left that occupation, and came and fettled in London. Being of no profeffion, and having the means of a livelihood to feek, he was at a paufe, but at length determined on one, and took it up in a manner that will be best described by his own words to a friend of mine. I faid I was a phyfician.' Having thus affumed a profeffion, he cultivated an intimacy with the jews in Duke's place, and by their means got introduced to the acquaintance of fome of the leading men, merchants and others of that religion, who employed him, and by their interest recommended him to a practice that, in a few years amounted, as he once told me himself, to a thousand pounds a year. He was a man of an infinuating addrefs, and as he underftood mankind very well, having renounced the ritual diftinctions of his religion, he foon found out a me thod of acquiring popularity, which had never been practised by any of his profeffion; he took a large houfe in the city, and kept a public table, to which, on a certain day in the week, all the young furgeons and apothecaries were welcome, and at which all that were present were treated with an indifcriminate civility, that had very much the appearance of friendship, but meant nothing more than that they fhould recommend him to practice. The scheme fucceeded; in the year 1740, Schomberg had outstripped all the city-phyficians, and was in the annual receipt of four thousand pounds. To enable him to practice, he had, at his fetting out, procured to be admitted a licentiate of the college, but that permiffion had been granted him with fo ill a grace, or was followed by fome circumstances that provoked provoked his refentment fo highly, that he feemd refolved on a perpetual enmity against the members of that body; who, on their part, looking on him as little better than a foreign mountebank, declined, as much as poffible, meeting him in confultation, and thereby, for fome time, checked his practice. He had a fon whom he brought up to his own profeffion, who took it into his head, that having been admitted a licentiate, he was virtually a fellow, and claimed to be admitted as fuch: his father encou raged him, and inftituted a procefs in his behalf, of which there had been no precedent fince the time that Jefferies was chancellor. It was no less than a petition to the king, requesting him, in the person of the lord-chancellor, to exercife his visitatorial power over the college, and restore the licentiates to their rights, which, by their arbitrary proceedings, the prefident and fellows had, for a fucceffion of ages, deprived them of. This petition caine on to be heard at Lincoln's-inn hall, before the lord chief justice Willes, the lord chief-baron Smythe, and Sir John Eardley Wilmot, lords commiffioners of the great feal, but the alligations therein contained not being fufficiently fupported, the fame was difmiffed; it was nevertheless looked on as the moft formidable attack on the college it had ever fuflained, and may be faid to have fhaken its conftitution to the very centre. Political affociations and religious fects are excellent nurfes to young men of profeffions, efpecially of that of which I am speaking; Ratcliffe and Freind owed their fortunes to the fupport of the tories and jacobites; Mead and Hulfe to the whigs, and Schomberg to the jews. The quakers also, no contemptible Vot. I. R body body of men, had power and intereft fufficient to introduce into great practice one of their own denomination; this was John Fothergill, a young man of parts and industry, who being bred an apothecary, and having obtained a Scotch degree, fettled in London, and attached himself to Schomberg, taking him, in many parts of his conduct, for his exemplar: fo that, upon Schomberg's decease, he flid into his practice, and became one of the most popular of the city phyficians. These two perfons, first one, and then the other, for full thirty years, carried all before them; and within that space of time, not fewer than twenty of the profeffion, whom I could name, lived in great straits, some of them leaving, at their decease, scarce fufficient to bury them. From these, and many other inftances that might be produced, it is evident, that neither learning, parts, nor skill, nor even all these united, are fufficient to enfure fuccefs in the profeffion I am speaking of; and that, without the concurrence of adventitious circumstances, which no one can pretend to define, a physician of the greateft merit may be loft to the world; and further it may be faid, that the faireft hopes may be fruftrated by the want of that quality, which Swift fomewhere calls an aldermanly virtue, difcretion, but is in truth, of greater efficacy in our intercourfe with mankind, than all fcience put together. Had Akenfide been poffeffed of this gift, he had probably become the first in his faculty; but that he was able to acquire no other kind of celebrity than that of a scholar and a poet, is to be accounted for by fome particulars in his life and conduct, with which few but myself, who knew him well, are acquainted, and which I here infert as fuppletory to those which Johnson has recorded of him. Mr. Dylon and he were fellow students, the one of law and the other of phyfic, at Leyden; where, being of congenial tempers, a friendship commenced between them that lafted through their lives. They left the univerfity at the fame time, and both fettled in London: Mr. Dyson took to the bar, and being poffeffed of a handfome fortune fupported his friend while he was endeavouring to make himfelf known as a physician; but in a fhort time, having purchased of Mr. Hardinge, his place of clerk of the house of commons, he quitted Westminster hall, and for the purpose of introducing Akenfide to acquaintance in an opulent neighbourhood near the town, bought a house at North End, Hampstead; where they dwelt together during the fummer feafon : frequenting the long room, and all clubs, and affemblies of the inhabitants. At thefe meetings, which as they were not felect, must be supposed to have confifted of fuch perfons as usually meet for the purpofe of goffiping, men of wealth, but of ordinary endowments, and able to talk of little elfe than news, and the occurrences of the day, Akenfide was for difplaying thofe talents which had acquired him the reputation he enjoyed in other companies; but here they were of little ufe to him, on the contrary, they tended to engage him in difputes that betrayed him into a contempt of thofe that differed in opinion from him. It was found out that he was a man of low birth, and a dependant on Mr. Dyfon; circumftances that furnished those whom he offended with a ground of reproach, R 2 proach, that reduced him to the neceffity of affert ing in terms that he was a gentleman. Little could be done at Hampstead after matters had proceeded to this extremity; Mr. Dyfon parted with his villa at North-End, and fettled his friend in a small house in Bloomsbury fquare; affigning for his fupport fuch a part of his income as enabled him to keep a chariot. In this new fituation Akenfide used every endeavour to become popular, but defeated them all by the high opinion he every where manifefted of himself, and the little condefcenfion he fhewed to men of inferior endowments; by his love of political controversy, his authoritative cenfure of the public councils, and his bigotted notions respecting government, fubjects foreign to his profeffion, and with which fome of the wisest of it have thought it prudent not to concern themselves. In the winter evenings he frequented Tom's coffee-house in Devereux court, then the refort of fome of the most eminent men for learning and ingenuity of the time, with fome of whom he became entangled in difputes and altercations, chiefly on fubjects of literature and politics, that fixed on his character the stamp of haughtiness and felf-conceit, and drew him into difagreeable fituations. There was at that time a man of the name of Ballow, who used to pafs his evenings in the fociety abovementioned, a lawyer by profession*, but of no practice; he having, by the intereft of fome of the Townfhends, to whom he had been a kind of law tutor, obtained a Place in the exchequer, which yielded him a handsome * He was the author of a treatise on equity, in folio, published without a name. income, |