666

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.

6

"At the close of this year, the king, on his return from Holland, (where, instead of following the Doctor's advice, he had lived very freely with several German princes,) found himself again very much out of order; and having his sole reliance on Dr. Radcliffe's judgement, sent for him to Kensington the last time, for he was then to be as much out of favour with his majesty, as he was with the princess. After the necessary questions put by the physician to the royal patient, said the king, showing his swollen ancles, while the rest of his body was emaciated, and like a mere skeleton, Doctor, what think you of these?' Why, truly,' replied he, I would not have your majesty's two legs for your three kingdoms;' which freedom of speech was resented so much, though seemingly not taken notice of during their conversation for that time, that all the interest the Earl of Albemarle had at court, and then he was the chief favourite, could not reinstate him in his majesty's good graces, who, from that very hour, never would suffer him to come into his presence; though he continued to make use of his diet-drinks, till three days before his death, which happened to fall out much about the same time as the Doctor had calculated, and which the king had frequently said to the earl before mentioned, would come to pass, in verification of Radcliffe's prediction. Since it appeared upou opening of his late majesty's body, that he had lived as long as there was any nutriment for the animal spirits, and that if he had not fallen from his horse, which broke his collar-bone, and might hasten his death for a few days, he must have been gathered to his fathers in less than a month's time, since his lungs were entirely wasted and dried, and crumbled in the hand like a clod of summer dirt."

Hatred of meanness, and a blunt expression of his feelings whenever he saw it, distinguish many of these anecdotes; but none more than the following story, which is likewise a good specimen of the style of the biographer.

"Yet, though the Doctor had an esteem for men that set a true value upon his skill, and were gratefully disposed to acknowledge it by suitable regards, he had the greatest aversion imaginable, howsoever parsimonious in his own person, for such as were of abilities, yet of niggardly dispositions, as may be seen in the case of one Mr. Tyson, a man of vast wealth and estate, and said, at the time of his decease, to be worth more than £300,000. It happened that this figure of a man, without any thing like a human soul, had dealt with empyricks so long for cheapness sake, that he was reduced to so low an ebb of life as to have the continuance of it in a manner despaired of. His friends and neighbours had repeated their instances with him to no manner of purpose, that he would look out for some able physician for his preservation; but the cost was a greater terror to him for some time than the apprehensions of death itself. At last, when he found that he must leave, in case of demise, all his ill-gotten treasure and possessions behind, when a total decay of nature notified the last necessity of having recourse to fit helps to protract a

life that wanted many and many years to have the guilt washed off, which it had contracted by its avarice and extortion. In a word, when the remembrance of his deeds gave pricks to his conscience, and tortured him with the frightful ideas of the punishments that were due to them in another world, he took up resolutions of seeking out ways and means to make his abode in this as long as it was possible. In order to this, he pitched upon Dr. Radcliffe, as the only person capable of giving him relief in his dangerous estate. But nature had still such a predominance in him notwithstanding his weakness, and his old habitual sin of covetousness had so much gained the ascendant over his other passions, that he was at a loss how to keep the Doctor from discovering who he was, while he applied to him for a true account and cure of his distemper. At last he and his wife agreed to give the Doctor a visit at his own house, in order to save the charge of coming to theirs; and, after taking their coach to the Royal Exchange, went into an hack that carried them to Bloomsbury, where, with two guineas in hand, and in a very mean habit, Mr. Tyson opened his condition to the Doctor, still insisting upon his poverty and having advice upon reasonable terms. But neither his sickness nor his apparel had disguised him so much as to deceive the doctor, who had no sooner heard what he had to say and taken his gold, but told him, he might go home and die and be damned, without a speedy repentance, for both the grave and the devil were ready for one Tyson of Hackney, who had raised an immense estate out of the spoils of the public and the tears of orphans and widows, and would certainly be a dead man in ten days.' Nor was the event contrary to the prediction; for the wretched usurer returned to his house quite confounded with the sentence that had been passed upon him, (part of which was fulfilled in eight days, by his death, though we will not be so presumptuous to say that relating to his after state was,) and by bidding adieu to this world, left his earthly possessions to a son, who, it is hoped, knows how to make a better use of them."

The Doctor's invitation to Prince Eugene will also set his character in a strong light. The coolness with which he turns from the hopeless case of his patient to a friendly invitation of the sick man's uncle, is particularly admirable.

"The same year, upon the coming over of Prince Eugene of Savoy to persuade the British court to enter into the Emperor's measures, which were for the continuance of the war with France and Spain, till the kingdoms possessed by the latter, with its dominions in the West Indies, were restored to the house of Austria; the Chevalier de Soissons, his highness's nephew, in a nightly encounter with the watch, was so bruised, that he was thrown into a violent fever, which was falsely said to terminate in the small-pox, to cover the reproach of such an unprincely disaster. Hereupon, Dr. Radcliffe being called upon for his advice, very frankly told the prince, That he was extremely concerned he could be of no service to him, in the recovery of a person so dear and nearly related to him, as the Chevalier, since

the Sieur Swartenburgh, his highness's physician, had put it out of his power, by mistaking the nature of the distemper; but that he should hold it amongst the greatest honours he had ever received, if he might have the happiness of entertaining so great a general, to whose noble achievements the world was indebted, at his poor habitation.' In pursuance of which invitation, after the chevalier was interred amongst the Ormond family in Westminster-Abbey, and the prince had dined and supped with several of the chief nobility, he bethought himself of paying a visit to Dr. Radcliffe, and sent him word he intended to foul a plate with him on such a day. The Doctor made provision accordingly; and instead of ragous and other fine kickshaws, wherewith other tables had been spread, ordered his to be covered with barons of beef, jiggets of mutton, legs of pork, and other such substantial British dishes, for the first course, at which several of the nobility, who were perfect strangers to whole joints of butcher's meat, made light of his entertainment. But the prince, upon taking his leave of him, said, in French, Doctor, I have been fed at other tables like a courtier, but received at your's as a soldier, for which I am highly indebted to you, since I must tell you, that I am more ambitious of being called by the latter appellation than the former. Nor can I wonder at the bravery of the British nation, that has such food and liquor (meaning some beer he had drank of seven years old) of their own growth, as what you have thus given proof of.'

When the Doctor could not cure his patients, he could generally satisfy them with regard to the day and even hour of their death. His prophetical powers in this respect were astonishing. Many instances are given in the course of his life. When the Dutchess of Marlborough applied to him to go down to Cambridge to her son, the Marquis of Blandford, who had been improperly treated for the small-pox by the physicians of the university, having heard the detail of their procedure, he answered, "Madam, I shall only put you to a great expense to no purpose, for you have nothing to do for his lordship now, but to send down an undertaker to take care of a funeral; for I can assure your grace, he is dead by this time, of a distemper called the Doctor, that would have been recovered from the smallpox without the intervention of that unfortunate malady." Nor was he out in his conjectures, for the dutchess was no sooner in her apartments at St. James's House, but a messenger arrived with the news. He was equally accurate in the case of Prince George, the husband of Queen Anne, who had been advised to go to Bath; and whether from the gaiety of the place, or the change of air, he was thought to be much recovered.

"The skill of the physicians who advised the journey was highly applauded, and every one's concern for so valuable a life was laid aside, but Dr. Radcliffe's, who, with his wonted spirit of prediction, said, 'the ensuing year would let them all know their mistakes in fol

lowing such preposterous and unadviseable counsels, since the very nature of a dropsy might have taught those whose duty it was to prescribe proper medicaments for the cure of it, and might lead them into other precautions for the safety of so illustrious a patient, than the choice of means which must unavoidably feed it.' Injustification of these sentiments, his royal highness fell into a relapse, and after a six months' struggle with the fierceness of his distemper, was seized, after such a manner, with violent shiverings and convulsions on the twenty-second of October, that his physicians were of opinion, that Dr. Radcliffe was the only person now to be applied to, since they were at their ne plus ultra, and had gone through all the recipes their art could furnish them with. In pursuance of this advice, her ma jesty, who could set apart former prejudices and resentments out of concern for the preservation of so inestimable a life, caused him to be sent for in one of her own coaches, and was pleased to tell him, that no rewards or favours should be wanting, could he but remove the convulsions she was troubled with, in the cure of those which her beloved husband bore. But the Doctor, who was unused to flatter, instantly gave the queen to understand, that nothing but death could release his royal highness from the pangs he was afflicted with, and said, That though it might be a rule amongst surgeons to apply caustics to such as were burned or scalded, it was very irregular among physicians to drive and expel watery humours from the body, by draughts of the same element. However, he would leave something in writing, whereby such hydropicks and anodynes should be prepared for him, that should make him go out of this world with the greater ease, since he had been so tampered with, that nothing in the art of physic could keep the prince alive more than six days.' Accordingly, he departed this life on the sixth day following, to the great grief of the queen and the whole court."

We have many proofs of the Doctor's wit scattered here and there; the following is said to have passed between the celebrated painter, Sir Godfrey Kneller, and our physician. Sir Godfrey, who lived in the adjoining house to the Doctor, had given the latter leave to open a door into his garden. The Doctor's servants abused the privilege, and made " sad havock among Sir Godfrey's hortulanary curiosities."

"So that the person aggrieved found himself under the necessity of letting him that ought to make things easy, know, by one of his servants, That he should be obliged to brick up the door in case of his complaints proving ineffectual.' To this the Doctor, who was very often in a choleric temper, and, from the success of his practice, imagined every one under an obligation of bearing with him, returned answer, That Sir Godfrey might do what he pleased with the door, so that he did not paint it.' Hereupon the footman, after some hesitation in the delivery of his message, and several commands from his master, to give it him word for word, told him as above. Did my very good friend, Dr. Radcliffe, say so?' cried Sir Godfrey. Go you