_UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL
KNOWLEDGE._
THE
GALLERY OF PORTRAITS:
WITH
MEMOIRS.
VOLUME VI.
LONDON:
CHARLES KNIGHT, 22, LUDGATE-STREET.
1836.
[PRICE ONE GUINEA, BOUND IN CLOTH.]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
Duke-Street, Lambeth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHIES
CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME.
Page.
1. Raleigh 1
2. Jenner 11
3. Maskelyne 20
4. Hobbes 25
5. Raphael 30
6. John Knox 40
7. Adam Smith 49
8. Calvin 55
9. Lord Mansfield 62
10. Bradley 69
11. Melancthon 75
12. William Pitt 84
13. Wesley 93
14. Dr. Cartwright 102
15. Porson 108
16. Wiclif 113
17. Cortez 122
18. Leibnitz 132
19. Ximenes 137
20. Addison 147
21. Bramante 156
22. Madame de Stael 161
23. Palladio 172
24. Queen Elizabeth 177
[Illustration:
_Engraved by Posselwhite._
RALEIGH.
_From a Picture in the Collection of the Duchess of Dorset._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
RALEIGH.
Very little is known concerning the youth of Sir Walter Raleigh. He was
a younger son, descended of an ancient family, and was born at a farm
called Hayes, near the mouth of the river Otter, in Devonshire, in the
year 1552. He went to Oriel College, Oxford, at an early age, and gained
high praise for the quickness and precocity of his talents. In 1569 he
began his military career in the civil wars of France, as a volunteer in
the Protestant cause. It is conjectured that he remained in France for
more than six years, and returned to England in 1576. Soon after, he
repaired to the Netherlands, and served as a volunteer against the
Spaniards. In such schools, and under such leaders as Coligni and the
Prince of Orange, Raleigh’s natural aptitude for political and military
science received the best nurture: but he was soon drawn from the war in
Holland by a pursuit which had captivated his imagination from an early
age—the prosecution of discovery in the New World. In conjunction with
his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a man of courage and ability,
and a skilful sailor, he made an unsuccessful attempt to establish a
colony in North America. Returning home in 1579, he immediately entered
the Queen’s army in Ireland, and served with good esteem for personal
courage and professional skill, until the suppression of the rebellion
in that country. He owed his introduction to court, and the personal
favour of Elizabeth, as is traditionally reported, to a fortunate and
well-improved accident, which is too familiar to need repetition here.
It is probable, however, that his name and talents were not unknown, for
we find him employed almost immediately in certain matters of diplomacy.
Among the cares and pleasures of a courtier’s life, Raleigh preserved
his zeal for American discovery. He applied his own resources to the
fitting out of another expedition in 1583, under command of Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, which proved more unfortunate than the former one: two out of
five vessels returned home in consequence of sickness, and two were
wrecked, including that in which the admiral sailed; and the only result
of the enterprise was the taking possession of Newfoundland in the name
of England. Still Raleigh’s desire for American adventure was not
damped. The Continent northward of the Gulf of Florida was at this time
unknown. But Raleigh, upon careful study of the best authorities, had
concluded that there was good reason for believing that a considerable
tract of land did exist in that quarter; and with the assent of the
Queen in council, from whom he obtained letters patent, granting to
himself and his heirs, under certain reservations, property in such
countries as he should discover, with a right to provide for their
protection and administration, he fitted out two ships, which sailed in
April, 1584. The first land which they made was an island named Okakoke,
running parallel to the coast of North Carolina. They were well received
by the natives, and returned to England in the following autumn highly
pleased. Nor was less satisfaction felt by Raleigh, or even by the
Queen, who conferred on him the honour of knighthood, a title which was
then in high esteem, inasmuch as it was bestowed by that wise princess
with a most frugal and just discrimination. She also gave him a very
lucrative mark of favour, in the shape of a patent for licensing the
selling of wine throughout the kingdom; and she directed that the new
country, in allusion to herself, should be called Virginia. Raleigh did
not think it politic, perhaps was not allowed, to quit the court to take
charge in person of his undertaking; and those to whom he intrusted the
difficult task of directing the infant colony appear to have been
unequal to their office. It is not necessary to pursue the history of an
enterprise which proved unsuccessful, and in which Sir Walter personally
bore no share. He showed his earnestness by fitting out several
expeditions, which must have been a heavy drain upon his fortune. But he
is said to have derived immense wealth from prizes captured from the
Spaniards; and we may here observe that the lavish magnificence in
dress, especially in jewels, for which Raleigh was remarkable, even in
the gorgeous court of Elizabeth (his state dress is said to have been
enriched with jewels to the value of £60,000), may be considered less as
an extravagance, than as a safe and portable investment of treasure. A
mind less active might have found employment more than enough in the
variety of occupations which pressed upon it at home. He possessed a
large estate, granted out of forfeited lands, in Ireland; but this was
always a source rather of expense than of profit, until, in 1601, he
sold it to the Earl of Cork. He was Seneschal of the Duchies of Cornwall
and Exeter, and held the wardenship of the Stannaries; and in 1586, as
well as formerly in 1584, we find that he possessed a seat in
parliament. In 1587, the formidable preparation of the Spanish Armada
withdrew the mind of Raleigh, as of all Englishmen, from objects of
minor importance, to the defence of their country. He was a member of
the council of war directed to prepare a general scheme of defence, and
held the office of Lieutenant-General of Cornwall, in addition to the
charge of the Isle of Portland: but as on this occasion he possessed no
naval command, he was not actively engaged in the destruction of that
mighty armament. In 1589 he served as a volunteer in the expedition of
Norris and Drake to Portugal, of which some account has been given in
the life of the latter. Nor were his labours unrewarded even in that
unfortunate enterprise; for he captured several prizes, and received the
present of a gold chain from the Queen, in testimony of her approbation
of his conduct.
Soon after these events, Raleigh retired to his Irish property, being
driven from court, according to some authorities, by the enmity of the
Earl of Essex, then a young man just rising into favour. He there
renewed a former intimacy with the poet Spenser, who, like himself, had
been rewarded with a grant of land out of forfeited estates, and then
resided at Kilcolman Castle. Spenser has celebrated the return of his
friend in the beautiful pastoral, ‘Colin Clout’s come home again;’ and
in that, and various passages of his works, has made honourable mention
of the highly poetic spirit which enabled the ‘Shepherd of the Ocean,’
as he is there denominated, to appreciate the merit of the ‘Fairy
Queen,’ and led him to promote the publication of it by every means in
his power. The loss of Raleigh’s court-favour, if such there were, could
not have been of long duration on this occasion. But he incurred more
serious displeasure in consequence of a private marriage contracted with
Elizabeth Throgmorton, one of the Queen’s maids of honour, a lady of
beauty and accomplishments, who proved her worth and fidelity in the
long train of misfortunes which beset the latter years of Raleigh’s
life. In consequence of this intrigue, he was committed to the Tower.
One or two amusing anecdotes are related of the devices which he
employed to obtain forgiveness, by working on that vanity which was the
Queen’s chief foible. He succeeded in appeasing his indignant mistress
so far as to procure his release; and about the same time, in 1594, she
granted to him the valuable manor of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire: but
though she requited his services, she still forbade his appearance at
court, where he now held the office of Captain of the Yeomen of the
Guard. Raleigh was peculiarly fitted to adorn a court by his imposing
person, the graceful magnificence of his taste and habits, the elegance
of his manners, and the interest of his conversation. These
accomplishments were sure passports to the favour of Elizabeth; and he
improved to the utmost the constant opportunities of intercourse with
her which his post afforded, insomuch that, except the Earls of
Leicester and Essex, no one ever seems to have stood higher in her
graces. But Elizabeth’s jealousy on the subject of her favourites’
marriages is well known, and her anger was lasting, in proportion to the
value which she set on the incense of Raleigh’s flattery. He retired, on
his disgrace, to his new estate, in the improvement and embellishment of
which he felt great interest. But though deeply alive to the beauties of
nature, he had been too long trained to a life of ambition and adventure
to rest contented in the tranquil routine of a country life; and during
this period of seclusion, he again turned his thoughts to his favourite
subject of American adventure, and laid the scheme of his first
expedition to Guiana, in search of the celebrated El Dorado, the fabled
seat of inexhaustible wealth. Having fitted out, with the assistance of
other private persons, a considerable fleet, Raleigh sailed from
Plymouth, February 6, 1595. He left his ships in the mouth of the river
Orinoco, and sailed 400 miles into the interior in boats. It is to be
recorded to his honour, that he treated the Indians with great kindness;
which, contrasted with the savage conduct of the Spaniards, raised so
friendly a feeling towards him, that for years his return was eagerly
expected, and at length was hailed with delight. The hardships of the
undertaking, and the natural advantages of the country which he
explored, are eloquently described in his own account of the ‘Discovery
of Guiana.’ But the setting in of the rainy season rendered it necessary
to return, without having reached the promised land of wealth; and
Raleigh reaped no other fruit of his adventure than a certain quantity
of geographical knowledge, and a full conviction of the importance of
colonizing and taking possession of the newly-discovered region. This
continued through life to be his favourite scheme; but neither Elizabeth
nor her successor could be induced to view it in the same favourable
light.
On reaching England, he found the Queen still unappeased; nor was he
suffered to appear at court: and he complains in pathetic terms of the
cold return with which his perils and losses were requited. But he was
invested with a high command in the expedition of 1596, by which the
Spanish fleet was destroyed in the harbour of Cadiz; and to his judgment
and temper in overruling the faulty schemes proposed by others the
success of that enterprise was chiefly due. Indeed his services were
perhaps too important, and too justly appreciated by the public, for his
own interests: for the great and general praise bestowed on him on this
occasion tended to confirm a jealousy of long standing on the part of
the commander-in-chief, the Earl of Essex; and it was probably owing to
that favourite’s influence, that Raleigh was still forbidden the Queen’s
presence. Essex, and the Secretary of State, Sir Robert Cecil, regarded
each other with mutual distrust and dislike. Cecil and Raleigh were
connected by ties of common interest, and, as the latter supposed, of
friendship. Still Raleigh found the interest of the minister too weak to
serve his purpose, while the interest of the favourite was employed
against him; and, as the only method of effecting his own restoration to
the Queen’s favour, he undertook to work a reconciliation between these
two powerful rivals. In this he succeeded, to the great admiration of
all spectators; and the fruit of his policy was seen in his re-admission
to the execution of his official duties at court, June 1, 1597. In the
following August he was appointed Rear Admiral in the expedition called
the Island Voyage, of which Essex held the chief command. The slight
successes which were obtained were again due to the military talents of
Raleigh; the main objects of the voyage were lost through the Earl’s
inexperience.
From this time to the death of the Queen, Raleigh enjoyed an
uninterrupted course of favour. The ancient enmity between Essex and
himself was indeed renewed, and that with increased rancour; but the
indiscretions of the favourite had greatly weakened his influence.
Raleigh and Cecil spared no pains to undermine him, and were in fact the
chief workers of his ruin. This is perhaps the most unamiable passage in
Raleigh’s life; and the only excuse to be pleaded for him is, the
determined enmity of that unfortunate nobleman. This fault, however,
brought a slow but severe punishment with it; for the death of Essex
dissolved the tie which held together Cecil and himself. Neither could
be content to act second to the other; and Raleigh’s high reputation,
and versatile as well as profound abilities, might well alarm the
secretary for his own supremacy. The latter took the surest way of
establishing his power prospectively. Elizabeth was now old: Cecil took
no steps to diminish the high esteem in which she held Sir Walter
Raleigh, but he secretly laboured to prejudice her successor against
him, and he succeeded to his wish. Very soon after the accession of
James I., Raleigh’s post of captain of the guard was taken from him; and
his patent of wines was revoked, though not without a nominal
compensation being made. To complete his ruin, it was contrived to
involve him in a charge of treason. Most writers have concurred in
speaking of this passage of history as inexplicable: it is the opinion
of the last historian of Raleigh, Mr. Tytler, that he has found
sufficient evidence for regarding the whole plot as a device of Cecil,
and he has supported this opinion by cogent arguments. Lord Cobham, a
violent and ambitious but weak man, had engaged in private dealings with
the Spanish ambassador, which brought him under the suspicion of the
government. By a device of Cecil’s (we here follow the account of Mr.
Tytler) he was induced, in a fit of anger, and in the belief that
Raleigh had given information against him, to accuse Sir Walter himself
of being privy to a conspiracy against the government. This charge
Cobham retracted, confirmed, and retracted again, behaving in so
equivocal a manner, that no reliance whatever can be placed on any of
his assertions. But as the King was afraid of Raleigh as much as the
secretary hated him, this vague charge, unsupported by other evidence,
was made sufficient to commit him to the Tower; and, after being plied
with private examinations, in which nothing criminal could be elicited,
he was brought to trial, November 17, 1603. For an account of that
memorable scene we shall refer to Mr. Jardine’s ‘Criminal Trials,’ vol.
i. It is reported to have been said by one of the judges who presided
over it, on his death-bed, that “the justice of England had never been
so degraded and injured as by the condemnation of Sir Walter Raleigh.”
The behaviour of the victim himself was the object of universal
admiration, for the tempered mixture of patience and noble spirit with
which he bore the oppressive measure dealt to him. He had before been
unpopular; but it was recorded by an eye-witness that “he behaved
himself so worthily, so wisely, and so temperately, that in half a day
the mind of all the company was changed from the extremest hate to the
extremest pity.”
The sentence of death thus unfairly and disgracefully obtained was not
immediately carried into execution. James was not satisfied with the
evidence adduced on the trial; and believing at the same time that
Raleigh had been plotting against him, he set his royal wit to dive into
the mystery. Of the singular scene which our British Solomon devised it
is not necessary to speak, since Raleigh was not an actor in it. But as
no more evidence could be obtained against him even by the King’s
sagacity, he was reprieved, and remanded to the Tower, where the next
twelve years of his life were spent in confinement. Fortunately, he had
never ceased to cultivate literature with a zeal not often found in the
soldier and politician, and he now beguiled the tedium of his lot by an
entire devotion to those studies which before had only served to
diversify his more active and engrossing pursuits. Of his poetical
talents we have already made short mention: to the end of life he
continued the practice of pouring out his mind in verse, and there are
several well-known and beautiful pieces expressive of his feelings in
prison, and in the anticipation of immediate death, especially ‘The
Lie,’ and the beautiful little poem called ‘The Pilgrimage.’ He also
possessed a strong turn for mathematics, and studied them with much
success in the society and under the guidance of his friend Thomas
Hariot, one of the most accomplished mathematicians of the age.
Chemistry was another favourite pursuit in which, according to the
standard of his contemporaries, he made great progress. But the most
important occupation of his imprisonment was the composition of his
‘History of the World.’ Notwithstanding the quaintness of the style and
the discursive manner in which the subject is treated, it is impossible
to read this volume without admiring the wonderful extent of the
author’s reading, not only in history, but in philosophy, theology, and
even the ponderous and untempting stores of Rabbinical learning. Many of
the chapters relate to subjects which few persons would expect to find
in a history of the world; yet these will often be found among the most
interesting and characteristic portions of the book; and its deep
learning is relieved and set off by passages of genuine eloquence, which
display to the best advantage the author’s rich imagination and grasp of
mind. The work extends from the Creation to the end of the second
Macedonian war. Raleigh meant to bring it down to modern times; but the
untimely death of Henry Prince of Wales, for whose use it was composed,
deprived him of the spirit to proceed with so laborious an undertaking.
He enjoyed the confidence of that generous youth in a remarkable degree,
and maintained a close correspondence with him on civil, military, and
naval subjects. Several discourses on these topics, addressed to the
Prince, will be found in the editions of Raleigh’s works. Henry repaid
these services with sincere friendship and admiration; and we may
presume that his adviser looked forward to that friendship, not only for
a cessation of misfortune, but for a more brilliant period of favour and
power than he had yet enjoyed. Fortunately, however, this calamity was
preceded by the death of his arch-enemy, Cecil; and through the
mediation of the Duke of Buckingham, employed in consideration of
1500_l._ paid to his uncles, Sir William, Sir John, and Sir Edward
Villiers, Raleigh was released from the Tower in March, 1615; and
obtained permission to follow up his long-cherished scheme of
establishing a colony in Guiana and working a gold mine, of which he had
ascertained the existence and situation.
The terms on which this licence was granted are remarkable. He was not
pardoned, but merely let loose on the engagement of his friends, the
Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, that he should return to England. Neither
did James contribute to the expense of the undertaking, though it was
stipulated that he was to receive a fifth part of the bullion imported.
The necessary funds were provided out of the wreck of Raleigh’s fortune
(his estate of Sherborne had been forfeited) and by those private
adventurers who were willing to risk something in reliance on his
experience and judgment. A fleet of fourteen sail was thus provided, and
Raleigh, by letters under the privy seal, was appointed
commander-in-chief and governor of the intended colony. He relied, it is
said, on the full powers granted him by this commission as necessarily
including a remission of all past offences, and therefore neglected to
sue out a formal pardon, which at this period probably would hardly have
been denied him. The results of this disastrous voyage must be shortly
given. Raleigh sailed March 28, 1617, and reached the coast of Guiana in
November following. Being himself disabled by sickness from proceeding
farther, he dispatched a party to the mine under the command of Captain
Keymis, an officer who had served in the former voyage to Guiana. But
during the interval which had elapsed since Raleigh’s first discovery of
that country, the Spaniards had extended their settlements into it, and
in particular had built a town called Santa Thome, in the immediate
neighbourhood of the mine in question. James, with his usual duplicity,
while he authorised the expedition, revealed every particular connected
with it to the Spanish ambassador. The English, therefore, were expected
in the Orinoco, and preparation had been made for repelling them by
force. Keymis and his men were unexpectedly attacked by the garrison of
Santa Thome, and a sharp contest ensued, in which the English gained the
advantage, and burnt the town. In this action Raleigh’s eldest son was
killed. The Spaniards still occupied the passes to the mine, and after
an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge them, Keymis abandoned the
enterprize, and returned to the ships. Raleigh’s correspondence
expresses in affecting terms his grief and indignation at this double
misfortune; the loss of a brave and promising son, and the destruction
of the hopes which he had founded on this long-cherished adventure. On
his return to England, he found himself marked out for a victim to
appease the resentment of the Spanish court, to which he had long been
an object of fear and hatred. He quietly surrendered himself to Sir
Lewis Stukeley, who was sent to Plymouth to arrest him, and commenced
the journey to London under his charge. But his mind fluctuated between
the desire to confront his enemies, and a sense of the hopelessness of
obtaining justice, and he was at last entrapped by the artifices of the
emissaries of government who surrounded him into an attempt to escape,
in which he was arrested and committed to close custody in the Tower.
Here his conversation and correspondence were narrowly watched, in the
hopes that a treasonable understanding with the French government, from
which he had received the offer of an asylum in France, might be
established against him. His conduct abroad had already been closely
scrutinized, in the hope of finding some act of piracy, or unauthorized
aggression against Spain, for which he might be brought to trial. Both
these hopes failing, and his death, in compliment to Spain, being
resolved on, it was determined to carry into effect the sentence passed
fifteen years before, from which he had never been legally released; and
a warrant was accordingly issued to the judges, requiring them to order
execution. The case was a novel one, and threw that learned body into
some perplexity. They determined, however, that after so long an
interval execution could not be granted without allowing the prisoner
the opportunity of pleading against it; and Raleigh was therefore
brought to the bar of the Court of King’s Bench, October 28, 1618. The
record of his conviction having been read, he was asked whether he could
urge any thing why the sentence should not be carried into effect. He
insisted on the nature of his late commission, and on that plea being
overruled, submitted with his usual calmness and dignity. The execution,
with indecent haste, was ordered to take place on the following morning.
In this last stage of life, his greatness of mind shone with even more
than its usual lustre. Calm, and fearless without bravado, his behaviour
and speech expressed the piety and resignation of a Christian with the
habitual coolness of one who has braved death too often to shrink at its
approach. The accounts of his deportment on the scaffold effectually
refute the charges of irreligion and atheism which some writers have
brought against him, unless we make up our minds to believe him an
accomplished hypocrite. He spoke at considerable length, and his dying
words have been faithfully reported. They contain a denial of all the
serious offences laid to his charge, and express his forgiveness of
those even who had betrayed him under the mask of friendship. After
delivering this address and spending some time in prayer, he laid his
head on the block, and breathing a short private prayer, gave the signal
to the executioner. Not being immediately obeyed, he partially raised
his head, and said, “What dost thou fear? Strike, man!” and underwent
the fatal blow without shrinking or alteration of position. He died in
his sixty-sixth year.
Raleigh sat in several parliaments, and took an active part in the
business of the house. His speeches, preserved in the Journals, are said
by Mr. Tytler to be remarkable for an originality and freedom of thought
far in advance of the time. His expression was varied and animated, and
his powers of conversation remarkable. His person was dignified and
handsome, and he excelled in bodily accomplishments and martial
exercises. He was very fond of paintings, and of music; and, in
literature as in art, he possessed a cultivated and correct taste. He
was one of those rare men who seem qualified to excel in all pursuits
alike; and his talents were set off by an extraordinary laboriousness,
and capacity of application. As a navigator, soldier, statesman, and
historian, his name is intimately and honourably linked with one of the
most brilliant periods of British history.
The works of Oldys, Birch, Cayley, Mrs. Thompson, and Mr. Tytler, may be
consulted concerning this remarkable person. The life of the last-named
gentleman, published in the ‘Edinburgh Cabinet Library,’ is the most
recent; and the industry of the author has enabled him to gain a clue to
some points which before had been imperfectly understood. A list of
Raleigh’s numerous works is given in the ‘Biographia Britannica.’ They
will be found collected in eight volumes, in the Oxford edition of 1829.
Several of his MSS. are preserved in the British Museum.
[Illustration: [Sir Walter Raleigh in the Tower.]]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by E. Scriven._
JENNER.
_From a Print engraved and coloured by J. R. Smith in the possession
of the late John Ring Esq^r._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
JENNER.
Edward, the third son of the Rev. Stephen Jenner, was born May 17, 1749,
in the vicarage-house of Berkeley in Gloucestershire, of which parish
his father, a man of independent fortune, and of a family long
established and esteemed in that neighbourhood, was incumbent. At the
death of that parent in 1754, the care of Edward Jenner’s education
devolved upon his eldest brother, Stephen, who succeeded to the living
of Berkeley, and faithfully and affectionately discharged the duties of
a father towards him.
He began at a very early age to give tokens of that fondness and
aptitude for the study of natural history, which first directed the
choice of his profession; and afterwards led him, by steps which may be
easily traced, to the discovery of a method of securing the constitution
against the small-pox, by a remedy so mild as to be scarcely an
inconvenience, yet so effectual as almost to have extinguished that
disease in some countries where it has been energetically used.
Having finished his school education and fixed upon a profession, Jenner
was apprenticed at the usual age to Mr. Ludlow, a surgeon practising at
Sodbury near Bristol; and in 1770, when nearly twenty-one, he came to
London, and put himself under the tuition of John Hunter, in whose house
he lived for two years, as much in the capacity of a friend as in that
of a pupil, with great advantage to his professional studies. The
intimacy between these two eminent men was very close and cordial, and
subsisted till Hunter’s sudden death in 1793. It is attested by many
letters from Mr. Hunter, which Jenner carefully preserved; his own were
probably destroyed with the rest of Hunter’s papers by the late Sir
Everard Home. Their correspondence relates chiefly to facts and
experiments in natural history.
The success with which Jenner had already pursued his studies, and the
respect entertained for his talents by his illustrious instructor at a
period when their intercourse was yet in its infancy, may be gathered
from his being selected in 1771, on the recommendation of Mr. Hunter, to
arrange the collections in natural history which had been made by Sir
Joseph Banks in his voyage round the world with Captain Cook, then just
completed. Jenner acquitted himself so well of this charge, that he was
offered, though little more than twenty-two years of age, the situation
of naturalist to the second expedition under the command of Captain
Cook, which sailed in 1772. This was a flattering proposal to so young a
man, and consonant to Jenner’s ruling tastes; nevertheless he declined
it. It is fortunate for mankind that he chose the laborious seclusion of
a country practice in preference to aiming at distinction and wealth;
for in no other sphere could he have found opportunities of pursuing his
discovery of vaccination through all the perplexities in which his early
researches into that subject involved him. Indeed, it is probable that
considerations of this kind, independently of his fondness for a country
life, had their weight with him in the choice; for the idea had already
taken strong hold of his naturally sanguine feelings and quick
apprehension, that he was furnished with a clue which might lead him to
a result of the highest importance to mankind.
It may be added here that a few years after this time he declined a very
lucrative situation in India, as well as a much more tempting proposal
from Mr. Hunter, in 1775, to join him in a project for establishing in
London a school of natural history, including medicine, of which Jenner
was to undertake the anatomical department.
Having determined to settle in the country, and being amply provided
with the requisite knowledge, Jenner established himself as a general
practitioner at Berkeley. Here he speedily acquired a profitable and
extensive practice; so much so, indeed, that finding his health giving
way, he was obliged to limit himself to the practice of medicine alone;
for which purpose he purchased, as it was then customary, the degree of
doctor at St. Andrew’s in 1792.
But he not only attained at an early age to a high degree of
professional reputation, but won the affectionate esteem of all with
whom he associated. It is related of him that his friends were in the
habit of joining in his daily professional rides, often of considerable
extent, for the sake of his agreeable and instructive conversation; and
that when any of them were ill, he would sometimes make their houses the
head-quarters of his practice for the time being, and remain in close
attendance upon them till their recovery.
Music, the lighter kinds of literature, both as a reader and
occasionally as an author, and the innocent recreations of society,
which no one enjoyed more keenly than himself, were the means by which
Jenner lightened the burden of his professional labours; but his chief
amusement was natural history, including geology, a science then in its
infancy, for the study of which his position in the vale of Gloucester
afforded ample opportunity, the neighbourhood abounding with fossil
remains, and exhibiting a great variety of terrestrial structure.
Towards subjects of this nature he was led, not only by his original
bias, but by his correspondence with Hunter, Banks, and Parry.
In 1778 he formed a medical society, which held its periodical meetings
at Rodborough, for the purpose of communicating professional information
and promoting a friendly feeling among the members. In furtherance of
these objects, Jenner contributed several important and original papers,
the substance of which is now embodied in medical science, without his
property in them being generally known. Among these were essays on the
nature and causes of Angina Pectoris, on a peculiar disease of the heart
occurring in acute rheumatism, and on several of the more severe
affections of the eye. He also belonged to another medical society,
meeting at Alveston near Bristol, to the members of which, who were men
of congenial dispositions with his own, he was personally much attached.
Upon one topic, however, they did not agree; for it is said that he was
in the habit of enlarging so frequently upon his favourite speculation
of the cow-pox, that the subject was at length proscribed, and he was
jestingly forbidden to renew it on pain of expulsion. This club was for
many years a source of much enjoyment and advantage to him, and we may
suppose that he was a very principal contributor to the diversion of the
other members; for it ceased to exist in 1789, when other objects began
to engross the time that he could spare from his practice. In March of
the previous year, at the age of thirty-seven, he married Miss Catharine
Kingscote, by whom he had several children. The choice appears to have
been a very fortunate one for his domestic happiness.
In 1786 he had communicated to Mr. Hunter, in the form of an essay, the
result of several years’ careful observation of the singular habits of
the cuckoo, till then a mystery to naturalists. It was presented by Mr.
Hunter to the Royal Society, and was printed entire in their
Transactions in 1789, having been returned to Jenner in the mean time,
in order that he might record some additional facts which he had
ascertained. This tract has been considered as a very masterly
performance, and was the occasion of the author being elected to the
fellowship of the Royal Society. It is not a little remarkable that Mr.
Hunter, like Jenner’s friends at Alveston, thought so doubtfully of his
views on the subject of vaccination, that he cautioned him against
publishing them, lest they should interfere with the fame he had
acquired in the learned world by his ‘Essay on the Cuckoo.’ But the
event proved that the caution, though well meant, was unnecessary.
Jenner was not more disposed than his gifted master to admit any
conclusion on merely collateral grounds, that might be put to the test
of experiment. This, however, was too new and important a matter to be
lightly or prematurely hazarded; and Jenner waited long and patiently
for an opportunity of thus testing his opinions, losing in the mean time
no occasion of collecting additional information. The idea, thus
watchfully and laboriously improved, was first excited in his mind while
he was an apprentice at Sodbury, by a remark accidentally dropped by a
young countrywoman in his master’s surgery, who, overhearing a
conversation about the small-pox, observed that she had no fear of
catching that disease as she had taken the _cow-pox_. Jenner, who was
always alive to any subject connected with natural history, was induced
to make more particular inquiries into this complaint, of which he had
never heard before; and the answers he received were such as to suggest
the probability of substituting it with advantage for the inoculated
small-pox. Of this theory he never lost sight till he established it on
the clearest evidence, and with it his unrivalled claim to the perpetual
gratitude of mankind.
The cow-pox is a disease of the eruptive kind, which is sometimes
extensively prevalent among cattle in large dairy countries where they
are herded together in numbers, but often disappears for a long time
together. Though commonly mild, it is occasionally so severe as to
terminate fatally; and it is believed, on strong grounds, to have been
at different times even pestilential among them, and as such, to have
been mentioned by various writers on rural economy, ancient and modern,
as well as in medical and other histories. It is generally, however, a
very mild disorder, appearing on the udder of the cow, at first in the
form of vesicles much resembling those of small-pox; and it is
sometimes, as in the instance which first attracted the attention of
Jenner, communicated to the hands of milkers. In such cases, an eruption
of similar vesicles takes place on the hands and arms, not without much
swelling and inflammation, and occasionally with fever and disturbance
of the health for some days. It has never been known to prove fatal when
thus communicated, or to have left any unpleasant effects behind it,
except a few indented marks in the situation occupied by the pustules.
It is not communicable, like small-pox in the human subject, by the
effluvia; but the matter, or lymph as it is called, contained in the
vesicles, must be actually inserted under the skin, or applied to a raw
or an absorbing surface. But the most important of its peculiarities is
the security it affords against the infection of small-pox. This
property was well known among the agricultural classes in the grazing
districts before the time of Jenner, and it has been stated that
individuals among them had turned their knowledge of it to account for
the protection of their families, by inoculating them with the vaccine
disease. But this circumstance, alleged on very scanty evidence by those
who were opposed to Jenner’s claims, cannot lessen the merit of his
independent discovery, of which each step was communicated in succession
to a numerous circle of medical friends, and is recorded in the most
authentic form. His reputation is, on the other hand, enhanced by the
fact that, although the immunity conferred by the casual disease in
milkers had frequently come under the notice of medical men from their
failing in such persons to produce the small-pox by inoculation, yet the
idea of introducing the disease of an animal into the human frame was so
little in consonance with any former practice, that Jenner was the first
among his brethren to conjecture that cow-pox, as the milder disease,
might advantageously supersede the inoculated small-pox; and that, as
the latter is rendered less virulent by inoculation, so the former
introduced in the same way might be milder than the casual complaint,
and yet retain its protecting power. He had even communicated this
conjecture to Hunter, himself no mean innovator in medicine, so early as
the year 1770; and Mr. Hunter was for many years in the habit of
mentioning it in his public lectures coupled with Jenner’s name: but the
proposed substitution was so distasteful, or appeared of such
questionable propriety, that it obtained no favourable notice till it
was forced by the inventor on the public attention, thirty years after
it had first attracted his own.
It would be interesting to enter into a detail of the progress of
Jenner’s discovery and of its introduction into general use, as well as
to show its inestimable value to society by a reference to statistical
facts. This, however, can only be done here in a very cursory manner.
The way in which the idea was first suggested to him has been already
mentioned. After his return to Berkeley from London, he pursued the
subject with great patience and sagacity for many years. In the course
of these preliminary inquiries he found reason to believe that of
several kinds of vesicular disease in the cow, but one had the property
of securing from the small-pox, and that one exclusively, or at least
with the greatest certainty, in its first stage. He also ascertained
that the horse is subject to an eruption of similar vesicles, apparently
arising without infection, and popularly known by the name of the
_grease_. The matter issuing from these is sometimes conveyed to the cow
by milkers engaged in farriery; and Jenner conceived it to be the
original and only source of cow-pox among the herds. The opinion is not
generally held at present to its full extent; but experiments by himself
and others since the publication of his Inquiry have proved a fact much
disputed at the time, that he was right in believing the diseases to be
identical, whatever may be their origin.
It may be mentioned as a curious circumstance, that the first lymph
transmitted in an active state to British India in 1802 by Dr. De Carro
of Vienna, long the only source of vaccination in that country, had been
furnished to him by Dr. Sacco of Milan, from genuine vesicles produced
by direct inoculation from the horse, without passing through the cow;
an intervention which, till about that period, Jenner had continued to
think essential to the production of the true disease in man.
In addition to these and other curious results, laboriously collected
during a period of twenty-six years, Dr. Jenner at length arrived at a
rational conviction of the safety of the experiment he meditated, from
observing the invariable harmlessness of the disease when casually
taken: he determined therefore to put his long-cherished idea to the
trial on the first opportunity.
This offered on the 14th of May, 1796, the anniversary of which is still
kept as a festival at Berlin. On that day he inoculated a boy of the
name of Phipps in the arm, from a pustule on the hand of a young woman
who was infected by her master’s cows. The boy went favourably through
the disease. On the 1st of July he was inoculated for the small-pox,
and, as Jenner had predicted, without effect.
The feelings of the sanguine philanthropist may be conceived. They
cannot be better described than they have been by himself in the
following terms. “While the vaccine discovery was progressive, the joy I
felt at the prospect before me of being the instrument destined to take
away from the world one of its greatest calamities, blended with the
fond hope of enjoying independence and domestic peace and happiness, was
often so excessive, that in pursuing my favourite subject among the
meadows, I have sometimes found myself in a reverie. It is pleasant to
me to recollect that these reflections always ended in devout
acknowledgments to that Being from whom this and all other mercies
flow.”
During the next two years many other equally successful trials were
made; and at length the discovery was published to the world in June,
1798, in a quarto pamphlet of seventy pages, which had been previously
subjected to the most rigorous criticism and revision by a few chosen
friends who met for that purpose at the house of Thomas Westfaling,
Esq., at Rudhall, near Ross. It is entitled ‘An Inquiry into the Causes
and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ; a disease discovered in some of the
Western Counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire, and known by
the name of the Cow-pox.’ The pamphlet is enriched with the detail of
sixteen cases of the casual, and seven of the inoculated disease, the
latter including the case of one of the author’s sons; and with coloured
drawings of the appearances in both.
The style of this pamphlet, as well as of others which succeeded it from
Jenner’s pen in the course of a few years, is remarkably modest, and
admirable in all respects, which probably contributed much to the early
favour it received. The facts were such as to defy contradiction, and
the conclusions so just and mature, that the experience of nearly forty
years has been able to add little more than its seal of confirmation to
them. The few errors that have been detected relate chiefly to the
degree of protection afforded by the cow-pox, which Jenner affirmed to
be perfect: it is now however believed to be incomplete, perhaps in
three instances out of every hundred; that small proportionate number
passing, in general after the lapse of some years, through a very mild
and modified small-pox, in which the per-centage of fatal cases is
certainly not more, and probably much less, than five; being not more
than three in 2000 of all vaccinated persons, while the rate of
mortality even in inoculated small-pox is one in fifty, or forty in
2000. It should be borne in mind that small-pox itself sometimes occurs
a second time even in a severe and fatal form, as in the case of Louis
XV. Some constitutional peculiarity is probably the occasion of both
these anomalies; and this supposition will also account for the
often-observed fact, that small-pox after vaccination commonly affects
several members of the same family almost simultaneously, thus giving an
appearance of failure in a proportion much greater than the truth.
Another position advanced by Jenner in this pamphlet is too remarkable
to be passed over. After stating his belief that the cow-pox originates
from the horse in the way already mentioned, he proceeds to suggest that
the small-pox may have been itself originally morbid matter of the same
kind, aggravated into a malignant and contagious form by accidental
circumstances. But this opinion, though plausible, is not considered by
any means as established.
Favourably as his work was received, the author, who had come to London
partly to superintend the publication, was unable to obtain an
opportunity of displaying the disease in that city, which had been the
chief object of his visit; and returned, much disappointed, to
Cheltenham, where he now frequently resided, in the middle of July. He
left, however, some vaccine lymph with Mr. Cline, who was the first
surgeon in London that ventured to make a trial of it. The complete
success of the experiment, which was publicly performed, so strongly
interested the profession, that the new practice became quickly popular,
in spite of a warm though partial opposition, which was put down in the
summer of 1799 by a manifesto expressive of confidence in its efficacy
and safety, signed by seventy-three of the most eminent medical men in
the metropolis. In the same year some unfortunate occurrences took place
in consequence of Dr. Woodville, the physician of the Small-pox
Hospital, having incautiously used and distributed matter from persons
whom he had inoculated with small-pox a few days after vaccination,
before it had taken a sufficient hold. The mongrel lymph thus produced
sometimes occasioned one, sometimes the other disease; their effects
were confounded; and some deaths which ensued, as well as a general
eruption of the skin which took place in many instances, were attributed
to the cow-pox. This and other mistakes would probably have much
retarded the general adoption of vaccination, but for the promptitude of
Jenner to discover and expose the source of the error.
In 1802 a parliamentary inquiry into the value of the new method of
preventing small-pox, including Jenner’s claim to the discovery of it,
was instituted, and a grant was voted to him of 10,000_l._ In 1807 he
received an additional vote of 20,000_l._, which, considering that he
had been the instrument of saving in England alone at least 45,000 lives
annually, will seem by no means an extravagant mark of national
gratitude and respect.
In 1803 the Royal Jennerian Society, for the encouragement of
vaccination, was established in London under the superintendence of Dr.
Jenner. In 1808 this society was merged by his advice in the National
Vaccine Establishment, which still continues to dispense the blessings
of the antidote at the public charge.