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APPENDIX E (PAGE 51)

Johnson's authority for Pope's statement about Parnell's drinking is Ruffhead (Life of Pope, p. 492), who says that this account came to him through Warburton from Pope. 'Parnell,' Ruff head writes, 'had talents for popular preaching, and began to be distinguished in the mob-places of Southwark and London. The Queen's sudden death broke his spirits; he took to drinking, became a sot, and soon finished his course.'

'Parnell is a great follower of drams; and strangely open and scandalous in his debaucheries.' POPE, Spence's Anec. p. 139 n.

Bishop Barnard, 'who had it from Dr. Delany,' told Boswell that 'Parnell could not refrain from drinking even the morning that Swift introduced him to Lord Oxford,' and that the Treasurer noticed his state. 'Swift said :-" He is troubled with a great shaking." "I am sorry," said the Earl, "that he should have such a distemper, but especially that it should attack him in the morning." Boswelliana, p. 297. The 'shaking' perhaps was not due to drink. Swift wrote of him a little later :- His head is out of order like mine, but more constant, poor boy.' Works, iii. 122. See also ib. p. 130. According to Hearne he was killed by 'immoderate drinking of mild ale.' Remains,

iii. 139.

'Dr. Johnson maintained that "If a man is to write A Panegyrick, he may keep vices out of sight; but if he professes to write A Life, he must represent it really as it was": and when I objected to the danger of telling that Parnell drank to excess, he said that "it would produce an instructive caution to avoid drinking, when it was seen that even the learning and genius of Parnell could be debased by it."' Boswell's Johnson, iii. 155.

'I have heard Dr. Johnson say how Parnell could not get through a sermon without turning his head, even in the pulpit, to drink a dram.' MRS. Piozzi, Auto. ii. 145.

APPENDIX F (PAGE 53)

Eng. Poets, xxvii. 81. Goldsmith's account is a strange confusion. He writes:-' Pope, speaking of The Hermit in those MS. anecdotes already quoted, says "that the poem is very good. The story," continues he, "was written originally in Spanish, whence probably Howel had translated it into prose, and inserted it in one of his letters." Addison liked the scheme, and was not disinclined to come into it. However this may be, Dr. Henry More, in his Dialogues, has the very same story; and I have been informed by some that it is originally of Arabian invention.' Works, iv. 143; ed. 1801, iv. 25.

The 'MS. anecdotes' are Spence's. In their printed form what Pope says ends with 'his letters.' p. 139. The sentence about Addison has been dragged in from an account of the Scriblerus Club. p. 10. For the origin of the story see T. Warton's Hist. of Eng. Poetry, 1840, i. Preface,

pp. 141, 158, 160, ii. 394 n., and Mitford's Parnell, p. 61, where the reference is given to H. More's Divine Dialogues, 1743, P. 256. For Howell see his Letters, 1892, p. 559. A somewhat similar story is in The Spectator, No. 237, by Addison. For Johnson's explanation of a passage in The Hermit see Boswell's Johnson, iii. 220, and for the moral of the poeni see John. Misc. ii. 255.

Blake, alluding to the poem or the story, said :-' Who shall say that God thinks evil? That is a wise tale of the Mahometans, of the angel of the Lord that murdered the infant. Is not every infant that dies of disease murdered by an angel?' H. C. Robinson's Diary, ii. 307.

APPENDIX G (PAGE 54)

'Fair stranger! winged maid, where dost thou rest
Thy snowy locks at noon? Or on what breast
Of spices slumber o'er the sullen night?

Or waking, whither dost thou take thy flight?'

CLEVELAND, Content, Works, 1661, p. 145.

'Whither, O whither art thou fled,

To lay thy meek contented head;

What happy region dost thou please

To make the seat of calms and ease?'

PARNELL, Eng. Poets, xxvii. 79.

Mitford quotes from Bishop J. Jebb's Sermons, 1824, p. 94, 'an Ode from the Divina Psalmodia of Cardinal Bona, on which Parnell formed his Hymn.' Mitford's Parnell, p. 77.

Lamb, writing of one of his own Sonnets in which occur the lines :

continues:

'My lov'd companion dropp'd a tear and fled,
And hid in deepest shades her awful head,'

Since writing it, I have found in a poem by Hamilton of Bangor [Bangour] these two lines to "Happiness" :

"Nun, sober and devout, where art thou fled

To hide in shades thy meek, contented head?"

Lines eminently beautiful. . . . Parnell has two lines (which probably suggested the above) to "Contentment" :

"Whither, ah! whither art thou fled,
To hide thy meek, contented head?""

Lamb's Letters, i. 5.

GARTH'

AMUEL GARTH was of a good family in Yorkshire, and 1 from some school in his own country became a student at Peter-house in Cambridge, where he resided till he commenced doctor of physick on July the 7th, 16912. He was examined before the College at London on March the 12th, 1691-2, and admitted fellow July 26th, 1692 3. He was soon so much distinguished by his conversation and accomplishments as to obtain very extensive practice; and, if a pamphlet of those times may be credited, had the favour and confidence of one party, as Ratcliffe had of the other *.

He is always mentioned as a man of benevolence; and it is 2 just to suppose that his desire of helping the helpless disposed him to so much zeal for the Dispensary; an undertaking of which some account, however short, is proper to be given.

Whether what Temple says be true, that physicians have 3 had more learning than the other faculties 5, I will not stay to enquire; but I believe every man has found in physicians great liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusion of beneficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art where there is no hope of lucre. Agreeably to this character the College

'Johnson's chief authority is Biog. Brit. p. 2129.

2 He was the eldest son of William Garth, of Bowland Forest, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, was born in 1661, and sent to school at Ingleton. He entered Peterhouse in 1676. Dict. Nat. Biog. In 1687 'he was entered on the physic line at Leyden.' Munk's Roll of Coll. of Physicians, i. 498. For his father's will see N.&Q. 1 S. xi. 373.

3 In June 26, 1693. &c., i. 498.

Munk's Roll,

Radcliffe prescribed for Swift and Lord-Treasurer Oxford, of whom Swift wrote:-'I doubt he cannot persuade the Queen to take Dr. Radcliffe.' Swift's Works, ii. 170, 303. He was charged with refusing to

attend her on her death-bed. Ib. xvi. 169. He was a great benefactor to the University of Oxford; one of his foundations is the Library which bears his name. 'Sir Samuel Garth,' wrote Pope,' says that for Radcliffe to leave a library was as if an eunuch should found a seraglio.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), ix. 275. See also Boswell's Johnson, iv. 293; John. Misc. ii. 377.

5 The divines seem to have had the most honour, the lawyers the most money, and the physicians the most learning.' TEMPLE, Works, 1757, iii. 285.

According to Mrs. Piozzi 'Johnson used to challenge his friends, when they lamented the exorbitancy of physicians' fees, to produce him one

4

5

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of Physicians, in July 1687, published an edict, requiring all the fellows, candidates, and licentiates to give gratuitous advice to the neighbouring poor 1.

This edict was sent to the Court of Aldermen; and a question being made to whom the appellation of the 'poor' should be extended, the College answered that it should be sufficient to bring a testimonial from a clergyman officiating in the parish where the patient resided.

After a year's experience the physicians found their charity frustrated by some malignant opposition, and made to a great degree vain by the high price of physick; they therefore voted, in August 1688, that the laboratory of the College should be accommodated to the preparation of medicines, and another room prepared for their reception, and that the contributors to the expence should manage the charity.

It was now expected that the Apothecaries would have undertaken the care of providing medicines; but they took another course 2. Thinking the whole design pernicious to their interest they endeavoured to raise a faction against it in the College, and found some physicians mean enough to solicit their patronage, by betraying to them the counsels of the College. The greater part, however, enforced by a new edict in 1694 the former order of 1687, and sent it to the mayor and aldermen, who appointed

instance of an estate raised by physic in England.' John. Misc. i. 223. Radcliffe left a large fortune.

Hannah More (Memoirs, ii. 433) wrote in 1795 that she had consulted all the eminent physicians, not one of whom would take a fee from her.

I

For the edict see Biog. Brit. p. 2130; see also Eng. Poets, xxviii. 8. The neighbouring poor' were those within the City of London, or seven miles round.'

P. Cunningham, in a note to Campbell's Brit. Poets, p. 335, says that the physicians, incensed by the apothecaries, who soon after the Restoration had begun to prescribe, 'advertised that they would give advice gratis to the poor, and establish a dispensary of their own, for the sale of medicines at their intrinsic value.' They gained a conviction of an apothecary for attending a butcher, but the decision was reversed

by the House of Lords in 1703. See also Blackstone's Com. iv. 197, and Pope's Essay on Criticism, 1. 108.

There are fourteen pamphlets on the question, published between 1697 and 1723, in the Brit. Mus.

'A wealthy doctor, who can help a poor man, and will not without a fee, has less sense of humanity than a poor ruffian who kills a rich man to supply his necessities.' The Tatler, No. 78. In the same paper Garth is probably described under the name of Hippocrates, 'who shows as much liberality in his practice as he does wit in his conversation and skill in his profession.'

2 6

Garth, generous as his muse, prescribes and gives;

The shopman sells, and by destruction lives.'

DRYDEN, Epistle to John Driden, 1. 107.

a committee to treat with the College, and settle the mode of administering the charity.

It was desired by the aldermen that the testimonials of church- 7 wardens and overseers should be admitted, and that all hired servants and all apprentices to handicraftsmen should be considered as 'poor.' This likewise was granted by the College.

It was then considered who should distribute the medicines, 8 and who should settle their prices. The physicians procured some apothecaries to undertake the dispensation, and offered that the warden and company of the apothecaries should adjust the price. This offer was rejected; and the apothecaries who had engaged to assist the charity were considered as traytors to the company, threatened with the imposition of troublesome offices, and deterred from the performance of their engagements. The apothecaries ventured upon publick opposition, and presented a kind of remonstrance against the design to the committee of the city, which the physicians condescended to confute: and at last the traders seem to have prevailed among the sons of trade; for the proposal of the college having been considered a paper of approbation was drawn up, but postponed and forgotten.

The physicians still persisted; and in 1696 a subscription was 9 raised by themselves, according to an agreement prefixed to The Dispensary. The poor were for a time supplied with medicines; for how long a time I know not. The medicinal charity, like others, began with ardour, but soon remitted, and at last died gradually away 2.

About the time of the subscription begins the action of The 10 Dispensary. The Poem, as its subject was present and popular, co-operated with passions and prejudices then prevalent, and, with such auxiliaries to its intrinsick merit, was universally and

1 Eng. Poets, xxviii. 10.

2 "The charity seems to have continued its benevolent work down to 1724.' Munk's Roll, &c., i. 501. In Dodsley's London, v. 193, published in 1761, it is stated that in the College' there is a hall in which the physicians sit to give advice to the poor gratis.'

3 Garth thus explains his motives in the poem :-'Finding the animosities among the Members of the

College increasing daily, I was per-
suaded to endeavour to railly (sic)
some of our disaffected Members
into a sense of their duty, who have
hitherto most obstinately opposed all
manner of union.' Eng. Poets, xxviii. 7.
He laments how the healing art:-
"..once a science is become a trade.'
lb. p. 88.

'It was finely said of Garth that no physician knew his art more nor his trade less.' Spence's Anec. p. 380.

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