A Book about Doctors Part 22

"Seven wise physicians lately met, To save a wretched sinner; Come, Tom, said Jack, pray let's be quick, Or I shall lose my dinner.

"Some roared for rhubarb, jalap some, And some cried out for Dover; Lets give him something, each man said-- Why e'en let's give him--over."

After much learned squabbling, one of the sages proposed to revive the sinking energies of the poor man by jingling guineas in his ears. The suggestion was acted upon, when--

"Soon as the fav'rite sound he heard, One faint effort he try'd; He op'd his eyes, he stretched his hands, He made one grasp--and dy'd."

Though, on the grave closing over his antagonist, Monsey suppressed these lines, he continued to cherish an animosity to the object of them. The spirit in which, out of respect to death, he drew a period to their quarrel, was much like that of the Irish peasant in the song, who tells his ghostly adviser that he forgives Pat Malone with all his heart (supposing death should get the better of him)--but should he recover, he means to pay the rascal off roundly. Sir Walter Scott somewhere tells a story of a Highland chief, in his last moments declaring that he from the bottom of his heart forgave his old enemy, the head of a hostile clan--and concluding this Christian avowal with a final address to his son--"But may all evil light upon ye, Ronald, if ye e'er forgie the heathen."

Through Lord G.o.dolphin's interest, Monsey was appointed physician to Chelsea College, on the death of Dr. Smart. For some time he continued to reside in St. James's: but on the death of his patron he moved to Chelsea, and spent the last years of his life in retirement--and to a certain extent banishment--from the great world. The hospital offices were then filled by a set of low-born scoundrels, or discharged servants, whom the ministers of various Cabinets had had some reason of their own for providing for. The surgeon was that Mr. Ranby who positively died of rage because Henry Fielding's brother (Sir John) would not punish a hackney coachman who had been guilty of the high treason of--being injured and abused by the plaintiff. With this man Monsey had a tremendous quarrel; but though in the right, he had to submit to Ranby's powerful connections.

This affair did not soften his temper to the other functionaries of the hospital with whom he had to a.s.sociate at the hall table. His encounter with the venal elector who had been nominated to a Chelsea appointment is well known, though an account of it would hurt the delicacy of these somewhat prudish pages. Of the doctor's insolence the following is a good story:--

A clergyman, who used to bore him with pompous and pedantic talk, was arguing on some point with Monsey, when the latter exclaimed:--

"Sir, if you have faith in your opinion, will you venture a wager upon it?"

"I could--but I won't," was the reply.

"Then," rejoined Monsey, "you have very little wit, or very little money." The logic of this retort puts one in mind of the eccentric actor who, under somewhat similar circ.u.mstances, asked indignantly, "Then, sir, how _dare_ you advance a statement in a public room which you are not prepared to substantiate with a bet!"

Monsey was a Unitarian, and not at all backward to avow his creed. As he was riding in Hyde Park with a Mr. Robinson, that gentleman, after deploring the corrupt morals of the age, said, with very bad taste, "But, Doctor, I talk with one who believes there is no G.o.d." "And I,"

retorted Monsey, "with one who believes there are three." Good Mr.

Robinson was so horrified that he clapped spurs to his horse, galloped off, and never spoke to the doctor again.

Monsey's Whiggism introduced him to high society, but not to lucrative practice. Sir Robert Walpole always extoled the merits of his "Norfolk Doctor," but never advanced his interests. Instead of covering the great minister with adulation, Monsey treated him like an ordinary individual, telling him when his jokes were poor, and not hesitating to worst him in argument. "How happens it," asked Sir Robert, over his wine, "that n.o.body will beat me at billiards, or contradict me, but Dr. Monsey!" "Other people," put in the doctor, "get places--I get a dinner and praise." The Duke of Grafton treated him even worse. His Grace staved off paying the physician his bill for attending him and his family at Windsor, with promises of a place. When "the little place" fell vacant, Monsey called on the duke, and reminded him of his promise. "Ecod--ecod--ecod," was the answer, "but the Chamberlain has just been here to tell me he has promised it to Jack ----." When the disappointed applicant told the lord-chamberlain what had transpired, his Lordship replied, "Don't, for the world, tell his Grace; but before he knew I had promised it, here is a letter he sent me, soliciting for _a third person_."

Amongst the vagaries of this eccentric physician was the way in which he extracted his own teeth. Round the tooth sentenced to be drawn he fastened securely a strong piece of catgut, to the opposite end of which he affixed a bullet. With this bullet and a full measure of powder a pistol was charged. On the trigger being pulled, the operation was performed effectually and speedily. The doctor could only rarely prevail on his friends to permit him to remove their teeth by this original process. Once a gentleman who had agreed to try the novelty, and had even allowed the apparatus to be adjusted, at the last moment exclaimed, "Stop, stop, I've changed my mind!" "But I haven't, and you're a fool and a coward for your pains," answered the doctor, pulling the trigger. In another instant the tooth was extracted, much to the timid patient's delight and astonishment.

At Chelsea, to the last, the doctor saw on friendly terms all the distinguished medical men of his day. Cheselden, fonder of having his horses admired than his professional skill extolled, as Pope and Freind knew, was his frequent visitor. He had also his loves. To Mrs.

Montague, for many years, he presented a copy of verses on the anniversary of her birth-day. But after his quarrel with Garrick, he saw but little of the lady, and was rarely, if ever, a visitor at her magnificent house in Portman Square. Another of his flames, too, was Miss Berry, of whom the loss still seems to be recent. In his old age, avarice--the very same failing he condemned so much in Garrick--developed itself in Monsey. In comparatively early life his mind was in a flighty state about money matters. For years he was a victim of that incredulity which makes the capitalist imagine a great and prosperous country to be the most insecure of all debtors. He preferred investing his money in any wild speculation to confiding it to the safe custody of the funds. Even his ready cash he for long could not bring himself to trust in the hands of a banker. When he left town for a trip, he had recourse to the most absurd schemes for the protection of his money. Before setting out, on one occasion, for a journey to Norfolk, incredulous with regard to cash-boxes and bureaus, he hid a considerable quant.i.ty of gold and notes in the fireplace of his study, covering them up artistically with cinders and shavings. A month afterwards, returning (luckily a few days before he was expected), he found his old house-maid preparing to entertain a few friends at tea in her master's room. The hospitable domestic was on the point of lighting the fire, and had just applied a candle to the doctor's notes, when he entered the room, seized on a pail of water that chanced to be standing near, and, throwing its contents over the fuel and the old woman, extinguished the fire and her presence of mind at the same time. Some of the notes, as it was, were injured, and the Bank of England made objections to cashing them.

To the last Monsey acted by his own rules instead of by those of other people. He lived to extreme old age, dying in his rooms in Chelsea College, on December 26th, 1788, in his ninety-fifth year; and his will was as remarkable as any other feature of his career. To a young lady mentioned in it, with the most lavish encomiums on her wit, taste, and elegance, was left an old battered snuff-box--not worth sixpence; and to another young lady, whom the testator says he intended to have enriched with a handsome legacy, he leaves the gratifying a.s.surance that he changed his mind on finding her "a pert, conceited minx." After inveighing against bishops, deans, and chapters, he left an annuity to two clergymen who had resigned their preferment on account of the Athanasian doctrine. He directed that his body should not be insulted with any funeral ceremony, but should undergo dissection; after which, the "remainder of my carcase" (to use his own words) "may be put into a hole, or crammed into a box with holes, and thrown into the Thames." In obedience to this part of the will, Mr. Forster, surgeon, of Union Court, Broad Street, dissected the body, and delivered a lecture on it to the medical students in the theatre of Guy's Hospital. The bulk of the doctor's fortune, amounting to about ?16,000, was left to his only daughter for life, and after her demise, by a complicated entail, to her _female_ descendants. This only child, Charlotte Monsey, married William Alexander, a linen-draper in Cateaton Street, City, and had a numerous family. One of her daughters married the Rev. Edmund Rolfe, rector of c.o.c.kley Clay, Norfolk, of which union Robert Monsey Rolfe, Baron Cranworth of Cranworth, county of Norfolk, is the offspring.

Before making the above-named and final disposition of his body, the old man found vent for his ferocious cynicism and vulgar infidelity in the following epitaph, which is scarcely less characteristic of the society in which the writer had lived, than it is of the writer himself:--

"MOUNSEY'S EPITAPH, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF."

"Here lie my old bones; my vexation now ends; I have lived much too long for myself and my friends.

As to churches and churchyards, which men may call holy, 'Tis a rank piece of priestcraft, and founded on folly.

What the next world may be never troubled my pate; And be what it may, I beseech you, O fate, When the bodies of millions rise up in a riot, To let the old carcase of Mounsey be quiet."

Unpleasant old scamp though he in many respects was, Monsey retains even at this day so firm a hold of the affections of all students who like ferreting into the social history of the last century, that no chance letter of his writing is devoid of interest. The following specimen of his epistolary style, addressed to his fair patient, the accomplished and celebrated Mrs. Montague (his acquaintance with which lady has already been alluded to), is transcribed from the original ma.n.u.script in the possession of Dr. Diamond:--

"4th of March, a minute past 12.

"DEAR MADAME,

"Now dead men's ghosts are getting out of their graves, and there comes the ghost of a doctor in a white sheet to wait upon you. Your Tokay is got into my head and your love into my heart, and they both join to club their thanks for the pleasantest day I have spent these seven years; and to my comfort I find a man may be in love, and be happy, provided he does not go to book for it. I could have trusted till the morning to show my grat.i.tude, but the Tokay wou'd have evaporated, and then I might have had nothing to talk of but an ache in my head and pain in my heart. Bacchus and Cupid should always be together, for the young gentleman is very apt to be silly when he's alone by himself; but when old toss-pot is with him, if he pretends to fall a whining, he hits him a cursed knock on the pate, and says: 'Drink about, you....' 'No, Bacchus, don't be in a pa.s.sion. Upon my soul you have knocked out one of my eyes!' 'Eyes, ye scroundrel?

Why, you have never had one since you were born.... Apollo would have couched you, but your mother said no; for then, says she, "he can never be blamed for his shot, any more than the people that are shot at." She knew 'twould bring grist to her mill; for what with those who pretended they were in love and were not so, and those who were really so and wouldn't own it, I shall find rantum scantum work at Cyprus, Paphos, and Cythera. Some will come to acquire what they never had, and others to get rid of what they find very troublesome, and I shall mind none of 'em.' You see how the G.o.ddess foresaw and predicted my misfortunes. She knew I was a sincere votary, and that I was a martyr to her serene influence. Then how could you use me so like an Hyrcanian tygress, and be such an infidel to misery; that though I hate you mortally, I wish you may feel but one poor _half-quarter-of-an-hour_ before you slip your breath--how shall I rejoice at your horrid agonies? _Nec enim lex justior ulla Quam necis artifices arte perire su?_--Remember Me.

"My ills have disturbed my brain, and the revival of old ideas has set it a-boyling, that, till I have skim'd off the froth, I can't pretend to say a word for myself; and by the time I have cleared off the sc.u.m, the little grudge that is left may be burnt to the bottom of the pot.

"My mortal injuries have turned my mind, And I could hate myself for being blind But why should I thus rave of eyes and looks?

All I have felt is fancy--all from Books.

I stole my charmers from the cuts of Quarles, And my dear Clarissa from the grand Sir Charles.

But if his mam or Cupid live above, Who have revenge in store for injured love, O Venus, send dire ruin on her head, Strike the Destroyer, lay the Victress dead; Kill the Triumphress, and avenge my wrong In height of pomp, while she is warm and young.

Grant I may stand and dart her with my eyes While in the fiercest pangs of life she lies, Pursue her sportive soul and shoot it as it flies, And cry with joy--There Montague lies flat, Who wronged my pa.s.sion with her barbarous Chat, And was as cruel as a Cat to Rat, As cat to rat--ay, ay, as cat to rat.

And when you got her up into your house, Clinch yr, fair fist, and give her such a souse: There, Hussy, take you that for all your Prate, Your barbarous heart I do a-bo-mi-nate.

I'll take your part, my dearest faithful Doctor!

I've told my son, and see how he has mockt her!

He'll fire her soul and make her rant and rave; See how she groans to be old Vulcan's slave.

The fatal bow is bent. Shoot, Cupid, shoot, And there's your Montague all over soot.

Now say no more my little Boy is blind, For sure this tyrant he has paid in kind.

She fondly thought to captivate a lord.

A lord, sweet queen? 'Tis true, upon my word.

And what's his name? His name? Why-- And thought her parts and wit the feat had done.

But he had parts and wit as well as she.

Why then, 'tis strange those folks did not agree.

Agree? Why, had she lived one moment longer, His love was strong, but madam's grew much stronger.

_Hiatus valde deflendus._ So for her long neglect of Venus' altar I changed Cu's Bowstring to a silken Halter; I made the noose, and Cupid drew the knot.

Dear mam! says he, don't let her lie and rot, She is too pretty. Hold your tongue, you sot!

The pretty blockhead? None of yr. rogue's tricks.

Ask her, she'll own she's turned of thirty-six.

I was but twenty when I got the apple, And let me tell you, 'twas a cursed grapple.

Had I but staid till I was twenty-five, I'ad surely lost it, as you're now alive!

Paris had said to Juno and Minerva, Ladies, I'm yours, and shall be glad to serve yer; I must have bowed to wisdom and to power.

And Troy had stood it to this very hour, Homer had never wrote, nor wits had read Achilles' anger or Patroclus dead.

We G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses had lived in riot, And the blind fool had let us all be quiet.

Mortals had never been stunn'd with!!!!!!!-- Nor Virgil's wooden horse play'd Hocus Pocus.

Hang the two Bards! But Montague is pretty.

Sirrah, you lie; but I'll allow she's witty.

Well! but I'm told she was so at fifteen, Ay, and the veriest so that e'er was seen.

Why that I own; and I myself----

"But, hold! as in all probability I am going to tell a parcel of cursed lies, I'll travel no further, lay down my presumptuous pen, and go to bed; for it's half-past two, and two hours and an half is full long enough to write nonsense at one time. You see what it is to give a Goth Tokay: you manure your land with filth, and it produces Tokay; you enrich a man with Tokay, and he brings forth the froth and filth of nonsense. You will learn how to bestow it better another time. I hope what you took yourself had a better, or at least no bad, effect. I wish you had wrote me a note after your first sleep. There wou'd have been your sublime double-distilled, treble-refined wit. I shouldn't have known it to be yours if it could have been anybody's else.

"Pray don't show these humble rhimes to R----y. That puppy will write notes upon 'em or perhaps paint 'em upon sign-posts, and make 'em into an invitation to draw people to see the Camel and Dromedary--for I see he can make anything of anything; but, after all, why should I be afraid? Perhaps he might make something of nothing. I have wrote in heroics. Sure the wretch will have a reverence for heroics, especially for such as he never saw before, and never may again. Well, upon my life I will go to bed--'tis a burning shame to sit up so. I lie, for my fire is out, and so will my candle too if I write a word more.

"So I will only make my mark. =X=

"G.o.d eternally bless and preserve you from such writers."

"March 5th, 12 o'clock.

"DEAR MRS. MONTAGUE,

"My fever has been so great that I have not had any time to write to you in such a manner as to try and convince you that I had recovered my senses, and I could write a sober line. Pray, how do you do after your wine and its effects on you, as well as upon me? You are grown a right down rake, and I never expect you for a patient again as long as we live, the last relation I should like to stand to you in, and which nothing could make bearable but serving you, and that is a _J'ay pays_ for all my misery in serving you ill.