Part 16

A WITTY FRENCH PREACHER.

A French preacher, called Father André, was nicknamed by his Bishop le petit fallot (the little lantern). Having to preach before the prelate, André determined to notice this, and took for his text, "Ye are the light of the world." Addressing himself to the Bishop, he said, "Vous etês, monseigneur, le grand fallot de l'église, nous ne sommes que de petits fallots." Father André, preaching before an Archbishop, perceived him to be asleep during the sermon, and thought of the following method to awake him. Turning to the beadle of the church, he said in a loud voice, "Shut the doors, the shepherd is asleep, and the sheep are going out, to whom I am announcing the word of God." This sally caused a stir in the audience, which awoke the Archbishop. Being once to announce a collection for a young lady, to enable her to take the veil, he said, before the commencement of his sermon, "Friends, I recommend to your charity a young lady, who has not enough to enable her to make a vow of poverty." Preaching during the whole of Lent in a town where he was never invited to dine, he said, in his farewell sermon, "I have preached against every vice except that of good living--which, I believe, is not to be found among you, and therefore needed not my reproach."

CROMWELL AND RICHARD BAXTER.

After Cromwell had seized on the government, Richard Baxter, the celebrated Nonconformist divine, once preached before the Protector, when he made use of the following text: "Now, I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus the Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no division amongst you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment." The discourse on these words was levelled against the divisions and distractions which then prevailed, especially in the Church. After the sermon, Cromwell sent for Mr. Baxter, and made a long and serious speech to him, about God's providence in the change of the government, and the great things which had been done at home and abroad. Mr. Baxter answered, that it was too condescending in his Highness to acquaint him so fully with all these matters, which were above his understanding; but that the honest people of the land took their ancient monarchy to be a blessing, and not an evil, and humbly craved his patience, that he might ask how they had forfeited that blessing? At this question Cromwell became angry; he said, "There was no forfeiture; but God had changed things as it pleased Him;" and after reviling the Parliament which thwarted him, and especially by name four or five members who were particular friends of Mr. Baxter, he dismissed the worthy divine with signs of great displeasure.

MESSENGER MONSEY'S DYING JESTS.

Dr. Messenger Monsey, the great grandfather of Lord Cranworth (so at least Mr. Jeafferson affirms), was appointed physician to Chelsea Hospital through the influence of Godolphin, and, after holding that office for about half a century, died in his rooms at Chelsea in 1788, in his ninety-fifth year. The eccentricities that had characterized his prime continued to distinguish him to the last. In consequence of his great age, many intending candidates for the office went down to Chelsea, in order to contemplate the various advantages and agrémens of the situation, and observe the progress of the tenacious incumbent towards final recumbency. Monsey, who was at once a humorist, and possessed of a sharp eye for a visitor of this order, one day espied in the College walks a reconnoitring doctor, whom he thus accosted: "So, Sir, I find you are one of the candidates to succeed me." The physician bowed. Monsey proceeded: "But you will be confoundedly disappointed." "Disappointed!" exclaimed the physician, with quivering lips. "Yes," returned Monsey; "you expect to outlive me; but I can discern from your countenance, and other concomitant circumstances, that you are deceiving yourself--you will certainly die first; though, as I have nothing to expect from that event, I shall not rejoice at your death, as I am persuaded you would at mine." It actually fell out as Monsey (possibly only by way of a ghastly jest) had foretold; the candidate lived but a short time. The Doctor was so diverted with checking the aspiring hopes of his brethren of the faculty, that whenever he saw a physician on the look-out, he was not content till he had gone down to comfort him in the same manner. He did so to several; and it is very remarkable--if it be true, as it is alleged--that his predictions were in every case verified. At last the medical speculators shrank in superstitious alarm from Chelsea, and left Monsey to die in peace; indeed, when his death happened, the Minister of the day was not engaged by a single promise, nor had he had for some time a single application for the place of physician to the College. Monsey got out of his own death as much grim fun as he had out of the poor prying place-hunters. A few days before he died, he wrote to Mr. Cruickshanks, the anatomist, begging to know whether it would suit his convenience to undertake the dissection of his body, as he felt that he could not live many hours, and Mr. Forster, his surgeon, was then out of town. The dissection was one of the instructions of his eccentric and rather brutal will; his body was not to be subjected to the insult of any funeral ceremony, but, after the surgeon had finished with it, "the remainder of my carcase may be put into a hole, or crammed into a box with holes, and thrown into the Thames." His will was, so far as regards the dissection, faithfully carried out; Mr. Forster dissected the body, and delivered a lecture upon it to the medical students in the theatre of Guy's Hospital. Before he had disposed of his body by will in the manner described, and when he meant to be buried in his garden, he had written an epitaph eminently characteristic of his violent cynicism and contempt of things sacred:--

MONSEY'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 Monsey be quiet."

UNMISTAKEABLE IDENTITY.

A Reverend Doctor in London was what is usually termed a popular preacher. His reputation, however, had been gained not by his drawing largely on his own stores of knowledge or eloquence, but by the skill with which he appropriated the thoughts and language of the great divines who had gone before him. With fashionable audiences, lightly versed in pulpit lore, he passed for a miracle of erudition and pathos. It did, for all that, once happen to him to be detected in his larcenies. One Sunday, as he was beginning to amaze and delight his admirers, a grave old gentleman seated himself close to the pulpit, and listened with close attention. The preacher had hardly finished his third sentence, before the old gentleman muttered, loud enough to be heard by those near, "That's Sherlock!" The Doctor frowned, but went on. He had not proceeded much further, when his tormentor broke out with, "That's Tillotson!" The Doctor bit his lips and paused, but, considering discretion the better part of valour, again proceeded. A third exclamation of "That's Blair!" however, was too much, and fairly deprived him of patience. Leaning over the pulpit, he cried, "Fellow, if you do not hold your tongue, you shall be turned out!" Without moving a muscle of his face, the grave old gentleman raised his head, and, looking the Doctor full in the face, retorted, "That's his own!"

WHITFIELD AND THE NEW YORK SAILORS.

When Whitfield preached before the seamen at New York, he had the following bold apostrophe in his sermon:--"Well, my boys, we have a clear sky, and are making fine headway over a smooth sea, before a light breeze, and we shall soon lose sight of land. But what means this sudden lowering of the heavens, and that dark cloud arising from beneath the western horizon? Hark! Don't you hear distant thunder? Don't you see those flashes of lightning? There is a storm gathering! Every man to his duty! How the waves rise, and dash against the ship! The air is dark! The tempest rages! Our masts are gone! The ship is on her beam ends! What next?" It is said that the unsuspecting tars, reminded of former perils on the deep, as if struck by the power of magic, arose with united voices and minds, and shouted, "Take to the long boat.."

CLEVER PERVERSION OF SCRIPTURE.

Dr. Williamson, Vicar of Moulton, in Lincolnshire, had a violent quarrel with one of his parishioners of the name of Hardy, who showed considerable resentment. On the succeeding Sunday the Doctor preached from the following text, which he pronounced with much emphasis, and with a significant look at Mr. Hardy, who was present: "There is no fool like the fool Hardy."

DR. WASDALE'S LONG RIDE.

Dr. Wasdale, who originally was an apothecary, resided at Carlisle when George III. came to the throne; and as he had some business to transact in London, he was desirous to see the pageant of the coronation at the same time. As he was very busy in his professional engagements at Carlisle, he set out on a Saturday after the market was over, about one in the afternoon, and got to London the next day, Sunday, in the evening, having ridden 301 miles in twenty-eight hours. He left London again on the following Thursday about noon, and got home on Friday in the evening. This is perhaps the greatest equestrian feat in medical annals; and, for the information of possible rivals, the Doctor left the memorandum "that he made use of his own saddle the whole journey." Dr. Wasdale, in the later part of his life, resided in Spring Gardens, but did not engage in practice, acting as private secretary to the Duke of Norfolk.

ICONOCLASTIC ZEAL IN THE NORTH.

"The high altar at Aberdeen"--so we read in Douglas's East Coast of Scotland, published at the end of last century--"a piece of the finest workmanship of anything of the kind in Europe, was hewn to pieces in 1649, by order of the parish minister. The carpenter employed for this infamous purpose, struck with the noble workmanship, refused to lay a tool on it; till the more than Gothic priest took the hatchet from his hand, and struck the first blow." Elsewhere Douglas, who displays a heart hatred of the image-breakers, remarks that, "so violent was the zeal of that reforming period against all monuments of idolatry, that perhaps the sun and moon, very ancient objects of false worship, owed their safety to their distance."

UNCONCERN IN PRESENCE OF DEATH.

Dr. Woodville, the author of a work on medical botany, lived in lodgings at a carpenter's house in Ely Place, London; and a few days before he died, Dr. Adams brought about his removal, for better attendance, to the Small-pox Hospital. The carpenter with whom he lodged had not been always on the best terms with him. Woodville said he should like to let the man see that he died at peace with him, and, as he never had had much occasion to employ him, desired that he might be sent for to come and measure him for his coffin. This was done; the carpenter came, and took measure of the Doctor, who begged him not to be more than two days about it, "for," said he, "I shall not live beyond that time;" and he actually did die just before the end of the next day. A contemporary and friend of his, Dr. George Fordyce, also expired under similar circumstances. He desired his youngest daughter, who was sitting by his bedside, to take up a book and read to him; she read for about twenty minutes, when the Doctor said, "Stop, go out of the room; I am going to die." She put down the book, and went out of the room to call the attendant, who immediately went into the bedroom and found that Fordyce had breathed his last.

AN AGRICULTURAL DEFENCE OF BIGOTRY.

In Ryder's History of England, a singular reason is stated to have been alleged by the Interlocutor, in support of a motion he had made in Convocation against permitting the printing of Cranmer's translation of the Bible. "If," said the mover, "we give them the Scriptures in their vernacular tongue, what ploughman who has read that 'no man having set his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven,' will thenceforth make a straight furrow?"

PURITAN RECHRISTENING OF PLAYING CARDS.

The Puritans objected to the use of "heathen" names, not only for children, but for the "court" cards of the pack. They complained, according to Collier, of the appellations of Hercules, Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Hector, and such like; and they wanted to have the Kings called David, Solomon, Isaiah, and Hezekiah; the Queens, Sarah, Rachel, Esther, and Susannah; the Knaves, Balak, Achitophel, Tobit, and Bel. There was, however, it must be confessed, considerable toleration in their permitting the use of cards at all.

JOHN HUNTER THE ANATOMIST.

Wadd, in his interesting collection of medical Mems., Maxims, and Memoirs, says of John Hunter:--"When Hunter began practice, the town was in possession of Hawkins, Bromfield, Sharpe, and Pott; whilst Adair and Tomkins had the chief practice derived from the army. He remained in unenvied obscurity for many years; and so little was he considered, that some time after he began lecturing his class consisted of less than twenty. Dr. Denman used to say that William Hunter was a man of order, and John Hunter a man of genius; and, in truth, with all his cleverness, which was more than ordinary, the Doctor always felt John's superiority. 'In this I am only my brother's interpreter.' 'I am simply the demonstrator of this discovery; it was my brother's'--were his constant expressions. Hunter was a philosopher in more senses than one: he had philosophy enough to bear prosperity as well as adversity, and with a rough exterior was a very kind man. The poor could command his services more than the rich. He would see an industrious tradesman before a duke, when his house was full of grandees. 'You have no time to spare,' he would say; 'you live by it: most of these can wait; they have nothing to do when they go home.' No man cared less for the profits of the profession, or more for the honour of it. He cared not for money himself, and wished the Doctor to estimate it by the same scale, when he sent a poor man with this laconic note:--

'DEAR BROTHER,--The bearer wants your advice. I do not know the nature of the case. He has no money, and you have plenty, so you are well met.--Yours,

'J. HUNTER.'