times; not only setting before him the great advantages he would receive hereafter, by his admission into the pale of the Romish Church, but the benefits that would attend him in this life."

Dr. Radcliffe's answer to one of his friends' letters, is an admirable proof of his humour and his good sense.

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Sir-I should be in as unhappy a condition in this life, as you fear I shall be in the next, were I to be treated as a turn-coat; and must tell you, that I can be serious no longer, while you endeavour to make me believe what, I am apt to think, you give no credit to yourself. Fathers, and Councils, and antique authorities, may have their influence in their proper places; but should any of them_all, though covered with dust 1400 years ago, tell me, that the bottle I am now drinking with some of your acquaintance, is a wheel-barrow, and the glass in my hand a salamander, I should ask leave to dissent from them all.

"You mistake my temper, in being of opinion that I am other. wise biassed than the generality of mankind are. I had one of your new convert's poems in my hands just now: you will know them to be Mr. Dryden's, and on what account they are written, at first sight. Four of the best lines, and most a-propos, run thus:

By education most have been misled,

So they believe, because they so were bred:
The Priest continues what the nurse began,
And so the child imposes on the man.'

"You may be given to understand, from hence, that having been bred up a Protestant, at Wakefield, and sent from thence in that persuasion to Oxford, where, during my continuance, I had no relish for absurdities, I intend not to change principles, and turn Papist in London.

for all

"The advantages you propose to me, may be very great, I know: God Almighty can do very much, and so can the King; but you will pardon me, if I cease to speak like a physician for once; and, with an air of gravity-I am very apprehensive that I may anger the one, in being too complaisant to the other. You cannot call this pinning my faith to any man's sleeve; those that know me, are too well apprized of a contrary tendency. As I never flattered a man myself, so it is my firm resolution never to be wheedled out of my real sentiments, which are, that since it has been my good fortune to be educated according to the usage of the Church of England, established by law, I shall never make myself so unhappy, as to shame my teachers and instructors, by departing from what I have imbibed from them.

"Yet, though I shall never be brought over to confide in your doctrines, no one breathing can have a greater esteem for your conversation, by letters, or word of mouth, than, Sir,

"Your most affectionate and faithful servant,
"JOHN RADCLIFFE."

The conclusion of this story is highly characteristic of the Doctor's kindness of heart.

"Nor did the Doctor, when the necessity of the times, in the succeeding revolution, which followed this epistolatory intercourse by the heels, prove otherwise than a constant friend and benefactor to this great man for though he could not be induced to adhere to his opinion in matters of religion, he would always abide by his determination in points of learning; and out of a generous sense of the pressures Mr. Walker laboured under, on account of his non-compliance with the government that was set over us, by the late King James's abdication, from the time of his first coming to London, after the scene of affairs were changed in Oxford, gave him the allowance of a very handsome competency to the day of his death; not even holding himself content to supply him to his latest breath, but contributing largely to his funeral expenses, that he might be conducted honourably to his grave, in Pancras church-yard, where he was privately interred; and some years after, a very decent monument was erected to his memory, with the two first letters of his name, O. W. in a cypher, and this modest inscription:

Per bonam famam

Et per infamiam.”

When the revolution took place, and the Prince of Orange mounted the English throne, Dr. Radcliffe still retained his former principles, though he declined meddling himself with either party until he saw the event. King William had very bad health, and, consequently, availed himself of the skill of Dr. Radcliffe, whose reputation was then at its height. The Doctor, though by no means calculated for a court favourite, was nearly always called in to assist the different branches of the royal family in cases of emergency. Many of the anecdotes, recorded in this life, relate to them, and some we shall quote. Dr. Radcliffe was recommended to the king by the cures which he had performed on two of the principal friends whom he had brought over with him, Mr. Bentinck (afterwards Lord Portland), and Mr. Zulestein (Lord Rochford).

per

"The restoration of two persons so dear to the king to their fect health, could not but cause his majesty to have an eye towards him that was the instrument of it, next to God, therefore that prince not only ordered him five hundred guineas out of the privy-purse, but made him an offer of being sworn one of his majesty's physicians, with a salary of 2007. per annum more than any other.

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Though the present was only accepted, and the post refused, because the Doctor very cautiously considered that the settlement of the crown was but then in its infancy, and that accidents might intervene to disturb the security of it. Besides, as body physician to the princess of Denmark, whose service he was more inclined to from the high esteem she had always entertained for him, he had a very com

petent allowance, and stood in need of no addition to it, which would rather lessen the fees arising from his practice, than increase them, since he was too well apprized of the good inclination the king bore him, not to imagine he would send for him upon all urgent occasions, and when he did, so reward him that it would more than countervail a fixed salary. Nor was he out in his judgement, for the weak condition his majesty had been always in from his childhood, by flux of rheum and an asthma, the last of which distempers the Doctor was every where cried up for being exceedingly well versed in, made him so very often called upon, that the writer of these memoirs can aver that he has heard the doctor more than once or twice declare, that, one year with another, for the first eleven years of his reign, he cleared more than six hundred guineas for his bare attendance on the king's person, exclusive of the great officers."

He was afterwards called in on occasion of the fatal illness of the Queen Mary.

"It pleased God to afflict this nation by the sudden sickness of the late incomparable Queen Mary, which terminated in the small-pox, and which the court physicians, after many fruitless experiments, found it impossible to raise. Whereupon, their utmost efforts proving ineffectual, the Doctor was sent for, by the council, to give his opinion, and, (if it was in the power of physic,) to avert the impending calamity that was falling upon the subjects. At the first sight of the recipes, without seeing her majesty, he told them, she was a dead woman, for it was impossible to do any good in her case, where remedies had been given that were so contrary to the nature of the distemper; yet he would endeavour to do all that lay in him to give her some ease. Accordingly the pustules began to fill, by a cordial julap he ordered to be given to the queen, which gave some faint hopes of her recovery ; but the infection was driven too much into the recesses of the heart, not to be too strong for all attempts against it, and that great and good princess died a sacrifice to unskilful hands, who, out of one disease, had caused a complication by improper medicaments."

After this he was sent for to the Princess Anne of Denmark, whom he offends.

"Some few months after this unhappy accident, the Doctor, who, till then, had kept himself in the good graces of the Princess Anne of Denmark, made a forfeit of them by his too great addiction to the bottle after a very uncourtly manner. For her royal highness being indisposed, caused him to be sent for; in answer to which he made a promise of coming to St. James's soon after. But he not appearing, that message was backed by another, importing that she was extremely ill, and describing after what manner the princess was taken. At which the Doctor swore by his Maker, 'that her highness's distemper was nothing but the vapours, and that she was in as good a state of health as any woman breathing could she but give into the belief of it.' When he found, to his great mortification, on his appearance at court,

that his freedom with so illustrious a patient had been highly resented; for, at his going into her presence, he was stopped by an officer in the anti-chamber, and told, that the princess had no farther need of the services of a physician who would not obey her orders, and that she had made choice of Dr. Gibbons to succeed him in the care of her health. Now as nothing could be more vexatious to him than to give place to his old antagonist, who was now become his successor, so he could not forgive him for this very thing to his dying day; and, at his return to his companions, without any regard to the great name, which ought not to have been made so free with, gave them to understand what had happened, intimating that nurse Gibbons had gotten a new nursery, which he by no means envied him the possession of, since his capacity was only equal to the ailments of a patient which had no other existence than in the imagination, and could reach no farther than the putting those out of a good state of health that were already in the enjoyment of it."

In the year 1697 the Doctor has another interview with King William, of a very interesting nature.

"After the king's return from Loo, where he had ratified the treaty of peace at Ryswick, his majesty found himself very much indisposed at his palace at Kensington; and, as usual, after his physicians in ordinary had given their opinions, would have Dr. Radcliffe's advice. His spirits were then wasting, and tending to their last decay, and every symptom that appeared gave certain indications that his majesty was in a downright dropsy; however, those, in whose sphere it was more particularly to consult their master's constitution, and the nature of his distemper, mistook it so far as to prescribe medicines for the cure of it which rather increased, than lessened, its malignity; at the same time, they assured the king that he was in no manner of danger, but would be in a right state of health again after he had taken such and such medicines and antiscorbutics, which had no manner of relation to his majesty's distemper. The king, when the Doctor was admitted, was reading Sir Roger l'Estrange's version of Æsop's Fables, and told him, that he had once more sent for him, to try the effects of his great skill, notwithstanding what he had been told by his body physicians, who were not sensible of his inward decay, that he might live many years, and would speedily recover. Upon which, the Doctor having put some interrogatories to him, very readily asked leave of the king to turn to a fable in the book before him, which would let his majesty know how he had been treated, and read it to him in these words:

"Pray, sir, how do you find yourself?' says the doctor to the patient. Why truly,' says the patient, I have had a most violent sweat.' 'Oh! the best sign in the world,' quoth the doctor. And then, a little while after, he is at it again, with a Pray, how do you find your body?' Alas!' says the other, 'I have just now had a terrible fit of horror and shaking upon me!' Why this is all as it should be,' says the physician, 'it shews a mighty strength of nature.' And then he comes over him the third time, with the same questions again :

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Why I am all swelled,' says the other, as if I had the dropsy.' 'Best of all,' quoth the doctor, and goes his way. Soon after this comes one of the sick man's friends to him with the same question, 'How he felt himself?' ' Why, truly, so well,' says he, that I am even ready to die of I know not how many good signs and tokens.' May it please your majesty, yours and the sick man's case is the very same,' cries the Doctor; you are buoyed up with hopes that your malady will soon be driven away by persons that are not apprized of means to do it, and know not the true cause of your ailment ; but I must be plain with you, and tell you, that, in all probability, if your majesty will adhere to my prescriptions, it may be in my power to lengthen out your life for three or four years, but beyond that time nothing in physic can protract it, for the juices of your stomach are all vitiated; your whole mass of blood is corrupted; and your nutriment, for the most part, turns to water. However, if your majesty will forbear making long visits to the Earl of Bradford's (where the king was wont to drink very hard), I'll try what can be done to make you live easily, though I cannot venture to say I can make you live longer than I have told you;' and so left a recipe behind him, which was so happy in its effects as to enable the king not only to take a progress in the western parts of his kingdom, but to go out of it, and divert himself at his palace of Loo, in Holland."

In 1699, while the king was abroad, the Duke of Gloucester was taken ill at Windsor, where he had over-heated himself with dancing.

"His highness's distemper was a rash, but judged by Sir Edward Thorne and Dr. Be, to be the small-pox, which they unskilfully prescribed remedies for, that proved the occasion of his death. The whole court was alarmed at this accident, and the Princess of Denmark, notwithstanding her antipathy to Dr. Radcliffe, was prevailed upon, by the Countess of Marlborough and Lady Fretchville, to send for him; who, upon first sight of the royal youth, gave her to understand that there was no possibility of recovering him, since he would die by such an hour the next day; which he, who was the hopes of all the British dominions, did accordingly. However, with great difficulty, he was persuaded to be present at the consult, where he could not refrain from bitter invectives against the two physicians above mentioned, and told the one, That it would have been happy for the nation had the first born been bred up a musket maker, (which was his father's profession) and the last continued making an havock of nouns and pronouns in the quality of a country school-master, rather than have ventured out of his reach in the practice of an art which he was an utter stranger to, and for which he ought to have been whipped with one of his own rods.""

The Doctor, soon after this event, was consulted by the king, when the physician indulged in a freedom of speech, which the sovereign never forgave.