Sancho Panza blessed the man who invented sleep, the doctors should bless their colleague who invented the liver! Abernethy, of whom more hereafter, with all his eccentricity, was honest enough to confess that he never cured or pretended to cure anyone, which only quacks did. He despised the humbug of the profession, and its arts to mislead and deceive patients. He only attempted to second Nature in her efforts. He admitted that he could not remove rheumatism, that opprobrium of the faculty, and no doctor can; a residence in a warm and ever sunny clime, or a long course of Turkish baths, can do it. Hence sings Allan Ramsay's 'Gentle Shepherd':

'I sits with my feet in a brook,And if they ax me for why,In spite of the physic I took,It's rheumatiz kills me, says I.'[#]

'I sits with my feet in a brook,

And if they ax me for why,

In spite of the physic I took,

It's rheumatiz kills me, says I.'[#]

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