Given on the authority of his old college _chum_, Ralph Thicknesse,
who, like himself, became a Fellow. There was then at King's College,
says Ralph, a very good-tempered six-feet-high Parson, of the name of
Harry Lofft, who was one of the College chanters, and the constant
_butt_ of all both at commons and in the _parlour_. Harry, says Ralph,
dreaded so much the sight of a gun or a pair of pistols, that such of
his friends as did not desire too much of his company kept _fire-arms_
to keep him at _arm's length_. Ralph was encouraged, by some of the
Fellows, he says (_juniors_ of course,) to make a serious joke out of
Harry's foible, and one day discharged a gun, loaded with powder, at
our six-feet-high Parson, as he was striding his way to prayers. The
powder was coarse and damp and did not all burn, so that a portion of
it lodged in Harry's face. The fright and a little inflammation put
the poor chanter to bed, says Ralph. But he was not the only
frightened party, for we were all much alarmed lest the _report_
should reach the Vice-Chancellor's ears, and the good-tempered Hal was
prevailed with to be _only ill_. Battie and another, who were _not_ of
the _shooting party_ (the only two fellow-students in physic,) were
called to Hal's assistance. They were _not_ told the real state of the
case, and finding his pulse high, his spirits low, and his face
inflamed and sprinkled with red spots, after a serious consultation
they _prescribed_. On retiring from the sick man's room, they were
forthwith examined on the state of the case by the impatient plotters
of the wicked deed, to whose amusement both the disciples of Galen
pronounced Hal's case to be the _black rash_! This, adds Ralph, was a
never-to-be-forgotten _roast_ for Battie and Banks in Cambridge; and
if we may add to this, that Battie, in after life, sent his wife to
Bath for a _dropsy_, where she was shortly _tapped_ of a fine boy, it
may give us a little insight into the _practice of physic_, and induce
us to say with the poet--
"Better to search in fields for wealth unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught."