Hooker’s unaffected modesty came out again about this period. In 1887 he was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society, an honour which is the pinnacle of scientific ambition, and is open to foreigners as well as British subjects. He wrote in regard to the award, “I never once thought of myself as within the pale of it.” And in a letter to W. E. Darwin, “The success of my after-dinner homily at the R. S. is to me far more wonderful than getting the Copley. You . . . can guess my condition of two days’ nausea before the dinner, and 2 days of illness after it. I am not speaking figuratively.”
We find Hooker here and there slashing at contemporary methods of education. For instance, in regard to the mass of public school boys: “Not one of them can now translate a simple paper inLatin or Greek, or will look into a classical author, or listen to the talk about one.” Mathematicians fared no better. He wrote in 1893:—“What you say of A, B, and C does not surprise me. They arene plus ultramathematicians, and have not a conception of biological science, and in fact are onlyhalf-intellects(I suppose I deserve to be burned).”
It is pleasant to find that Hooker allowed himself time to indulge his love of art. He was especially fond of old Wedgwood ware, and corresponded with William Darwin—a fellow amateur. In 1895, he allowed the same friend to become the owner of some old Wedgwood ware; and when the sale was completed Hooker speaks of its being a relief “to feel that the crockery is going back where it should have gone by rights.”[133]Elsewhere (ii., p. 360) Hooker discourses pleasantly on the perfect adaption to its end of the old Wedgwood ware. An old teapot, for instance, avoids all the faults of the modern article, in lifting which “you scald your knuckles against the body of the pot”; then the lid shoots off and you scald your other hand in trying to save it; the tea shoots out and splashes over the teacup; lastly the “spout dribbles when you set the pot down.” All these sins are provided against in the old Wedgwood teapot.
TheFlora of British Indiahaving been finished, he was asked to complete the handbook to the Flora of Ceylon, interrupted by the death of Trimen, and this occupied him for three years. He was then led to what was to be his final piece of work, namely, astudy of the difficult group of the Balsams (Impatiens), and he certainly was not coloured by what he worked in, for the whole stock of his admirable patience was needed for this difficult research. His perseverance was a by-product of his noble enthusiasm. In 1906, when he was eighty-nine years of age, he writes enthusiastically to a friend in the East expressing his longing for more Balsams, and concluding, “I do love Indian Botany.” And in 1909 he hears that the Paris Herbarium had overlooked forty sheets of Indo-Chinese specimens—and writes, “This is like a stroke of paralysis to a man approaching his ninety-third year, but it is no use grumbling, my eyes are as good as ever, and my fingers are as agile as ever, and I am indeed thankful.”
TheLifeof Hooker is enriched by a striking essay from the pen of Professor Bower. He points out (ii., p. 412) that “few, if indeed any, have ever known plants as he did. Such knowledge comes only from growing up with them from earliest childhood.” Professor Bower adds that Hooker “shared with Darwin that wider outlook upon the field of Science that gave a special value to the writings of both”; and he adds, “TheHimalayan Journalsranks with Darwin’sVoyage of the‘Beagle’.”
WhenMore Letters of Charles Darwinwas in preparation, Hooker was appealed to for assistance, and wrote a characteristically kind letter (1st Feb. 1899) to one of the editors:—
“I will gladly help you all I can; so have no scruples. . . . You are right to make the book uncompromisingly scientific. It will be greatly valued.I am getting so old and oblivious that I fear I may not be of much use.”
And a few weeks later (24th Feb. 1899):—
“I had no idea that your father had kept my letters. Your account of 742 pp. of them is a revelation. I do enjoy re-reading your father’s; as to my own, I regard it as a punishment for my various sins of blindness, perversity, and inattention to his thousand and one facts and hints that I did not profit by as much as I should have, all as revealed by my letters.”
In 1907 he received the Order of Merit, the Insignia being conveyed to him by Colonel Douglas Dawson from the King. I had the honour of being the only person present on the occasion, though why Sir Joseph allowed me this pleasure I cannot guess. I remember Colonel Dawson in vain trying to persuade Sir Joseph not to see him to his carriage at the door. I have, too, a picture of Sir Joseph fidgeting round the room afterwards, unwillingly wearing the collar to please his family.
In 1908 he took the chief part in the fiftieth anniversary of the Darwin-Wallace papers of 1858. He characteristically begged the Darwins to tell him if they entertained “thesmallestdoubt of the expediency or propriety of telling the public the part” which he took on that historic occasion!
He was also the chief guest at the 1909 celebration at Cambridge of the centenary of Darwin’s birth. I recollect him wandering about at the evening reception, quite unconsciously the object of all eyes. Unfortunately, Hooker was not presentat the banquet, where, as Mr L. Huxley says, “Mr Balfour’s historic speech was only eclipsed by the sense of personal charm in Mr W. E. Darwin’s reminiscences of his father” (ii., p. 467).
It is delightful to find Hooker in 1911 vigorously corresponding with Dr Bruce, a “brother Antarctic.” He writes to Bruce, 20th February 1911, “I return herewith the proof-sheets, which I have perused with extraordinary interest and an amount of instruction and information that I never expected to receive at my age” (Life, ii., p. 478). It is touching that in extreme old age the first work that occupied his youth should still find so clear an echo in his vigorous old age.
Mr Huxley records (ii., p. 480) that though Sir Joseph “kept at work till but a little before the end,” his physical strength began to fail in the late summer; but his mental powers were undimmed. He died in his sleep on 10th December 1911, and was buried (as he had desired) near his father’s grave at Kew.
Dr Moore writes in his preface: “The History is a gift from me to St Bartholomew’s, and I hope that the labour of investigating historical events, of meditating upon them, and of finally writing the book in such hours as my profession allowed during more than thirty years, may be taken as a proof of the gratitude I feel to the noble hospital with which my whole professional life has been connected.”
The book seems to me eminently worthy of its subject and of its learned author.[137b]As a record of the 800 years during which the Hospital has existed it naturally contains an enormous mass of detail, and this means that the book is physically very big. The first volume is of 614 quarto pages, and the second of 992 pages. The index contains at least 20,000 entries.
The Hospital and the Priory of St Bartholomew were the first buildings erected on the open space of Smithfield. The foundation took place in 1123, and Rahere, the founder, was the first Prior. He issaid to have been of lowly race, and to have made himself popular in the houses of nobles and princes “by witcisms and flattering talk.” Then he repented of such a mode of life and made a pilgrimage to Rome to obtain forgiveness. On his way back he had a vision of St Bartholomew, by whom he was directed to found a church in Smithfield.
It seems that “no part of the hospital as built by Rahere is now standing, but within the present building, which covers the original site, there still remains one thing which was there in his time. It is a legal document which his eyes beheld, and which was sealed in his presence. This charter is written on vellum in the clear hand-writing of the first half of the twelfth century.” The seal shows a “turreted building, which is probably the Priory of St Bartholomew’s as it looked in the first twenty years of its existence.”
The two parts of an indented chirograph have been preserved in the hospital, which give (i., p. 239) a view of the state of agriculture in Essex in the reign of King John. Mention is made of fields of wheat, rye, barley, oats and beans; of oxen, horses, of brew-house and barn. Rent was paid in kind and sent by water to the hospital quay, which may have been on the River Fleet and therefore nearer to the hospital than a landing-place on the Thames. The Fleet river, as Dr Moore happily points out (i., p. 246), is now shut up in a tubular dungeon, “as if to remind it of all the unhappiness it had passed by in the Gaola de Flete from the time” when the prisoners watched “the ships passing upit with corn for St Bartholomew’s Hospital . . . to the days when the body of Samuel Pickwick was confided to the custody of the tipstaff, to be by him taken to the Warden of the Fleet Prison, and there detained until the amount of the damages and costs in the action of Bardell against Pickwick was fully paid and satisfied.”
The author never fails to make interesting use of the driest of charters. Thus in the reign of King John a person with the pleasant name of Adam Pepercorn grants to the hospital ten shillings quit-rent for some land in Grub Street, a region full of unhappy memories. Dr Moore quotes passages from Johnson, Swift, and Goldsmith to show that the name Grub Street should have been protected by such associations from any change; but nothing is sacred, and Grub Street is now known as Milton Street.
The author (i., p. 279) asks whether the brethren of St Bartholomew’s made any medical studies, and points out they may well have read parts of theLiber Etymologiarumby St Isidore of Seville, who flourisheda.d.601. The book is a general summary of knowledge in Isidore’s day, and few religious houses in England were without a copy.
I like the facts in the region of domestic economy which are given. For instance, that in 1229 Richard of Muntfichet was ordered by Henry III. to give “six leafless oaks for the hospital fire.” We want to know whether they were the King’s oaks, or was Muntfichet forced to supply the wood? If Dr R. W. Darwin (father of Charles Darwin) had thenbeen King of England he would have ordered apple-trees, for these he considered much superior to all other fuel. The reader is constantly meeting interesting stories. Thus Bishop Roger Niger was, in the year 1230, celebrating mass in St Paul’s when a great thunderstorm burst over the church and the congregation fled in terror. But Roger and one deacon were not to be frightened, and went on with the Mass.
In the 13th Century John of Marsham (i., p. 390) made oath that he would carry through the affairs of Alan of Culing at the Court of Rome. Did John die on his journey, or did he fail in his suit? He never claimed the charter which he left at the hospital, where it may still be seen.
A charter recording a grant by the Master of St Bartholomew’s to the Bishop of Bath is preserved in St Paul’s; Sir Norman Moore says (i., p. 392), “It was pleasant to find this original document in the charter room of the cathedral, where mine was probably the first hand from St Bartholomew’s Hospital which had touched it since it received the seal of William the master and the brethren, six hundred and seventy years ago.”
I cannot resist quoting (i., p. 412) one more of the many touching and interesting episodes with which the history of St Bartholomew’s abounds:—
Cecilia, a widow, devoted herself to the altar of St Edmund and received a wedding ring. When she was dying (1251), a Dominican father, giving her the last sacrament, noticed the ring and said, “Take off that ring, lest she die so decked out.” Ceciliaroused herself and said she would offer the ring “before the judgement seat of God my betrothed.”
It is interesting to find that surnames were beginning to be established in the reign of Henry III. Thus a certain Thomas Niger is described as the son of Walter Niger.[141]
There are innumerable facts given in the history of St Bartholomew which illustrate the permanence of the London streets. Thus in a document of 1256 is mentioned a little lane going towards the church of St Mary Staining Lane. The little lane is easily found at this day leading from Wood Street to a small churchyard, on a stone in the wall of which is cut “Before the dreadful fire of 1666, here stood the church of St Mary Staining” (i., p. 441).
A document quoted (i., p. 454) is of interest in regard to the value of money in mediæval times; the following extract shows what in the reign of Henry II. was considered a serious sum. The hospital owed the butcher eleven pounds, and the master and brethren agreed to pay it in eight years and a quarter by a rent charge on a house.
The reader of Sir Norman Moore’s book is continually coming across unexpected facts. For instance, that St James’ Palace is on the site of what, in the reign of Henry III., was known as the Hospital of St James.
On 15th June 1253, St Bartholomew’s Hospital obtained from Henry III. two important charters,one confirming them in their possessions, the other in their rights and privileges. The gift was made, among other reasons, for the soul “of King Henry my grandfather.”
The author succeeds in conveying to his readers the personal interest which he evidently feels in the writers of the deeds of which he makes such good use. Thus (i., p. 477) he quotes Maelbrigte, who made a copy of the later Gospels at Armagh in the time of Rahere, as writing “at the foot of a very small page of vellum in a minute and exquisite hand, ‘If it was my wish I could write the whole treatise like this,’ thus handing down to succeeding ages a scribe’s pride in his art.” Again in a charter copied into the hospital cartulary the last witness is “Master Simon, who wrote this charter.”
The author (i., p. 485) has occasion to refer to a grant by Stephen of Gosewelle of certain lands. And this reminds him how he heard Dickens read the trial inPickwick. He says, in “almost every part I can recall his emphasis and the tone of his voice.—‘Mrs Bardell shrunk from the world and courted the retirement and tranquillity of Goswell Street.’ . . . Very few know that this thoroughfare was the street of a hamlet, extra barram de Aldredesgate.”
In a charter probably belonging to the earlier half of the reign of Henry III., a witness, Sabrichet, “has a name which survives in Sabrichetestead or Sabstead, the native pronunciation of Sawbridgeworth.” In the out-patient room a patient said that he came from Sawbridgeworth. The physician,[142]who had been instructed by Henry Bradshaw, remarked that the patient did not know how to pronounce the name of his own home. On this the patient exclaimed, “Oh, I know it is Sabstead, but I thought the gentleman would not understand.”
Names have a fascination for me, and I cannot resist quoting the name of Henry Pikebone, who, I hope, pronounced it Pickbone, and might well have been one of Falstaff’s men. We meet (p. 510) with a reference to John of Yvingho, which is said to have suggested Ivanhoe to Walter Scott. I regret to say that John was a fishmonger. Elsewhere we meet another pleasing name, Cecilia Pidekin, but unfortunately she is not known in any other way than as the recipient, by a will of 1281, of a chemise and a little brass pail. There are innumerable points of interest in the matter of names. Thus the author points out that Shoe Lane has nothing to do with shoes nor indeed with lanes; it is a corruption of thesolandaor prebend through which it passes.
The author often helps us to realise the appearance of the inhabitants of St Bartholomew’s. Thus (p. 551) the Bishop of London in his ordinance of 1316 settled that “those of the brethren who were priests were to wear round cloaks of frieze or other cloth, the lay brethren shorter cloaks; the sisters tunics and over-tunics of grey cloth, these not to be longer than to their ankles.” This last regulation is curious. We should have expected the limitation to have been applied to shortness rather than to length.
Walter of Basingbourne[144]was Master of the Hospital during the greatest epidemic of plague which “the Western world had experienced since the time of Justinian.” It is generally known as the Black Death, and was the same disease as that which terrified London in 1665, and the epidemic which has destroyed nearly nine millions of people in India since 1894.
Speaking (i., p. 584) of the Charter House, Sir Norman says: “Our hospital . . . saw the noble foundation of Thomas Sutton built, and became familiar with its brethren in their black cloaks and with the gown boys.” He quotes appositely enough Thackeray’s well-known words on the death of Colonel Newcome:—
“And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said ‘Adsum,’ and fell back. It was the word we used at school when names were called, and lo he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of his Master.”
In 1381 Wat Tyler and his mob sacked and burnt the Temple and the Priory of Clerkenwell. A few days later the brethren could see from their walls the blow struck by Walworth the Mayor, the fall of Tyler from his horse, and the courageous behaviour of King Richard. Wat Tyler was carried into the hospital, but the Mayor went in and brought him out and had him beheaded. Simon of Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, was beheaded by the rebels.Sir Norman Moore once asked a patient whence she came, and she answered “from Sudbury in Suffolk.” Dr Moore told his students the story of Simon’s death, and added that his head is said to be “preserved to this day at Sudbury.” The woman raised herself in bed and said, “My father keeps it.” Simon’s tomb at Canterbury has been opened, and was found to contain a headless body.
During the mastership of William Wakering, who died in 1405, and that of Sutton, John Mirfeld flourished in the priory of St Bartholomew and wrote hisBreviarium Bartholomei, which may “fairly be regarded as the first book on medicine connected with St Bartholomew’s Hospital.”
The brethren had no watches, and had to measure “the time for heating fluids or making decoctions by reciting certain psalms and prayers.” I remember to have heard Sir Norman say how he demonstrated to his pupils the efficacy of the words which our ancestors prescribed for the cure of epilepsy. Their magic depended on the fact that they required some minutes to recite, and this allowed the patient to recover from his fit.
I did not expect to find any evidence in regard to Falstaff, but the following passage (ii., p. 2) shows that he must have been damped (in two senses) on a memorable occasion[145]:—“In the year 1413, on the ninth day of the month of April, which day was Passion Sunday, and a very rainy day, the coronation of Henry V. took place at Westminster, at which coronation I, Brother John Cok, who have recordedthat royal coronation for the refreshing of memory, was present and beheld it.”
Sir Norman says (ii., p. 40):—“I was present at the coronation of King George V., and watched the splendid assemblage gradually filling Westminster Abbey, . . . and heard the shouts of ‘God save King George!’ . . . and saw the King in his crown, with the orb in his left hand and the sceptre in his right, walk in solemn procession down the nave. . . . It was a solemn as well as a splendid sight. More than once during the day I thought of John Cok, the brother of St Bartholomew’s beholding five centuries ago within the same walls and under the same noble vault, the coronation of the future victor of Agincourt. . . .”
John Cok is a valuable witness as regards the history of the hospital, especially as to the mastership of John Wakeryng, who held office for forty years. Cok became Rentar of the Hospital, and the chief work of his life was the writing of the Cartulary (which he called a Rental), recording rents due to the hospital, deeds of gift, papal bulls, and other documents. Cok’s book (dated 1456) is a large volume written in Latin on 636 leaves of vellum and enclosed in an ancient binding of oak boards covered with leather.
In a transaction of 14th June 1423 is the first appearance of the arms at present used by the hospital (ii., p. 16), namely, party per pale argent and sable a chevron counter-changed. It was probably Wakeryng’s coat of arms, but ended by being regarded as that of the hospital. The authorsuggests that the chevron “might symbolise the hospital roof, while the equally divided and counter-changed argent and sable suggested that each patient admitted had an even chance of recovery or of death.”
In 1432 arrangements were made for a water-supply to the hospital from Islington (Iseldon); and the “waste of water at the Cisterne” was to be conveyed “to the Gailes of Newgate and Ludgate for the reliefe of the prisoners.”
Cock Lane, near the hospital, has, I fear, no connection with brother John Cok (ii., p. 53); it was so called from the shops of the cooks who prepared refreshments for the crowds who came to Smithfield. It was at the end of Cock Lane that the fire of London stopped in 1666, but it is better known as the scene of the Cock Lane ghost.
Sir Richard Owen, who had been a student at St Bartholomew’s, told Dr Moore (ii., p. 54) a grim story of Cock Lane. It was there that the hospital authorities hired a house for the reception of the dead bodies of criminals hung at Newgate. “Owen was in a room on the first floor with Sir William Blizard, the President, who was attired in court dress as the proper costume for an official act. They heard the shouts of the crowd and then the noise of an approaching cart, which turned down Cock Lane and stopped at the door. Then came the heavy steps of the executioner tramping up the stairs. He had the body of a man who had been hanged on his back, and entering the room, let it fall on a table. . . . Sir William Blizard with ascalpel made a small cut over the breast-bone, and bowed to the executioner. This was, I suppose, the formal recognition of the purpose for which the body had been delivered. The rumbling of the cart, the contrast between the stiff figure of Sir William Blizard in his court dress and the executioner in coarse clothes, and the thud of each dead body on the table remained in Owen’s memory to the end of his days; and his skill in telling the story has made me remember it nearly every time that I have walked down Cock Lane.”
On 1st March 1711, a piece of literature destined “to be famous as long as English is read, was published near the end of Duck Lane in Little Britain.” This was the first number of theSpectator, and “all London read it and enjoyed it, from the motto to the end.” The author (ii., p. 63) imagines Mr Addison walking down Duck Lane the Wednesday evening before its appearance, from Mr Buckley’s in Little Britain where he had corrected his last revise.
Sir Norman Moore adds: “For me . . . Duke Street, Little Britain, has innumerable memories of twenty-one happy years. I lived there as a student and as house physician, and then as Warden of the College of St Bartholomew’s.” He adds that his election as Warden was his first professional success, which was followed by a place on the permanent staff of the hospital. It was the home of his early married life, and here his eldest child was born. He need not have apologised (as he does); such details will surely please all sympathetic readers.
There is an interest in even the modern inhabitants of Little Britain. We hear of dealers in gold lace and gold leaf, and also a representative of that rare genus the teapot-handle maker. These handles could not be worked on a lathe, and had to be sawn out of the ivory. Dr Moore learned that in all London there was but one other teapot-handle maker: he felt what a favour it was when the great man mended a fan for Mrs Moore.
It is pleasant to meet with the well-known lines from Wordsworth’s poem of “Poor Susan”:—
“Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.”
“Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.”
I regret to say that our author quotes only to criticise, since he denies that the mists of Lothbury are visible in Cheapside.
In 1535 the hospital estate was valued at £305, 6s. 7d. according to one authority, and at £371, 13s. 2d. by another. St Bartholomew’s was then the third hospital in London in order of wealth. Henry VII.’s Hospital in the Savoy and the New Hospital of Our Lady outside Bishopsgate were richer (ii., p. 125).
The Act of Dissolution was passed in 1536, and the property of the hospital was given into the King’s hands in 1537. Thus the “old order, which had existed for more than four hundred years, was at an end, and the hospital was in the eye of the law vacant and altogether destitute of a master, and of all fellows or brethren” (ii., p. 126).
“Augustinians, Benedictines, Carthusians, Gilbertines, Franciscans, Dominicans, and more, all werebanished from their ancient homes. . . . St Bartholomew’s Hospital was one of the few places where the injured tree of charity began to put forth new branches, and soon flourished again” (ii., p. 148).
The King, after five years’ delay, granted, on 23rd June 1544,[150]letters patent reconstituting the hospital for its original uses. William Turges, the King’s Chaplain, was the first Master, and “the body corporate was to be called ‘The Master and Chaplains of the Hospital of St Bartholomew in West Smithfield, near London.’” The grant did little for the poor, but it prevented the destruction of St Bartholomew’s and carried on its existence.
The figure of Henry VIII. is above the Smithfield Gate of the hospital. A full-length portrait of him hangs at the end of the Great Hall. He is also represented in a window of the hall handing the letters patent to the Lord Mayor and citizens. “Thus,” says the author, “do we commemorate this destroying King, who might have taken away all the estate of St Bartholomew’s, but only took a small portion of it” (ii., p. 161).
The constitution under which the hospital is ruled was established in 1547, and confirmed, with an alteration in but one important particular, in 1782. “Most of the offices created by the Deed of Covenant of December 1546, and the letters patent of January 1547, exist at the present day. The treasurer, the almoners, the physician, the surgeon, the rentar, the steward, the matron and sisters, the porter bearing a figure of St Bartholomew on his staff of office, andthe beadles with silver badges engraved with the hospital arms, are all parts of the present life of the hospital” (ii., p. 191).
Beside the grave benefactors of the hospital we hear of serio-comic personages who remind us of the curious lunatics recorded by de Morgan in hisBudget of Paradoxes. Thus in 1774 Mr W. Gardiner offered £2000 to St Bartholomew’s “as a sacrifice for God’s having put it in his power to overturn Sir Isaac Newton’s system” (ii., p. 245).
From 1547 the treasurer was “a very important officer, but the president also took an active part in the affairs of the hospital.” But now the treasurer is the responsible head of the administration.
In 1518 the College of Physicians was founded by Henry VIII. (ii., p. 408) on the advice of Dr Thomas Linacre. Its active existence began in his house in Knightrider Street. The most pious and the most learned men of England were Linacre’s intimate friends, and the “example of his life, as felt in the College of Physicians, continues a living force to this day” (ii., p. 411).
Dr John Caius (ii., p. 412) was a devoted follower of Linacre; he was born 1510, went to Cambridge in 1529, and in 1533 was elected Fellow of Gonville Hall. In 1539 he went to Padua, where Vesalius, the founder of modern anatomy, was Professor. In 1547 Caius was admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians, and not long after he came to live within St Bartholomew’s Hospital.
Caius wrote on the sweating sickness in 1552, and his work was printed near St Bartholomew’s. “Thuswere the proofs of the first medical monograph in the English tongue, and, indeed, the first book written by an English physician . . . on a particular disease, corrected in St Bartholomew’s” (ii., p. 418).
Caius was in 1555 elected President of the College of Physicians, to which he presented their silver caduceus with four serpents at its head, a book of statutes, and a seal. In 1557–69 he was engaged in the refoundation and building at Cambridge of what was to be known as Gonville and Caius College. On his death his viscera were buried in St Bartholomew’s the Less, while the rest of his body was placed in an alabaster tomb in the chapel of his college with the inscription: “Fui Caius.”
We meet with many proofs of the consideration shown by the authorities towards the patients. For instance (ii., p. 279):—
13th March1568.—“This day it is graunted by the courte that Griffen Davye shall departe forthwith into his countrye, and also that he shall have 20s. in his purse to bringe him home in consideracion that he is lame and impotent.”
Again (ii., p. 293), “30th April1597.—Ordered that curtaynes be provided for certain beds of the poor.” The author adds that “moveable curtains hang over the beds to this day, and are of great use in providing privacy when patients are washing and dressing.”
We meet with some trifling records of great events. Thus on 7th May 1660 it is ordered that “the shield of the States armes being the Redd Cross and Harpe be taken downe in the CourtHall and the King’s arms put in the Roome thereof.”
But even the King could not impose on the hospital. Thus in 1661 there was a vacancy for a surgeon at the Lock. The King wrote in favour of John Knight, but John Dorrington was elected (ii., p. 316).
In 1666 the great fire of London was only prevented from reaching the hospital by pulling down houses. The consequent loss to the hospital may be set down as £2000 per annum. We are constantly meeting in the history of St Bartholomew’s interesting lights on the natural history of the patients. An entry as to the supply of beer (of which, by the way, the patients were allowed three pints daily) pleases me:—“Sir Jonathan Reymond, Knt. and Alderman, is to serve the matron’s cellar. Alderman Lt.-col. Freind is to supply small beer” (ii., p. 339). These personages doubtless belonged to the established church, for dissenters were not allowed to serve the hospital with any commodity.
An entry under 26th February 1704 throws a sinister light on the condition of the wards:—“Elizabeth Bond did propose to kill and clear the beds and wards of bugs within this house for 6s. per bed.” I hope Elizabeth Bond was more careful in her work than was the writer of the resolution (ii., p. 352).
It is interesting to come across the following:—
21st July1737.—It was resolved “that the thanks of this Court be given to William Hogarth, Esquire . . . for his generous and free gift of the painting of the great staircase. . . .”
5th Jan.1758.—A committee considered thesubject of visiting prisoners in Newgate, but the plan was apparently thrown over because prisoners were found entirely destitute of clothes, bedding, etc.
Even in the history of Mr Pickwick (chapter xlii.) we read that “not a week passes over our heads, but, in every one of our prisons for debt, some . . . must inevitably expire in the slow agonies of want, if they were not relieved by their fellow prisoners.”
It is curious to find that in 1821 the function of the hospital as a school for students of medicine was something of a novelty. The reform seems to have been due to Abernethy.
In 1845, on 13th May, a unanimous resolution against female governors was carried. Dr Moore adds that “about half a century later they were admitted, and no disastrous consequences have ensued.” In 1851 Miss Elizabeth Blackwell was actually admitted as a student, and strange to say with satisfactory results.
The author relates[154]how he was walking back to St Bartholomew’s one hot summer afternoon when he saw at a small second-hand book shop Paulus Jovius’ history of his own times, printed in 1550. Within it Woodhull the collector had noted that he bought it at the sale of Dr Askew’s books. Next day Sir Norman met Robert Browning and mentioned the book to him: “He had read it, and recalled passages in it, and told most pleasantly how the bishop had concealed the manuscript in achest . . . when the Spaniards took Rome, and how a Spanish captain found out that Paulus Jovius valued the manuscript, and so only gave it up on receiving a promise of the emoluments of a living in the gift of the church” (ii., p. 539).
Sir George Burrows became physician in 1841:—“He did not hesitate to express censure where he thought censure required. A clergyman at St Bartholomew’s rather aggressively invited his criticism on a sermon which he had just delivered. ‘Let me tell you, sir,’ said Burrows, ‘that many a man has been put in a lunatic asylum for much less nonsense than you preached to us to-day’” (ii., p. 561).
Dr Frederic John Farre was elected physician, 1854. Farre was captain of Charterhouse School during Thackeray’s first year there. And inThe Adventures of Philipthe author tells how one of the boys laughed because Firmin’s eyes “filled with tears at some ribald remark, and was gruffly rebuked by Sampson major [i.e., Dr Farre], the cock of the whole school; and with the question, ‘Don’t you see the poor beggar’s in mourning, you great brute?’ was kicked about his business.”
Percivall Pott was elected assistant surgeon at St Bartholomew’s in 1745 and surgeon in 1749, holding office till 1787. There is in the hospital a fine portrait of him in a crimson coat, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. A very old lady, whose mother’s medical attendant had been dresser to Percivall Pott, told Dr Moore, on the authority of the above practitioner, that Pott often came to the hospital in a red coat, and sometimes wore a sword.
Occasional teaching in medicine had been carried out from the seventeenth century onwards, but the originatorpar excellencewas John Abernethy, who was born in 1764 and became a pupil at St Bartholomew’s in 1779. He taught anatomy in a really scientific manner, but he did not succeed in permanently raising it from the region of cram which in my day at Cambridge it shared with Materia Medica.
Many stories are told of his abrupt manner with his private patients. Charles Darwin used to tell us of a patient entering Abernethy’s consulting room, holding out his hand and saying, “Bad cut,” to which Abernethy replied, “Poultice”; the patient departed, only to return in a day or two, when his laconic report, “Cut worse,” was answered by “More poultice.” Finally he came back cured and enquired what he owed the surgeon, who replied, “Nothing; you are the best patient I ever had, and I could not take a fee.”
Sir James Paget was assistant surgeon at St Bartholomew’s in 1847; he became surgeon in 1861; he resigned the position in 1871, and died in 1899. He was the chief surgeon of the Victorian age, and his success may be estimated by the fact that his professional income rose to £10,000 per annum. He freely gave of his store of knowledge, for instance in Charles Darwin’sThe Expression of the Emotions. William Morrant Baker was elected a surgeon of St Bartholomew’s in 1882. He was noted for the neatness of his dress, and Dr Francis Harris, who sometimes wore country clothes, told Dr Moore thathe occasionally hid in the porter’s lodge to avoid Baker’s critical eyes. He warned Dr Moore (who was a candidate for the Wardenship of the College) that those same eyes were on him in the matter of dress.
Sir William Church, who wrote on the Hospital Pharmacopœia, gives some astonishing facts. From 1866 to 1875 the annual consumption of sulphate of magnesia was 42½ hundredweights,i.e., about two cart-loads. “In 1836 8¾ tons of linseed meal were used, while from 1876 to 1885 the annual average was 15¾ tons, but in 1911 the poultice was so nearly obsolete that 3 cwt. sufficed. In 1837 96,300 leeches were used; . . . in 1868 the number had sunk to 2200. . . . It is now (1911) about 700” (ii., p. 714).
Chloroform first appears in the apothecaries’ ledger on 22nd November 1847, just one week after the publication of Sir James Y. Simpson’s treatise.
A pound of pure carbolic acid was used in 1865, in 1911 the quantity was 2½ tons. Nurses have increased from a “matron and eleven sisters in the reign of King Edward VI. to the matron, assistant-matron, thirty-eight sisters, and 268 nurses who form the highly trained nursing staff of the present day” (ii., p. 778).
I cannot resist quoting a reminiscence of Mr Mark Morris, the Steward of the Hospital, who was born early enough to remember “several cases . . . of wives who had been sold in Smithfield. A rope was loosely thrown round them, and as the seller handed the end of the rope to the buyer, the buyer gave him a shilling. The new marriage was regarded. . . as in every way reputable and complete” (ii., p. 789).
We have space for but a few of Dr Moore’s pleasant reminiscences. A woman came from South Wales whose only language was Welsh. Her husband’s native language was Irish, and he had learned Welsh, but could speak no English. A scavenger came into the Casualty Department named Michael O’Clery. “An illustrious name,” said the physician (N. M.?) remembering a certain famous chronicler. The scavenger explained accurately to which part of the family of hereditary historians he belonged.
“Another patient, a shoemaker . . . gave the name of Conellan. ‘Have you ever heard,’ said the physician, ‘of Owen Conellan, who wrote a grammar?’ ‘My relation,’ replied the patient, ‘historiographer to His Majesty King George IV.’ Thus was the physician instructed in the biography of the grammarian” (ii., p. 873).
A mountebank, who gained his living by thrusting a sword, about a foot long, down his gullet was admitted to a surgical ward. The treatment consisted in putting probangs of india-rubber down the gullet, and in this the patient was more adroit than the highly skilled surgeon who attended him (ii., p. 874).
I like, too, the case of a patient who was described as an “arrow-maker,” and on being asked whether he did not call himself a fletcher, said, “Yes, but I thought you would not know.” We read, also, of ruler-makers with “their hair turned green by theresin dust produced by their lathes.” Also of “secret springers and piercers,” who suggest murder and sudden death to the imperfectly informed.
The following incident (ii., p. 883) is interesting from the point of view of history:—A negro, Jonathan Strong, had been brutally beaten by his master, and was admitted to the hospital in 1765. On leaving he got work at a chemist’s in the city; all seemed well, when he was recognised by an agent of his former master, and seized as “the property of Mr Kerr.” Granville Sharp, who happened to be present, at once charged the agent with committing an assault. An action brought against Sharp lingered on for some time and was finally dropped. Strong remained free, but the general question of slavery in England was not settled till 1772. It is pleasant to know that in 1877 Dr Moore told the story of Jonathan Strong to William Lloyd Garrison.
In attempting to estimate this book, it is necessary to avoid first impressions, for what strikes one on opening its pages is its dullness. It is edited by his son, who, in aPersonal Sketch, gives certain facts about his father without succeeding in being graphic or interesting in any way. There is too much detail of an unexciting quality,e.g., p. 272 (1867): “There was the usual visit to Playford in January. In April there was a short run to Alnwick and the neighbourhood in company with Mr and Mrs Routh. From 27th June to 4th July he was in Wales with his two eldest (sic) sons, visiting Uriconium, etc., on his return. From 8th August to 7th September he spent a holiday in Scotland and the Lake District of Cumberland with his daughter Christabel, visiting the Langtons at Barrow House, near Keswick, and Isaac Fletcher at Tarn Bank.” When this kind of thing occurs often it is intolerably wearisome.
The same criticism applies to the extracts from Sir George Airy’s diary, which his son publishes.For instance, p. 172 (1845): “On 29th January I went with my wife on a visit to my uncle, George Biddell, at Bradfield St George, near Bury. On 9th June I went into the mining district of Cornwall with George Arthur Biddell. From 25th August to 26th September I was travelling in France with my sister and my wife’s sister, Georgiana Smith. I was well introduced and the journey was interesting. On 29th October my son Osmond was born. Mr F. Baily bequeathed to me £500, which realised £450.”
This is a class of facts which a man may like to record, but their publication when so often repeated is surely unnecessary. There is, however, this to be said—that minute accuracy was a marked feature in Airy’s character, and must therefore be made prominent; and it may be argued that the right degree of prominence can only be given by avoiding all suppression. I cannot think that this is so in the case of an editor. Nor can I believe that Airy would have approved of one detail in his son’s method of printing the book, namely, that the diary is enclosed in inverted commas throughout, while the editor’s occasional remarks are without them. It would surely have been simpler to say once for all that what is printed is an accurate copy of the diary, and to have given the editor’s remarks within square brackets.
George Biddell Airy was born at Alnwick on 27th July 1801. He seems to have belonged to a Westmoreland family, but his forbears for several generations were small farmers in Lincolnshire.His father, William Airy, was clearly a person of energy and forethought, who laid by his summer’s earnings “in order to educate himself in winter.” He gave up farming as a young man and found employment in the excise, a profession not without danger in those early days when contraband trade was common. He is said to have had many fights with smugglers, but did not suffer the fate of the gauger inGuy Mannering, for Dirck Hatteraicks were not so common as youthful readers might desire.
In 1810 William Airy was transferred to Colchester, where, if there were fewer smugglers, there was more opportunity for education; and George was sent to a school in a street bearing the attractive name of Sir Isaac’s Walk. Four years later Airy went to the Colchester Grammar School, where he remained until 1819, when he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. The only point of interest connected with his school life is the record (in his own words) of Airy’s remarkable verbal memory. “It was the custom for each boy once a week to repeat a number of lines of Latin or Greek poetry, the number depending very much on his own choice. I determined on repeating 100 every week. . . . It was no distress to me, and great enjoyment. At Michaelmas 1816 I repeated 2394 lines, probably without missing a word.”
On 18th October 1819 he went to Cambridge “on the top of the coach,” and was installed in lodgings in Bridge Street. A reputation for mathematics had preceded him, and he was kindly receivedby Mr Peacock[164]and Professor Sedgwick. It will be remembered that some twenty years later both these personages interested themselves in another Cambridge undergraduate—Charles Darwin.
Airy (p. 23) showed Mr Peacock a manuscript book containing “a number of original Propositions” which he had investigated. This increased his reputation in the University, but he was destined to be eminent in quite another direction. On the recommendation of Clarkson—who, as the chief Abolitionist, ought to have been more revolutionary—he followed the rule almost universally neglected—that undergraduates should wear drab knee breeches. Though Airy must soon have discovered that the reign of breeches was over, he continued, like the careful youth he was, to wear them for three terms.
In the winter of his freshman’s year, he did some original research in mathematics. This praiseworthy undertaking was characteristically treated by two of his advisers: Mr Peacock encouraged him to work out his problems; but his tutor (who bore the appropriate name of Hustler) disapproved of Airy’s employing his time on such speculations.
He describes with characteristic precision his way of life as an undergraduate. He never failed to keep the four statutory morning chapels. Then came breakfast, and College lectures occupied him from nine till eleven. He then went back to his rooms, and instead of at once getting to his mathematics, he wrote a piece of Latin prose. At two o’clock he “went out for a long walk, usually 4 or 5 miles, into the country: sometimes if I found companions I rowed on the Cam (a practice acquired rather later)”; College Hall was at four, after which he “lounged” until it was time to go to evening chapel (five-thirty). About six he had tea, and then “read quietly, usually a classical subject, till eleven; and I never, even in the times when I might seem most severely pressed, sat up later.”
In his second year he was asked to coach one Rosser, a man of his own year, for which he was paid at the rate of £14 per term. “This occupied two hours every day, and I felt that I was now completely earning my own living. I never received a penny from my friends after this time.”
His undergraduate life ended triumphantly in his being Senior Wrangler. He refers (p. 39) to the hardships of the examination: “The season was a cold one, and no fire was allowed in the Senate House, where the examination was carried on . . . and altogether it was a severe time.” His reference to the ceremonial of degree-taking has a little self-glorification which is not characteristic of him:—“I, as Senior Wrangler, was led up first to receive thedegree, and rarely has the Senate House rung with such applause as then filled it.”
In January 1823 he came back to Cambridge and started business as a coach with four pupils, each of whom paid him twenty guineas a term.[166]By this time the great series of his published papers had begun—indeed No. 1, “On the use of Silvered Glass for the mirrors of Reflecting Telescopes,” had already been published in 1822, by the Cambridge Philosophical Society.
It was in 1824 that “came one of the most important occurrences” of his life, namely, meeting the beautiful girl Richarda Smith, who was to become his wife. They were engaged in 1824 and married six years later. I venture the guess that her health was never very strong, for she seems not to have been much with Airy in his holiday wanderings. Wilfrid Airy speaks of “their deep respect and affection for one another.”
On 1st October 1824, in his twenty-third year, he was elected to a Trinity fellowship. Macaulay, who was elected the same day, speaks somewhere of the especial value he placed on this most pleasant honour, but he was thinking of the life of a resident Fellow, and Airy at once told his tutor of his intention of going out into the world. He began, however, in the October term to give mathematical lectures in Trinity. The reader is not surprised to find that Airy now gave up the custom which he “had followed with such regularity for five years,namely, that of daily writing Latin.” I wonder what other Senior Wrangler wrote Latin prose while reading for the Tripos?
We have seen that the great stream of his original work had been established. In 1822 he wrote one paper, in 1824 three, in 1825 two, in 1826 three, and in 1827 five; and this stream was to flow for sixty-five years,i.e., until 1887!
On December 1826 he was elected to the Lucasian professorship, and thus became a successor of Sir Isaac Newton. The salary when Airy was elected was but £99 a year; the present holder is more adequately paid, and receives £850 annually. His prospects in 1827 were, however, not very good. He had to resign his tutorship when he became a professor, and thus lost £51 of income. As he would not take orders, his fellowship, according to the atrocious system of the day, would come to an end in seven years. But he surely judged wisely in accepting the poorly paid office. He had to lecture in a room, not intended for the purpose, in the old Botanic Gardens. This region is now occupied by science buildings, but bears a memory of its former history in the greatSophoratree flourishing there.
He was soon to obtain better paid work, for in 1828 he was elected Plumian professor, and giving up his college rooms he moved into the Observatory, where his official career as an astronomer began. During the following years, up to 1834, he was busy with professorial work and his duties at the Cambridge Observatory. He began to receive public acknowledgments of his character and his work. In1835 he was elected a correspondent of the French Academy. In the same year Sir Robert Peel (p. 106) offered him a pension of £300 per annum, with no terms of any kind, and allowing it to be settled, “if I should think fit, on my wife.”
On 11th June 1835 the First Lord of the Admiralty wrote offering Airy the office of Astronomer Royal, which was accepted. Another honour—that of Knighthood—he declined in the same year. In 1863 the same honour was again offered and declined with dignity, on the ground that fees of “about £30” were demanded. Finally, in 1872 he was offered the K.C.B. and knighted by the Queen at Osborne. In reply to the congratulations of a friend, Airy wrote: “The real charm of these public compliments seems to be, that they excite the sympathies and elicit the kind expressions of private friends or of official superiors as well as subordinates. In every way I have derived pleasure from these.”
With regard to other honours, it is pleasant to discover that Airy, one of the most accurate of men, could make minute mistakes. Thus in 1863 he speaks (p. 254) of the academical degree of D.C.L. held by him in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. But at Cambridge the degree in question is known as LL.D.
It may be well to give here, irrespective of dates, some of the other honours received by Airy.
In 1867 he (in company with Connop Thirlwall) was elected to the newly instituted Honorary Fellowships of Trinity—a distinction which seems to have given him especial pleasure.
In 1872 he was chosen as “Foreign Associate of the Institut de France” (p. 297), and wrote a strongly worded letter of thanks to Elie de Beaumont and J. B. Dumas, the Perpetual Secretaries. In the same year he wrote (p. 299) to the Emperor of Brazil in acknowledgment of the Grand Cross of the Rose of Brazil.
In 1851 he was President of the British Association at Ipswich. He showed his sense of duty in a characteristic way (p. 207). “Prince Albert was present, as [a] guest of Sir William Middleton; I was engaged to meet him at dinner, but when I found that the dinner day was one of the principal soirée days, I broke off the engagement.” In 1871 Airy was chosen President of the Royal Society. He wrote to a friend (p. 293): “The election . . . is flattering, and has brought to me the friendly remembrance of many persons; but in its material and laborious connections, I could well have dispensed with it, and should have done so but for the respectful way in which it was pressed on me.” He resigned the Presidency in 1873 (p. 303), giving his reasons as follows:—“The severity of official duties, which seem to increase, while vigour to discharge them does not increase; and the distance of my residence. . . . Another reason is a difficulty of hearing, which unfits me for effective action as Chairman of the Council.”
It is quite beyond my powers to estimate the value of Airy’s work as Astronomer Royal; I therefore quote from Schuster and Shipley’sBritain’s Heritage of Science, p. 165:—“In astronomy he proved himself to be equally eminent as anadministrator and investigator. He introduced revolutionary reforms in the practice of observatories by insisting on a rapid reduction and publication of all observations. After his appointment as Astronomer Royal, he set to work at once to reduce the series of observations of planets which had accumulated during eighty years without any use having been made of them. This was followed up by a similar reduction of 8000 lunar observations. He was equally energetic in adding to the instrumental equipment. When Greenwich was first founded, the longitude determination at sea depended to a great extent on measuring the distance between stars and the moon. Hence accurate tables of the position of the moon were essential, and the preparation of these tables has always been considered to be the chief care of Greenwich. The observations were made with a transit telescope which could only be used when the moon was passing the meridian, until Airy in 1843 persuaded the Board of Visitors to take steps for constructing a new instrument which would enable him to observe the moon in any position. In 1847 this instrument was at work, and other important additions to the equipment were made as occasion arose. . . .
“Among his theoretical investigations in pure astronomy, one of the most important resulted in the discovery of a new inequality in the motions of Venus and the earth due to their mutual attraction, and this led to an improvement in the solar tables.”
Nor should it be forgotten that Airy “originatedthe automatic system by which the Greenwich time signals are transmitted each day throughout the country.”
With regard to the celebrated case of the planet Neptune, “which Adams predicted would be found—as it was found by the Berlin observer Galle, to whom Leverrier indicated its position,” Messrs Schuster and Shipley “cannot absolve either Airy or Challis [the Cambridge Astronomer] from blame.”
Airy writes (p. 181): “The engrossing subject of this year [1846] was the discovery of Neptune. As I have said (1845), I obtained no answer from Adams to a letter of enquiry. Beginning with June 26th of 1846, I had correspondence of a satisfactory character with Leverrier, who had taken up the subject of the disturbance of Uranus, and arrived at conclusions not very different from those of Adams. I wrote from Ely on July 9th to Challis, begging him, as in possession of the largest telescope in England, to sweep for the planet and suggesting a plan. I received information of its recognition by Galle, when I was visiting Hansen at Gotha. For further official history, see my communications to the Royal Astronomical Society, and for private history see the papers in the Royal Observatory. I was abused most savagely both by English and French.”
Having been Astronomer Royal from 1835, Airy, being eighty years of age, resigned his post in 1881, receiving (p. 340) a “retired allowance of £1100 per annum.”
His son writes (p. 346), “On the 16th of August1881 Airy left the Observatory,” which had been his home “for nearly 46 years, and removed to the White House. Whatever his feeling may have been at the severing of his old associations he carefully kept them to himself, and entered upon his new life with the cheerful composure and steadiness of temper which he possessed in a remarkable degree.”
His son continues (p. 347): “The work to which he chiefly devoted himself in his retirement was the completion of his Numerical Lunar Theory. This was a vast work, involving the subtlest considerations of principle, very long and elaborate mathematical investigations of a high order, and an enormous amount of arithmetical computation.” Of this work Airy wrote, p. 349 (apparently in 1886): “The critical trial depends on the great mass of computations in Section ii. These have been made in duplicate, with all the care for accuracy that anxiety could supply. Still I cannot but fear that the error which is the source of discordance must be on my part.” The work was continued until October 1888, but without success.
He continued to show his characteristic fearlessness in what he considers to be his duty. Thus in 1883 (p. 355) he refused to sign a memorial in favour of the burial of Mr Spottiswoode in Westminster Abbey, on the ground that he had not conferred “great and durable” benefits on society. In 1883 he wrote (p. 356) to the Vicar of Greenwich protesting against choral service in the church. I shall quote his words as almost a solitary example of his use of picturesque English:—“For a venerable persuasion there issubstituted a rude irreverential confusion of voices; for an earnest acceptance of the form offered by the Priest there is substituted—in my feeling at least—a weary waiting for the end of an unmeaning form.”
In 1887 his son records (p. 361) that Airy’s private accounts gave him much trouble. It had been his custom to keep them by double entry in very perfect order. “But he now began to make mistakes and to grow confused, and this distressed him greatly . . . and so he struggled with his accounts as he did with his Lunar Theory till his powers absolutely failed.”
In 1889 he had the satisfaction of knowing that his system of compass correction in iron ships had been universally adopted. Whether the Admiralty ought to be proud of the fact that fifty years had elapsed since Airy’s discovery was made known is another question.
Sir George Airy died 2nd January 1892. It is recorded that before the end came he had been lying quietly for several days “reciting the English poetry with which his memory was stored.”
“I thank God, Who has made me poor, that He has made me merry.”
“I thank God, Who has made me poor, that He has made me merry.”
Sydney Smith was born in 1771, the son of an eccentric Mr Robert Smith and his wife, who was the daughter of a Frenchémigré. Robert Smith is said to have bought and re-sold something like twenty houses in the course of his life. This may help to account for Sydney being early dependent on his own resources. When he was engaged to be married, he threw six silver teaspoons into his fiancée’s lap, saying: “There Kate, you lucky girl, I give you my whole fortune!”[175b]
The only one of Sydney’s brothers who need be mentioned was Robert, commonly called Bobus[175c](an Eton nickname). He once spoke of his mother’s beauty in the presence of Talleyrand, who, “with a shrug and a sly disparaging look,” said, “Ah! monami, c’était donc apparemment monsieur votre père qui n’était pas bien.”[176a]
Sydney went to Winchester on the foundation, where he had to endure “years of misery and positive starvation.” He used to say that he had at school made about ten thousand Latin verses, “and no man in his senses would dream in after-life of ever making another.”
Sydney passed from Winchester to New College, Oxford, where his rank as Captain of the School apparently entitled him to a fellowship. In spite of this he seems to have been poor and to have lived in consequence very much out of society. Between Winchester and Oxford he was sent to Mont Villiers in Normandy to learn French, in which he succeeded admirably. The revolution was then at its height, and he had to be enrolled in a Jacobin Club as “Le Citoyen Smit, Membre Affilié, etc.” It speaks well for Sydney’s self-restraint and powers of self-management, that after he became a Fellow[176b]of his college he never received a farthing from his father. On leaving Oxford he wasfaute de mieuxordained, and became a curate at a small village in the middle of Salisbury Plain. Here he made the acquaintance of the neighbouring squire, Mr Beach. He became tutor to the squire’s son, and it was arranged that they should go to the University of Weimar; but this turned out impracticable, and (says Sydney) “in stress of politics we put into Edinburgh,” where heremained five years. Here he came in contact with a number of interesting people—Jeffrey,[177a]Horner,[177b]Playfair, Walter Scott, Dugald Stewart, Brougham, Murray, Leyden and others, many of whom were life-long friends of Sydney. Another eminent person whose acquaintance he made later, may be mentioned here. Sydney wrote to Lady Holland in 1831 (ii., p. 326):—“Philosopher Malthus came here last week. I got an agreeable party for him of unmarried people. There was only one lady who had had a child; but he is a good-natured man, and if there are no appearances of approaching fertility, is civil to every lady.”
Sydney’s housekeeping difficulties at Edinburghproved an unexpected difficulty; his servants “always pulled off their stockings, in spite of my repeated objurgations, the moment my back was turned.” I cannot resist quoting,apropos des bottes, the following story. The reigning bore at Edinburgh was X, his favourite subject the North Pole. Sydney met X, indignant at Jeffrey having darted past him exclaiming, “Damn the North Pole.” Sydney tried to console him: “Why, you will scarcely believe it, but it is not more than a week ago that I heard him speak disrespectfully of the Equator.”
In 1799 or 1800 he was married to Miss Pybus, and in 1802, when a child was about to be born, Sydney hoped it would be a girl, and that she might have but one eye so that she might never marry. Part of the wish was fulfilled; the baby was a girl, but, unfortunately, quite normal in every way. Saba, for so she was called (a name[178a]invented by her father), ultimately became the wife of Sir Henry Holland, the well-known physician.
About this time Sydney suggested to Jeffrey and Brougham the foundation of a Liberal Quarterly—in those days a contradiction in terms—which was named theEdinburgh Reviewafter the town of its birth. Sydney proposed as a motto, “Tenui Musam meditamur avena,”i.e., “We cultivate literature on a little oatmeal,” but this was too near the truth to be admitted.[178b]
Throughout his life literature was combined with vigorous activity as a clergyman. Speaking of two or three “random sermons” which he “discharged” in London, he says he believed that the congregation thought him mad. “The clerk was as pale as death in helping me off with my gown, for fear I should bite him.”
He made many friends in London. Among these he specially valued Lord and Lady Holland, with whom he often stayed. They agreed in gaiety, humour, and political opinions. And it must be remembered that a Liberal parson was a rare bird in those days. Dugald Stewart (i., p. 127) said of Sydney Smith’s preaching, “Those original and unexpected ideas gave me a thrilling sensation of sublimity never before awakened by any other oratory.” But his most celebrated triumph was a charity sermon which actually moved old Lady C. (Cork?) to borrow a sovereign to put in the plate.
Sydney lectured on Moral Philosophy at the Royal Institution. Many years afterwards, in 1843, he wrote to Whewell: “My lectures are gone to the dogs, and are utterly forgotten. I knew nothing of moral philosophy, but I was thoroughly aware that I wanted £200 to furnish my house. The success, however, was prodigious; all Albemarle Street blocked with carriages, and such an uproar as I never remembered to have been excited by any other literary impostor.”
Leonard Horner wrote: “Nobody else, to be sure, could have executed such an undertaking. For who could make such a mixture of odd paradox, quaintfun, manly sense, Liberal opinions, and striking language?”
He used, like Charles Lamb, to give weekly suppers. Sir James Mackintosh brought to one of these parties “a raw Scotch cousin, an ensign in a Highland regiment. On hearing the name of his host he . . . said in an audible whisper, ‘Is that the great Sir Sudney?’” Mackintosh gave a hint to Sydney, who “performed the part of the hero of Acre to perfection,” to the “torture of the other guests, who were bursting with suppressed laughter.” A few days later Sydney and his wife met Mackintosh and the wonderful cousin in the street, to whom Sydney introduced his wife. The Scotch youth didna’ ken the great Sir Sudney was married. “Why, no,” said Sir James, “. . . not exactly married; only an Egyptian slave. . . . Fatima—you know—you understand.” Mrs Smith was long known as Fatima.
With regard to Sydney’s talk, his daughter speaks of “the multitude of unexpected images which sprang up in his mind, and succeeded each other with a rapidity that hardly allowed his hearers to follow him, but left them panting and exhausted with laughter, to cry out for mercy.” When he met Mrs Siddons for the first time she “seemed determined to resist him, and preserve her tragic dignity,” but finally she fell into such a “paroxysm of laughter . . . that it made quite a scene, and all the company were alarmed.”
In 1807 Sydney’s firstLetter from Peter Plymley to his brother Abrahamappeared. It was on the IrishCatholic question, and made a great sensation—Government trying to discover the author, etc. Lord Murray said, “AfterPascal’s Letters, it is the most instructive piece of wisdom in the form of irony ever written, and had the most important and lasting effects.”