Chapter 8

—σύ δέ κεν ῥεα πάντ᾽ ἐσορήσαιςἌι κεν ἴδης αὐτόν.3

3ORPHEUS.

It is a good remark of Mr. Riland's in his Estimate of the Religion of the Times, that men quarrel with the Decalogue rather than with the Creed. But the quarrel that begins with one, generally extends to the other; we may indeed often perceive how manifestly men have made their doctrines conform to their inclinations.Αἱ ἀκροάσεις κατὰ τὰ ἔθη συμβαίνουσιν· ὣς γὰρ εἰώθαμεν, οὕτως ἀξιοῦμεν λέγεσθαι.4They listen only to what they like, as Aristotle has observed, and would be instructed to walk on those ways only which they choose for themselves. But if there be many who thus make their creed conform to their conduct, and are led by an immoral life into irreligious opinions, there are not a few whose error begins in the intellect and from thence proceeds to their practice in their domestic and daily concerns. Thus if unbelief begins not in the evil heart, it settles there. But perhaps it is not so difficult to deal with an infidel who is in either of these predicaments, as with one whose disposition is naturally good, whose course of life is in no other respect blameless, or meritorious, but who owing to unhappy circumstances has either been allowed to grow up carelessly in unbelief, or trained in it systematically, or driven to seek for shelter in it from the gross impostures of popery, or the revolting tenets of Calvinism, the cant of hypocrisy, or the crudities of cold Socinianism. Such persons supposing themselves whole conclude that they have no need of a physician, and are thus in the fearful condition of those righteous ones of whom our Lord said that he came not to call them to repentance! The sinner, brave it as he may, feels inwardly the want of a Saviour, and this is much, though not enough to say with the poet

Pars sanitatis velle sanari fuit,5

nor with the philosopher,et hoc multum est velle servari:nor with the Fatherὁ τὸ πρῶτον δοὺς καὶ το δεύτερον δώσει.For if this be rejected, then comes that “penal induration, as the consequent of voluntary and contracted induration,” which one of our own great Christian philosophers pronounces to be “the sorest judgement next to hell itself.” Nevertheless it is much to feel this self-condemnation and this want. But he who confides in the rectitude of his intentions, and in his good works, and in that confidence rejects so great salvation, is in a more aweful state, just as there is more hope of him who suffers under an acute disease, than of a patient stricken with the dead palsy.

4Bp. Reynolds quotes this same passage in his Sermon on “Brotherly Reconciliation,” and applies it in the same way. Works, vol. v. p. 158.

5SENECA INHIPPOL.

DOÑA OLIVA'S PHILOSOPHY, AND VIEWS OF POLITICAL REFORMATION.

Non vi par adunque che habbiamo ragionato a bastanza di questo?—A bastanza parmi, rispose il Signor Gaspar; par desidero io d'intendere qualche particolarita anchor.

CASTIGLIONE.

According to Doña Oliva's philosophy, the quantity of water is ten times greater than that of earth, air in like manner exceeding water in a ten fold degree, and fire in the same proportion out-measuring air. From the centre of the earth to the first heaven the distance by her computation is 36,292 leagues of three miles each and two thousand paces to the mile. From the surface of the earth to its centre, that centre being also the central point of the Infernal regions, her computed distance is 117,472 leagues. How far it is to the confines, has not been ascertained by discovery, and cannot be computed from any known data.

Pliny has preserved an anecdote in geological history, which relates to this point, and which, not without reason, he callsexemplum vanitatis Græcæ maximum. It relates to a certain philosopher, Dionysiodorus by name, who was celebrated for his mathematical attainments, and who it seems retained his attachment to that science after death, and continued the pursuit of it. For having died in a good old age, and received all fitting sepulchral rites, he wrote a letter from Hades to the female relations who had succeeded to his property, and who probably were addicted to the same studies as himself, for otherwise he would not have communicated with them upon such a subject. They found the letter in his sepulchre, wherein he had deposited it as at a post-office “till called for;” and whither he knew they would repair for the due performance of certain ceremonies, among others that of pouring libations through the perforated floor of the Tomb-chamber upon the dust below. The purport of his writing was not to inform them of his condition in the Shades, nor to communicate any information concerning the World of Spirits, but simply to state the scientific fact, that having arrived in the depths of the earth, he had found the distance from the surface to be 42,000 stadia. The philosophers to whom thispost-mortemcommunication was imparted, reasonably inferred that he had reached the very centre, and measured from that point; they calculated upon the data thus afforded them, and ascertained that the globe was exactly 250,000 stadia in circumference. Pliny however thought that this measurement was 12,000 stadia short of the true amount.Harmonica ratio, he says,quæ cogit rerum naturam sibi ipsam congruere, addit huic mensuræ stadia xii. millia; terramque nonagesimam sextam totius mundi partem facit.

“What is the centre of the earth?” says the melancholy Burton. “Is it pure element only as Aristotle decrees? Inhabited, as Paracelsus thinks, with creatures whose chaos is the earth? Or with Faeries, as the woods and waters, according to him, are with Nymphs? Or, as the air, with Spirits? Dionysiodorus,” he adds, “might have done well to have satisfied all these doubts?”

But the reason, according to Doña Oliva, wherefore the place of punishment for sinful souls has been appointed in the centre of this our habitable earth, is this; the soul being in its essence lighter than air, fire, or any of the ten spheres, has its natural place in the Empyreum or Heaven of Heavens, where the Celestial Court is fixed, and whither it would naturally ascend when set free from the body, as to its natural and proper place of rest. The punishment therefore is appropriately appointed in the place which is most remote from its native region, and most repugnant to its own nature, the pain therefore must needs befort et durewhich it endures when confined within that core of the earth, to which all things that are heaviest gravitate.

In these fancies she only followed or applied the received opinions of the middle ages. A more remarkable part of her works, considering the time and place in which they were composed, is a Colloquy1upon the means by which the World and the Governments thereof might be improved. Having in her former treatises laid down a better system for treating the infirmities of the human microcosm, she enters nothing loth, and nothing doubting her own capacity, upon the maladies of the body politic.

1Colloquio de las Cosas que mejoraran este Mundo y sus Republicas.

The first evils which occurred to her were those of the law, its uncertainty and its delays by which properties were wasted, families ruined and hearts broken. What barbarity it is, she says, that a cause should continue forty years in the Courts! that one Counsellor should tell you the right is on your side, and another should say the same thing to your adversary; that one decision should be given in one place, and another to revoke it in that; and in a third a different one from either, and all three perhaps equally wide of the truth and justice of the case, and yet each such as can be maintained by legal arguments, and supported by legal authorities! The cause of all this she ascribes to the multiplicity of laws and of legal books, which were more than enough to load twenty carts, and yet more were continually added, and all were in Latin. Could any folly exceed that of those lawgivers who presumed to prescribe laws for all possible contingencies, and for the whole course of future generations! She was therefore for reducing the written laws to a few fundamentals in the vernacular tongue, and leaving every thing else to be decided by men of good conscience and sincere understanding; by which the study of jurisprudence as a science would be abolished, and there might be an end to those numerous costly professorships for which so many chairs and universities had been founded. Ten short commandments comprised the law of God; but human laws by their number and by the manner in which they were administered occasioned more hurt to the souls of men than even to their lives and fortunes; for in courts of law it was customary, even if not openly permitted, to bear false witness against your neighbour, to calumniate him in writing, and to seek his destruction or his death. Laws which touched the life ought to be written, because in capital cases no man ought to be left to an uncertain sentence, nor to the will of a Judge, but all other cases should be left to the Judges, who ought always to be chosen from Monasteries, or some other course of retired life, and selected for their religious character. This she thought, with the imposition of a heavy fine for any direct falsehood, or false representation advanced either in evidence, or in pleading, and for denying the truth, or suppressing it, would produce the desired reformation.

Next she considered the condition of the agricultural labourers, a class which had greatly diminished and which it was most desirable to increase. Their condition was to be bettered by raising their wages and consequently the price of produce, and exempting their cattle, their stores and their persons from being taken in execution. She would also have them protected against their own imprudence, by preventing them from obtaining credit for wedding garments, that being one of the most prevalent and ruinous modes of extravagance in her days. In this rank of life it sometimes happened, that a shopkeeper not only seized the garments themselves, but the peasant's cattle also to make up the payment of a debt thus contracted.

She thought it a strange want of policy that in a country where the corn failed for want of rain, the waters with which all brooks and rivers were filled in winter should be allowed to run to waste. Therefore she advised that great tanks and reservoirs should be formed for the purposes of irrigation, and that they should be rendered doubly profitable by stocking them with fish, such as shad, tench and trout. She advised also that the seed should frequently be changed, and crops raised in succession, because the soil loved to embrace new products: and that new plants should be introduced from the Indies; where hitherto the Spaniards had been more intent upon introducing their own, than in bringing home from thence others to enrich their own country; the cacao in particular she recommended, noticing that this nut for its excellence had even been used as money.

Duels she thought the Christian Princes and the Pope might easily prevent, by erecting a Jurisdiction which should take cognizance of all affairs of honour. She would have had them also open the road to distinction for all who deserved it, so that no person should be debarred by his birth from attaining to any office or rank; this she said, was the way to have more Rolands and Cids, more Great Captains, more Hannibals and Tamerlanes.

Such were Doña Oliva's views of political reformation, the wretched state of law and of medicine explaining satisfactorily to her most of the evils with which Spain was afflicted in the reign of Philip II. She considered Law and Physic as the two great plagues of human life, according to the Spanish proverb,

A quien yo quiero mal,De le Dios pleyto y orinal.

Upon these subjects and such as these the Spanish lady might speculate freely; if she had any opinions which “savoured of the frying-pan,” she kept them to herself.

THE DOCTOR'S OPINION OF DOÑA OLIVA'S PRACTICE AND HUMANITY.

Anchor dir si potrebber cose assaiChe la materia è tanto piena et folta,Che non se ne verrebbe à capo mai,Dunque fia buono ch'io suoni à raccolta.FR. SANSOVINO.

The Doctor's opinion of Doña Oliva's practice was that no one would be killed by it, but that many would be allowed to die whom a more active treatment might have saved. It would generally fail to help the patient, but it would never exasperate the disease; and therefore in her age it was an improvement, for better is an inert treatment than a mischievous one.

He liked her similitude of the tree, but wondered that she had not noted as much resemblance to the trunk and branches in the bones and muscles, as in the vascular system. He admired the rational part of her practice, and was disposed to think some parts of it not irrational which might seem merely fanciful to merely practical men.

She was of opinion that more persons were killed by affections of the mind, than by intemperance, or by the sword; this she attempts to explain by some weak reasoning from a baseless theory; but the proofs which she adduces in support of the assertion are curious. Many persons she says, who in her own time had fallen under the King's displeasure, or even received a harsh word from him, had taken to their beds and died. It was not uncommon for wives who loved their husbands dearly, to die a few days after them; two such instances had occurred within the same week in the town in which she resided: and she adds the more affecting fact that the female slaves of the better kind (esclavas abiles) meaning perhaps those upon whom any care had been bestowed, were frequently observed to pine away as they grew up, and perish; and that this was still more frequent with those who had a child born to an inheritance of slavery. Mortified ambition, irremediable grief, and hopeless misery, had within her observation, produced the same fatal effect. The general fact is supported by Harvey's testimony. That eminent man said to Bishop Hacket that during the Great Rebellion, more persons whom he had seen in the course of his practice died of grief of mind than of any other disease. In France it was observed not only that nervous diseases of every kind became much more frequent during the revolution but cases of cancer also,—moral causes producing in women a predisposition to that most dreadful disease.

Our friend was fortunate enough to live in peaceful times, when there were no public calamities to increase the sum of human suffering. Yet even then, and within the limits of his own not extensive circle, he saw cases enough to teach him that it is difficult to minister to a mind diseased, but that for a worm in the core there is no remedy within the power of man.

He liked Doña Oliva for the humanity which her observations upon this subject implies. He liked her also for following the indications of nature in part of her practise; much the better he liked her for prescribing all soothing circumstances and all inducements to cheerfulness that were possible; and nothing the worse for having carried some of her notions to a whimsical extent. He had built an Infirmary in the air himself, others he said, might build Castles there.

It was not such an Infirmary as the great Hospital at Malta, where the Knights attended in rotation and administered to the patients, and where every culinary utensil was made of solid silver, such was the ostentatious magnificence of the establishment. The Doctor provided better attendance, for he had also built a Beguinage in the air, as an auxiliary institution; and as to the utensils he was of opinion that careful neatness was very much better than useless splendour. But here he would have given Doña Oliva's soothing system a fair trial, and have surrounded the patients with all circumstances that could minister to the comfort or alleviation of either a body or a mind diseased. The principal remedy in true medicine, said that Lady practitioner, is to reconcile the mind and body, or to bring them in accord with each other,—(componer el anima con el cuerpo:) to effect this you must administer contentment and pleasure to the mind, and comfort to the stomach and to the brain; the mind can only be reached by judicious discourse and pleasing objects; the stomach is to be comforted by restoratives; the brain by sweet odours and sweet sounds. The prospect of groves and gardens, the shade of trees, the flowing of water, or its gentle fall, music and cheerful conversation, were things which she especially advised. How little these circumstances would avail in the fiercer forms of acute diseases, or in the protracted evils of chronic suffering, the Doctor knew but too well. But he knew also that medical art was humanely and worthily employed, when it alleviated what no human skill could cure.

“So great,” says Dr. Currie, “are the difficulties of tracing out the hidden causes of the disorders to which this frame of ours is subject, that the most candid of the profession have allowed and lamented how unavoidably they are in the dark; so that the best medicines, administered by the wisest heads, shall often do the mischief they intend to prevent.” There are more reasons for this than Dr. Currie has here assigned. For not only are many of the diseases which flesh is heir to, obscure in their causes, difficultly distinguishable by their symptoms, and altogether mysterious in their effect upon the system, but constitutions may be as different as tempers, and their varieties may be as many and as great as those of the human countenance. Thus it is explained wherefore the treatment which proves successful with one patient, should fail with another, though precisely in the same stage of the same disease. Another and not unfrequent cause of failure is that the life of a patient may depend as much upon administering the right remedy at the right point of time, as the success of an alchemist was supposed to do upon seizing the moment of projection. And where constant attendance is not possible, or where skill is wanting, it must often happen that the opportunity is lost. This cause would not exist in the Columbian Infirmary, where the ablest Physicians would be always within instant call, and where the Beguines in constant attendance would have sufficient skill to know when that call became necessary.

A ship-captain, the Doctor used to say, when he approaches the coast of France from the Bay of Biscay, or draws near the mouth of the British Channel, sends down the lead into the sea, and from the appearance of the sand which adheres to its tallowed bottom, he is enabled to find upon the chart where he is, with sufficient precision for directing his course. Think, he would say, what an apparently impossible accumulation of experience there must have been, before the bottom of that sea, everywhere within soundings could be so accurately known, as to be marked on charts which may be relied on with perfect confidence! No formal series of experiments was ever instituted for acquiring this knowledge; and there is nothing in history which can lead us to conjecture about what time sailors first began to trust to it. The boasted astronomy of the Hindoos and Egyptians affords a feebler apparent proof in favour of the false antiquity of the world, than might be inferred from this practice. Now if experience in the Art of Healing had been treasured up with equal care, it is not too much to say that therapeutics might have been as much advanced, as navigation has been by preserving the collective knowledge of so many generations?1

1The following fragments belong to the chapters which were to have treated on the Medical Science. They may therefore appropriately be appended to these chapters on Doña Oliva. I have only prefixed a motto from Butler.

“—The princeOf Poets, Homer, sang long since,A skilful leech is better farThan half a hundred men of war.”

Such prescriptions as were composed of any part of the human body were reprobated by Galen, and he severely condemned Xenocrates for having introduced them, as being worse than useless in themselves, and wicked in their consequences. Yet these abominable ingredients continued in use till what may be called the Reformation of medicine in the Seventeenth Century. Human bones were administered internally as a cure for ulcers, and the bones were to be those of the part affected. A preparation called Aqua Divina was made by cutting in pieces the body of a healthy man who had died a violent death, and distilling it with the bones and intestines. Human blood was prescribed for epilepsy, by great authorities, but others equally great with better reason condemned the practice, for this among other causes, that it might communicate the diseases of the person from whom it was taken. Ignorant surgeons when they bled a patient used to make him drink the warm blood that he might not lose the life which it contained. The heart dried, and taken in powder was thought good in fevers, but consciencious practitioners were of opinion that it ought not to be used, because of the dangerous consequences which might be expected if such a remedy were in demand. It is not long since a Physician at Heidelberg prescribed human brains to be taken inwardly in violent fevers, and boasted of wonderful cures. And another German administered cat's entrails as a panacea!

The Egyptian physicians, each being confined to the study and treatment of one part of the body, or one disease, were bound to proceed in all cases according to the prescribed rules of their art. If the patient died under this treatment, no blame attached to the physician; but woe to the rash practitioner who ventured to save a life by any means out of the regular routine; the success of the experiment was not admitted as an excuse for the transgression and he was punished with death; for the law presumed that in every case the treatment enjoined was such as by common consent of the most learned professors had been approved because by long experience it had been found beneficial. The laws had some right to interfere because physicians received a public stipend.

Something like this prevails at this day in China. It is enacted in the Ta Tsing Leu Lee, that “when unskilful practitioners of medicine or surgery, administer drugs, or perform operations with the puncturing needle, contrary to the established rules and practice, and thereby kill the patient, the Magistrates shall call in other practitioners to examine the nature of the medicine, or of the wound, as the case may be, which proved mortal; and if it shall appear upon the whole to have been simply an error without any design to injure the patient, the practitioner shall be allowed to redeem himself from the punishment of homicide, as in cases purely accidental, but shall be obliged to quit his profession for ever. If it shall appear that a medical practitioner intentionally deviates from the established rules and practice, and while pretending to remove the disease of his patient, aggravates the complaint, in order to extort more money for its cure, the money so extorted shall be considered to have been stolen, and punishment inflicted accordingly, in proportion to the amount. If the patient dies, the medical practitioner who is convicted of designedly employing improper medicines, or otherwise contriving to injure his patient, shall suffer death by being beheaded after the usual period of confinement.”

No man ever entertained a higher opinion of medical science, and the dignity of a Physician than Van Helmont. What has been said of the Poet, ought in his opinion to be said of the Physician also,nascitur, non fit, and in his relation to the Creator, he was more Poet, or Prophet, whom the wordVATESbrings under one predicament,—more than Priest.Scilicet Pater Misericordiarum, qui Medicum ab initio, ceu Mediatorem inter Deum et hominem, constituit, immo sibi in deliciis posuit, à Medico vinci velle, nimirum, ad hoc se creasse peculiari elogio, et elegisse testatur. Ita est sane. Non enim citius hominem punit Deus, infirmat, aut interimere minatur, sibi quam optet opponentem Medicum, ut se Omnipotentem, etiam meritas immittendo pœnas, vincat propriis clementiæ suæ donis. Ejusmodi autem Medici sunt in ventre matris præparati,—suo fungentes munere, nullius lucri intuitu, nudèque reflectuntur super beneplacitum (immo mandatum) illius, qui solus, verè misericors, nos jubet, sub indictione pœnæ infernalis, fore Patri suo similes.—Obedite præpositispræceptum quidem: sedhonora parentes, honora Medicum,angustius est quam obedire, cum cogamur etiam obedire minoribus. Medicus enim Mediator inter Vitæ Principem et Mortem.

“To wit,”—this done into English by J. C. sometime of M. H. Oxon.—“the Father of mercies, he who appointed a Physician, or Mediator between God and man from the beginning, yea He made it his delight that he would be overcome by a Physician, indeed he testifieth that he created and chose him to this end—for a peculiar testimony of his praise. It is so in truth. For no sooner doth He punish, weaken, and threaten to kill man, but he desireth a Physician opposing himself, that He may conquer himself, being Omnipotent, and even in sending deserved punishments, by the proper gifts of his clemency.—Of this sort are Physicians, which are fitted from their Mothers wombs, exercise their gift with respect to no gain; and they are nakedly cast upon the good pleasure,—yea the command—of him, who alone being truly merciful commands us that, under pain of infernal punishment, we be like to his father.—Obey those that sit over you,is a precept indeed; but honour thy Parents, honour the Physician, is more strict than to obey, seeing we are constrained even to obey our youngers. For the Physician is a Mediator between the Prince of life and Death.”

Some of the Floridian tribes had a high opinion of medical virtue. They buried all their dead, except the Doctors; them they burnt, reduced their bones to powder and drank it in water.

A century ago the Lions in the Tower were named after the different Sovereigns then reigning, “and it has been observed that when a King dies, the Lion of that name dies also.”

In the great Place at Delhi the poor Astrologers sit, as well Mahometan as Heathen. These Doctors, forsooth, sit there in the sun upon a piece of tapistry, all covered with dust, having about them some old mathematical instruments, which they make shew of to draw passengers, and a great open book representing the animals of the Zodiack. These men are the oracles of the vulgar, to whom they pretend to give for onePayssa, that is a penny, good luck, and they are they that looking upon the hands and face, turning over their books and making a shew of calculation, determine the fortunate moment when a business is to be begun, to make it successful. The mean women, wrapt up in a white sheet from head to foot, come to find them out, telling them in their ear their most secret concerns, as if they were their confessors, and intreat them to render the stars propitious to them, and suitable to their designs, as if they could absolutely dispose of their influences.

The most ridiculous of all these astrologers in my opinion was a mongrel Portugueze from Goa, who sat with much gravity upon his piece of tapistry, like the rest, and had a great deal of custom, though he could neither read nor write; and as for instruments and books was furnished with nothing but an old sea-compass, and an old Romish prayer-book in the Portugueze language, of which he shewed the pictures for figures of the Zodiac. “As taes bestias tal Astrologo—for such beasts, such an Astrologer,” said he to father Buze a Jesuit, who met him there.

M. Rondeau in 1780, opened a large tumour which had grown behind a woman's left ear, at Brussels, and found in it a stone, in form and size like a pigeon's egg, which all the experiments to which it was subject proved to be a real Bezoar, of the same colour, structure, taste and substance with the oriental and occidental Bezoars. This, however was a fact which the Doctor could not exactly accommodate to his theory, though it clearly belonged to it; the difficulty was not in this, that there are those animals in which the Bezoar is produced, the goat in which it is most frequent, the cow, in which it is of less value, and the ape, in which it is very seldom found, but is of most efficacy. Through either of these forms the Archeus might have passed. But how the Bezoar which is formed in the stomach of these animals should have concreted in a sort of wen upon the woman's head was a circumstance altogether anomalous.

At Mistra, a town built from the ruins of Sparta, the sick are daily brought and laid at the doors of the metropolitan Church, as at the gates of the ancient temples, that those who repair thither to worship, may indicate to them the remedies by which their health may be recovered.

It is well remarked of the Spaniards by the Abbé de Vayracque d'un trop grand attachment pour les Anciens en matiere de Philosophie et de Medecine, et de trop de negligence pour eux en matiere de Poësie, il arrive presque toujours qu'ils ne sont ni bons Philosophes, ni bons Medicins, ni bons Poëtes.

The desire of having something on which to rely, as dogmatical truths, “as it appears,” says Donne, “in all sciences, so most manifestly in Physic, which for a long time considering nothing but plain curing, and that by example and precedent, the world at last longed for some certain canons and rules how these cures might be accomplished; and when men are inflamed with this desire, and that such a fire breaks out, it rages and consumes infinitely by heat of argument, except some of authority interpose. This produced Hippocrates his Aphorisms; and the world slumbered, or took breath, in his resolution divers hundreds of years. And then in Galen's time, which was not satisfied with the effect of curing, nor with the knowledge how to cure, broke out another desire of finding out the causes why those simples wrought those effects. Then Galen rather to stay their stomachs than that he gave them enough, taught them the qualities of the four Elements, and arrested them upon this, that all differences of qualities proceeded from them. And after, (not much before our time,) men perceiving that all effects in physic could not be derived from these beggarly and impotent properties of the Elements, and that therefore they were driven often to that miserable refuge of specific form, and of antipathy and sympathy, we see the world hath turned upon new principles, which are attributed to Paracelsus, but indeed too much to his honour.”

“This indenture made 26 Apr. 18 Hen. 8, between Sir Walter Strickland, knight, of one part, and Alexander Kenet, Doctor of Physic, on the other part, witnesseth, that the said Alexander permitteth, granteth, and by these presents bindeth him, that he will, with the grace and help of God, render and bring the said Sir Walter Strickland to perfect health of all his infirmities and diseases contained in his person, and especially stomach and lungs and breast, wherein he has most disease and grief; and over to minister such medicines truly to the said Sir Walter Strickland, in such manner and ways as the said Master Alexander may make the said Sir Walter heal of all infirmities and diseases, in as short time as possible may be, with the grace and help of God. And also the said Master Alexander granteth he shall not depart at no time from the said Sir Walter without his license, unto the time the said Sir Walter be perfect heal, with the grace and help of God. For the which care the said Sir Walter Strictland granteth by these presents, binding himself to pay or cause to be paid to the said Mr. Alexander or his assigns £20. sterling monies of good and lawful money of England, in manner and form following: that is, five marks to be paid upon the first day of May next ensuing, and all the residue of the said sum of £20. to be paid parcel by parcel as shall please the said Sir Walter, as he thinks necessary to be delivered and paid in the time of his disease, for sustaining such charges as the said Mr. Alexander must use in medicine for reducing the said Sir Walter to health; and so the said payment continued and made, to the time the whole sum of £20. aforesaid be fully contented and paid. In witness whereof, either to these present indentures have interchangeably set their seals, the day and year above mentioned.”

Sir Walter however died on the 9th of January following.

“Je voudrois de bon cœur,” says an interlocutor in one of the evening conversation parties of Guillaume Bouchet, Sieur de Brocourt, “qu'il y eust des Medecins pour remedier aux ennuis et maladies de l'esprit, ne plus ne moins qu'il en y a qui guerissent les maladies et douleurs du corps; comme it se trouve qu'il y en avoit en Grece; car il est escrit que Xenophon ayant faict bastir une maison à Corinthe, il mit en un billet sur la porte, qu'il faisoit profession, et avoit le moyen de guerir de paroles ceux qui estoient ennuyez et faschez; et leur demandant les causes de leurs ennuis, il les guerissoit, les recomfortant, et consolant de leurs douleurs et ennuis.”

Under barbarous governments the most atrocious practices are still in use. It was reported in India that when Hyder Aly was suffering with a malignant bile on his back common in that country, and which occasioned his death, an infant's liver was applied to it every day. An Englishman in the service of Phizal Beg Cawn was on an embassy at Madras when this story was current; the Governor asked him whether he thought it likely to be true, and he acknowledged his belief in it, giving this sufficient reason, that his master Phizal Beg had tried the same remedy, but then he begged leave to affirm in behalf of his master, that the infants killed for his use, were slaves, and his own property.

Of odd notions concerning virginity I do not remember a more curious one than that virgin mummy was preferred in medicine.

A WISHING INTERCHAPTER WHICH IS SHORTLY TERMINATED, ON SUDDENLY RECOLLECTING THE WORDS OF CLEOPATRA,—“WISHERS WERE EVER FOOLS.”

Begin betimes, occasion's bald behind,Stop not thine opportunity, for fear too lateThou seek'st for much, but canst not compass it.MARLOWE.

“Plust a Dieu que j'eusse presentement cent soixante et dixhuit millions d'or!” says a personage in Rabelais: “ho, comment je triumpherois!”

It was a good, honest, large, capacious wish; and in wishing, it is as well to wish for enough. By enough in the way of riches, a man is said to mean always something more than he has. Without exposing myself to any such censorious remark, I will like the person above quoted, limit my desires to a positive sum, and wish for just one million a year.

And what would you do with it? says Mr. Sobersides.

“Attendez encores un peu, avec demie once de patience.”

I now esteem my venerable selfAs brave a fellow, as if all that pelfWere sure mine own; and I have thought a wayAlready how to spend.

And first for my private expenditure, I would either buy a house to my mind, or build one; and it should be such as a house ought to be, which I once heard a glorious agriculturist define “a house that should have in it every thing that is voluptuous, and necessary and right.” In my acceptation of that felicitous definition, I request the reader to understand that every thing which is right is intended, and nothing but what is perfectly so: that is to say I mean every possible accommodation conducive to health and comfort. It should be large enough for my friends, and not so large as to serve as an hotel for my acquaintance, and I would live in it at the rate of five thousand a year, beyond which no real and reasonable enjoyment is to be obtained by money.

I would neither keep hounds, nor hunters, nor running horses.

I would neither solicit nor accept a peerage. I would not go into Parliament. I would take no part whatever in what is called public life, farther than to give my vote at an election against a Whig, or against any one who would give his in favour of the Catholic Question.

I would not wear my coat quite so threadbare as I do at present: but I would still keep to my old shoes, as long as they would keep to me.

But stop—Cleopatra adopted some wizard's words when she said “Wishers were ever fools!”

ETYMOLOGY.—UN TOUR DE MAÎTRE GONIN.—ROMAN DE VAUDEMONT AND THE LETTER C.—SHENSTONE.—THE DOCTOR'S USE OF CHRISTIAN NAMES.

Πρᾶγμα, πρᾶγμα μέγα κεκίνηται, μέγα.

ARISTOPHANES.

Magnus thesaurus latet in nominibus,said Strafford, then Lord Deputy Wentworth, when noticing a most unwise scheme which was supposed to proceed from Sir Abraham Dawes, he observes, it appeared most plainly that he had not his name for nothing! In another letter, he says, “I begin to hope I may in time as well understand these customs as Sir Abraham Dawes. Why should I fear it? for I have a name less ominous than his.”

Gonin, Court de Gebelin says, is a French word or rather name which exists only in these proverbial phrases,Maître Gonin,—un tour de Maître Gonin;it designatesun Maître passé en ruses et artifices; un homme fin et rusé.The origin of the word, says he, was altogether unknown. Menage rejects with the utmost contempt the opinion of those who derive it from the Hebrew ץובנ,Gwunena diviner, an enchanter. It is true that this etymology has been advanced too lightly, and without proofs: Menage however ought to have been less contemptuous, because he could substitute nothing in its place.

It is remarkable that neither Menage nor Court de Gebelin should have known that Maistre Gounin was a French conjurer, as well known in his day as Katterfelto and Jonas, or the Sieur Ingleby Emperor of Conjurors in later times. He flourished in the days of Francis the first, before whom he is said to have made a private exhibition of his art in a manner perfectly characteristic of that licentious King and his profligate court. Thus he effected “par ses inventions, illusions et sorcelleries et enchantements,—car il estoit un homme fort expert et subtil en son art,says Brântome;et son petit-fils, que nous avons veu, n'y entendoit rien au prix de luy.” Grandfather and grandson having been at the head of their worshipful profession, the name past into a proverbial expression, and survived all memory of the men.

Court de Gebelin traced its etymology far and wide. He says, it is incontestable that this word is common to us with the ancient Hebrews though it does not come to us from them. We are indebted for it to the English. Cunningdesigne chez eux un homme adroit, fin, rusé.Master Cunninga fait Maître Gonin. This word comes from the primitiveCenpronouncedKen, which signifies ability, (habilité) art, power. The Irish have made from itKanu, I know;Kunna, to know;Kenning, knowledge, (science);Kenni-mann, wise men (hommes savans), Doctors, Priests.

It is a word common to all the dialects of the Celtic and Teutonic; to the Greek in whichKonne-ein1signifies to know (savoir) to be intelligent and able &c., to the Tartar languages &c.

1So in the MS.

Les Anglois associantCunningavecMan,homme, en font le motCunning-Man,qui signifie Devin, Enchanteur, homme qui fait de grandes choses, et qui est habile: c'est donc le correspondant du mot HebreuGwunen,Enchanteur, Devin;Gwuna,Magicienne, Devineresse; d'où le verbeGwunen,deviner, observer les Augures, faire des prestiges. Ne soyons par étonnés,says the author, bringing this example to bear upon his system,de voir ce mot commun à tant de Peuples, et si ancien: il vint chez tous d'une source commune, de la haute Asie, berceau de tous ces Peuples et de leur Langue.

If Mr. Canning had met with the foregoing passage towards the close of his political life, when he had attained the summit of his wishes, how would it have affected him, in his sober mind? Would it have tickled his vanity, or stung his conscience? Would he have been flattered by seeing his ability prefigured in his name? or would he have been mortified at the truth conveyed in the proverbial French application of it, and have acknowledged in his secret heart that cunning is as incompatible with self-esteem as it is with uprightness, with magnanimity, and with true greatness?

His name was unlucky not only in its signification, but according to Roman de Vaudemont, in its initial.

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