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GARTH'

AMUEL GARTH was of a good family in Yorkshire, and 1

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, 16923. 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, 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. attend her on her death-bed. 16. 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. Munk's Roll, &c., i. 498.

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

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

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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. 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.

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 Iwit in his conversation and skill in his profession.'

2❝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 away2.

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

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Eng. Poets, xxviii. 10.

'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 persuaded 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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liberally applauded'. It was on the side of charity against the intrigues of interest, and of regular learning against licentious usurpation of medical authority, and was therefore naturally favoured by those who read and can judge of poetry 3.

In 1697 Garth spoke that which is now called the Harveian Oration; which the authors of the Biographia' mention with more praise than the passage quoted in their notes will fully justify. Garth, speaking of the mischief done by quacks, has these expressions:

'Non tamen telis vulnerat ista agyrtarum colluvies, sed theriacâ❝ quâdam magis perniciosâ, non pyrio, sed pulvere nescio quo exotico certat, non globulis plumbeis, sed pilulis æque lethalibus interficit','

This was certainly thought fine by the author, and is still admired by his biographer. In October 1702 he became one of the censors of the College3.

12 Garth, being an active and zealous Whig, was a member of the

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"So diamonds take a lustre from
their foil,

And to a Bentley 'tis we owe a
Boyle,"
[Canto v. 1. 77]

a couplet which is perhaps more
frequently quoted than any other in
the poem, and always to the dispa-
ragement of the author's judgment.'
MONK, Life of Bentley, i. 112.

3 Pope, in the Essay on Criticism,
1. 618, speaking of a critic says:-
'With him most authors steal their
works, or buy ;

Garth did not write his own Dis-
pensary!

In a note he adds:-'A common
slander at that time in prejudice of
that deserving author.'

'Harvey endowed the College with his estate, assigning a part of it for an anniversary oration in commemoration of their benefactors, and to promote a spirit of emulation in

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Biog. Brit. pp. 2131-2; ante, MILTON, 143, n. 4.

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Ante, WALLER, 113.

'Thus translated in the Biog. Brit. p. 2132 :-'Yet not with weapons do these swarms of mountebanks inflict wounds, but with some nostrum more dangerous than any weapon; not with plain gunpowder, but with some strange foreign dust they charge their packets; not with leaden bullets, but with pills as mortal they do their business.' The quack dentist is described:-'Hic circumforaneus in plateis equo insidens dentes evellit. Here an operator, mounted on his pyed horse, draws teeth in the streets.' In Italy may still be seen the dentist mounted on the box-seat of a coach and four, drawing teeth while a band plays on the back seat.

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8 The four Censors have by charter authority to survey, correct, and govern all physicians, or others that shall practise within their jurisdiction, and to fine and imprison for causes as they shall see cause.' Dodsley's London, v. 191.

Kit-cat club', and by consequence familiarly known to all the great men of that denomination. In 1710, when the government fell into other hands, he writ to lord Godolphin, on his dismission, a short poem 3, which was criticised in The Examiner^, and so successfully either defended or excused by Mr. Addison 5 that, for the sake of the vindication, it ought to be preserved.

At the accession of the present Family his merits were acknow- 13 ledged and rewarded. He was knighted with the sword of his hero, Marlborough, and was made physician in ordinary to the king and physician-general to the

army.

He then undertook an edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses, trans- 14 lated by several hands'; which he recommended by a Preface,

'Our modern celebrated clubs are founded upon eating and drinking, which are points wherein most men agree, and in which the learned and illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the buffoon can all of them bear a part. The KitCat itself is said to have taken its original from a mutton-pie.' ADDISON, The Spectator, No. 9.

'The master of the house where the Club met was Christopher Katt. Jacob Tonson was Secretary, 'who has his own and all the members' pictures by Kneller.' POPE, Spence's Anec. p. 337. These pictures, being uniform in size, have given their name to all portraits of that size—28 inches by 36.

For Pope's epigram on the Club see his Works (Elwin and Courthope), iv. 446, and for Garth's Verses written for the Toasting-Glasses see Eng. Poets, xxviii. 113. See also post, BLACKMORE, 21; Hearne's Remains, i. 74. Horace Walpole describes the Club as 'generally mentioned as a set of wits, in reality the patriots that saved Britain.' Anecdotes of Painting, iii. 205.

Ante, PARNELL, 5. 3 Eng. Poets, xxviii. 109. * For Sept. 7, 1710. by Prior. Post, PRIOR, 22.

It was written

5 In The Whig Examiner, No. 1, Addison's Works, iv. 370. Addison thus ends:-'The same who has endeavoured here to prove that he who wrote The Dispensary was no poet, will very suddenly undertake

to show that he who gained the Battle of Blenheim is no general.'

12.

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Biog. Brit. p. 2133, which refers to Chronological Diary, 1714-15, p. Of this work I can learn nothing in the British Museum. Garth was knighted on Oct. 11, 1714. Chron. Hist.of Gt. Brit. 1716, p.784. In a note in The Tatler, 1789, ii. 273, it is stated that Steele was knighted with the same sword. Lord Berkeley of Stratton wrote on Jan. 9, 1713:-'The Duchess of Marlborough hath given great presents at her taking leave of her friends, several fine diamond rings and other jewels of great value, to Dr. Garth for one.' Wentworth Papers, p. 313..

It was published in 1717 by Jacob Tonson. In a ballad entitled Sandys's Ghost (for Sandys see ante, COWLEY, 197), attributed to Swift (Works, xiii. 292) and Pope (Works (Elwin and Courthope), iv. 486), the writer

says:

'I hear the beat of Jacob's drums,

Poor Ovid finds no quarter!
See first the merry P-[? Pembroke]

comes

In haste, without his garter. Then lords and lordlings, 'squires and knights,

Wits, witlings, prigs and peers! Garth at St. James's, and at White's, Beats up for volunteers.'

This edition is composed of versions by Addison, Congreve, Dryden, Gay, Garth, Pope and Rowe, and eleven other poets.

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