LITERATURE AND ART.
The old proverb says, "Every man is a physician or a fool by forty."
Sir Henry Halford happening to quote the old saw to a circle of
friends, Canning, with a pleasant humour smiling in his eyes,
inquired, "Sir Henry, mayn't he be both?"
John Locke, according to academic registration, was not a physician
till he was past forty. Born in 1632, he took his M.B. degree Feb.
6th, 1674. To what extent he exercised his profession is still a
matter of dispute; but there is no doubt that he was for some period
an active practitioner of it. Of his letters to Hans Sloane, that are
still extant, the following is one:--
"DEAR SIR,--
"I have a patient here sick of the fever at this season. It
seems not violent; but I am told 'tis a sort that is not
easily thrown off. I desire to know of you what your fevers
in town are, and what methods you find most successful in
them? I shall be obliged by your favour if you will give me
a word or two by to-morrow's post, and direct it to me, to
be left at Mr Harrison's, in the 'Crown,' at Harlow.
"I am, Sir,
"Your most humble servant,
"J LOCKE."
Popularly the name of Locke is as little associated with the
profession of medicine as that of Sir James Mackintosh, who was a
practising physician, till ambition and poverty made him select a more
lucrative vocation, and turn his energies to the bar.
Distinguished amongst literary physicians was Andrew Borde, who
studied Medicine at Oxford and Montpelier, and it is said acted as a
physician in the service of Henry the Eighth. Borde's career has
hitherto been a puzzle to antiquaries who, though interested in it,
have been able to discover only little about it. It was his whim to
sign himself Andrew Perforatus (his name really signifying "a
cottage,"--"bordarius=a cottager"). In the same way after him Robert
Fludd, the Rosicrucian doctor, adopted for his signature Robertus de
Fluctibus. In his works he occasionally gives the reader a glimpse of
his personal adventures; and from contemporary literature, as well as
tradition, we learn enough to feel justified in believing that he
created the cant term "Merry Andrew."
Of his freaks, about the most absurd was his conduct when acting as
foreman of a jury in a small borough town. A prisoner was charged with
stealing a pair of leather breeches, but though appearances were
strongly against the accused (who was a notorious rogue), the evidence
was so defective that to return a verdict of guilty on the charge was
beyond the logic and conscience of the twelve good men and true. No
course seemed open to them but to acquit the knave; when Andrew Borde
prevailed on them, _as_ the evidence of stealing the leather breeches
was so defective, to bring him in guilty of manslaughter.
It is needless to say that the jurymen took Andrew's advice, and
finding a verdict to the best of those abilities with which it had
pleased God to bless them, astonished the judge and the public, not
less than the prisoner, with the strange conclusion at which they had
arrived.
Anthony à Wood and Hearne tell us the little that has hitherto been
known of this eccentric physician. To that little an important
addition may be made from the following letter, never before
published, the original of which is in the State-Paper Office. The
epistle is penned to Henry the Eighth's minister, Thomas Cromwell.
"Jesus.
"Offering humbly salutacyon with dew reverance. I certyffy
yor mastershepp that I am now in Skotlonde in a lyttle
universite or study namyd Glasko, where I study and practyce
physyk as I have done in dyverse regyons and servyces for
the sustentacyon off my lyvyng, assewring you that in ye
parts that I am yn ye king's grace hath many hundred and in
manner all men of presence (except some skolastycall men)
that be hys adversarys. I resortt to ye Skotysh king's howse
and to ye erle of Aryn, namyd Hamylton, and to ye Lord
Evyndale, namyd Stuerd, and to many lords and lards as well
spyrytuall as temporal, and truly I know their mynds, for
they takyth me for a Skotysh man's sone, for I name my
selff Karre, and so ye Karres kallyth me cosyn, thorow ye
which I am in the more favor. Shortly to conclude; trust you
no Skott for they wyll yowse flatterying wordes and all ys
falshold. I suppose veryly that you have in Ynglond by
hundred and thowsand Skotts and innumerable other alyons,
which doth (specyally ye Skotts) much harme to the king's
leege men throw their evyll wordes, for as I went thorow
Ynglond I mett and was in company off many rurall felows,
Englishmen that love nott our gracyose kyng. Wold to Jesu
that some were ponyshed to geve others example. Wolde to
Jesu also that you had never an alyen in yor realme,
specyally Skotts, for I never knew alyen good for Ynglond
except they knew proffytt and lucre should come to them so.
In all parts of Chrystyndome that I have travylled in I know
nott V Englishmen inhabytants except only scholers for
learning. I pray to Jesu that alyens do in Ynglond no more
harme to Ynglonde, and yff I myght do Ynglonde any servyce,
specyally to my soveryn lord the kyng and to you, I would do
ytt to spend and putt my lyfe in danger and jeberdy as far
as any man. God be my judge. You have my hartt and shall be
sure of me to the uttermost of my pore power. for I am never
able to make you amends, for when I was in greatt thraldom,
both bodyly and goastly, you of yor gentylnes sett me att
liberte. Also I thank yor mastershepp for yor grett kyndnes
that you have shewed me att Bysshopps Waltham, and that you
gave me lycense to come to you ons in a qwarrtter. as sone
as I come home I intende to come to you to submytt my selff
to you to do with me what you wyll. for for lak of wytt
paradventter I may in this wrettyng say that shall nott
content you. but god be my judge I mene trewly both to my
sovereyngne lord the kyng and to you. when I was kept in
thrawldom in ye charterhouse and know neither ye kyngs noble
acts nor you, then stultycyusly throw synstrall wordes I dyd
as man of the others doth, butt after I was att lyberte
manyfestly I aparsevyd ye ignorance and blyndnes that they
and I wer yn. for I could never know no thynge of no maner
of matter butt only by them, and they wolde cawse me wrett
full incypyently to ye prior of London when he was in ye
tower before he was putt to exicuyon. for ye which I trustt
yor mastershepp hath pardonyd me, for god knoweth I was
keppt in prison straytly, and glad I was to wrett att theyr
request, but I wrott nothyng that I thought shold be agenst
my prince nor you nor no other man. I pray god that you may
provyde a good prior for that place of London, for truly
there be many wylfull and obstynatt yowng men that stondeth
to much in their owne consaytt and wyll nott be reformyd
butt playth ye chyldryn, and a good prior wolde so serve
them lyke chyldryn. News I have to wrett to you butt I
yntende to be with ou shortly. for I am half wery off this
baryn contry, as Jesu Chryst knowth, who ever keppe you in
helthe and honor. a myle from Edynborough, the fyrst day off
Apryll, by the hand of yor poer skoler and servantt,--Andrew
Boorde Preest."
Literary physicians have, as a rule, not prospered as medical
practitioners. The public harbour towards them the same suspicious and
unfavourable prejudices as they do to literary barristers. A man, it
is presumed, cannot be a master of two trades at the same time, and
where he professes to carry on two it is usually concluded that he
understands neither. To display the injustice of such views is no part
of this writer's work, for the task is in better hands--time and
experience, who are yearly adding to the cases that support the
converse proposition that if a man is really a proficient in one
subject, the fact is of itself a reason for believing him a master of
a second.
Still, the number of brilliant writers who have enrolled themselves in
the medical fraternity is remarkable. If they derived no benefit from
their order, they have at least generously conferred lustre upon it.
Goldsmith--though no one can say on what his claim to the title of
doctor rested, and though in his luckless attempts to get medical
employment he underwent even more humiliation and disgrace than fell
to his lot as the drudge of Mrs. Griffiths--is one of the most
pleasant associations that our countrymen have in connection with the
history of "the Faculty." Smollett, like Goldsmith, tried
ineffectually to escape from literary drudgery to the less irksome and
more profitable duties that surround the pestle and mortar. Of Garth,
Blackmore, Arbuthnot, and Akenside, notice has already been taken.
Anything like a complete enumeration of medical men who have made
valuable contributions to _belles lettres_ would fill a volume, by the
writing of which very little good would be attained. By no means the
least of them was Armstrong, whose portrait Thomson introduced into
the "Castle of Indolence."
"With him was sometimes joined in silken walk
(Profoundly silent--for they never spoke),
One shyer still, who quite detested talk;
If stung by spleen, at once away he broke
To grove of pine and broad o'ershadowing oak.
There, inly thrilled, he wandered all alone,
And on himself his pensive fury woke:
He never uttered word, save when first shone
The glittering star of eve--'Thank Heaven, the day is done.'"
His medical writings, and his best known poem, "The Art of Health,"
had he written nothing else, would in all probability have brought him
patients, but the licentiousness of "The Economy of Love" effectually
precluded him from ever succeeding as a family physician. Amongst
Armstrong's poet friends was Grainger, the amiable and scholarly
physician who enjoyed the esteem of Percy and Samuel Johnson,
Shenstone and Sir Joshua. Soon after the publication of his
translation of the "Elegies of Tibullus," (1758), Grainger went to the
island of St. Christopher's, and established himself there as a
physician. The scenery and industrial occupations of the island
inspired him to write his most important poem, "The Sugar-Cane,"
which, in escaping such derision as was poured on Blackmore's
effusions, owed its good fortune to the personal popularity of the
author rather than its intrinsic merits. The following sample is a
fair one:--
"Destructive on the upland groves
The monkey nation preys: from rocky heights,
In silent parties they descend by night,
And posting watchful sentinels, to warn
When hostile steps approach, with gambols they
Pour o'er the cane-grove. Luckless he to whom
That land pertains! in evil hour, perhaps,
And thoughtless of to-morrow, on a die
He hazards millions; or, perhaps, reclines
On luxury's soft lap, the pest of wealth;
And, inconsiderate, deems his Indian crops
Will amply her insatiate wants supply.
"From these insidious droles (peculiar pest
Of Liamigia's hills) would'st thou defen
Thy waving wealth, in traps put not thy trust,
However baited: treble every watch,
And well with arms provide them; faithful dogs,
Of nose sagacious, on their footsteps wait.
With these attack the predatory bands;
Quickly, th' unequal conflict they decline,
And chattering, fling their ill-got spoils away.
So when, of late, innumerous Gallic hosts,
Fierce, wanton, cruel, did by stealth invade
The peaceable American's domains,
While desolation mark'd their faithless rout;
No sooner Albion's martial sons advanc'd,
Than the gay dastards to their forests fled,
And left their spoils and tomahawks behind.
"_Nor with less haste the whisker'd vermin race,
A countless clan, despoil the low-land cane._
"These to destroy, &c."
When the poem was read in MS. at Sir Joshua's house, the lines printed
in italics were not part of the production, but in their place stood--
"Now, Muse, let's sing of _rats_."
The immediate effect of such _bathos_ was a burst of inextinguishable
laughter from the auditors, whose sense of the ridiculous was by no
means quieted by the fact that one of the company, slyly overlooking
the reader, discovered that "the word had originally been _mice_, and
had been altered to _rats_, as more dignified."
Above the crowd of minor medical _litterateurs_ are conspicuous,
Moore, the author of "Zeluco"; Dr. Aikin, one of whose many works has
been already referred to; Erasmus Darwin, author of "The Botanic
Garden"; Mason Good, the translator of "Lucretius," and author of the
"Study of Medicine"; Dr. Ferriar, whose "Illustrations of Sterne" just
doubled the value in the market of "Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy";
Cogan, the author of "Life and Opinions of John Buncle, jun."; Dr.
Harrington, of Bath, editor of the "Nugæ Antiquæ"; Millingen, who
wrote "The Curiosities of Medical Practice," and "The History of
Duelling"; Dr. Paris, whose "Life of Sir Humphrey Davy,"
unsatisfactory as it is in many places, is still a useful book, and
many of whose other writings will long remain of great value; Wadd,
the humourous collector of "Medical Ana"; Dr. Merriman, the late
contributor to the _Gentleman's Magazine_ and _Notes and Queries_; and
Pettigrew, the biographer of Lettsom. If the physicians and surgeons
still living, who have openly or anonymously written with good effect
on subjects not immediately connected with their profession, were
placed before the reader, there would be found amongst them many of
the most distinguished of their fraternity.
_Apropos_ of the Dr. Harrington mentioned above, a writer says--"The
Doctor for many years attended the Dowager Lady Trevor, relict of Lord
Trevor, and last surviving daughter of Sir Richard Steele. He spoke of
this lady as possessing all the wit, humour, and gaiety of her father,
together with most of his faults. She was extravagant, and always in
debt; but she was generous, charitable, and humane. She was
particularly partial to young people, whom she frequently entertained
most liberally, and delighted them with the pleasantry and volubility
of her discourse. Her person was like that which her pleasant father
described himself in the _Spectator_, with his short face, &c. A
little before her death (which was in the month of December) she sent
for her doctor, and, on his entering her chamber, he said, 'How fares
your Ladyship!' She replied, 'Oh, my dear Doctor, ill fare! I am
going to break up before the holidays!' This agreeable lady lived many
years in Queen's Square, Bath, and, in the summer months, at St. Ann's
Hill, Surrey, the late residence of Rt. Hon. Chas. James Fox."
Wolcot, better known as Peter Pindar, was a medical practitioner, his
father and many of his ancestors having followed the same calling in
Devonshire and Cornwall, under the names of Woolcot, Wolcott,
Woolacot, Walcot, or Wolcot. After acquiring a knowledge of his
profession in a somewhat irregular manner Wolcot found a patron in Sir
William Trelawny, Bart., of Trelawny, co. Cornwall, who, on going out
to assume the governorship of Jamaica, took the young surgeon with him
to act as medical officer to his household. In Jamaica Wolcot figured
in more characters than one. He was the governor's grand-master of the
ceremonies, private secretary, and chaplain. When the King of the
Mosquitoes waited on the new governor to express his loyal devotion to
the King of England's representative, Wolcot had to entertain the
royal guest--no difficult task as long as strong drink was in the way.
His Majesty--an enormously stout black brute--regarded intoxication as
the condition of life most fit for kings.
"Champagne the courtier drinks, the spleen to chase,
The colonel Burgundy, and port his Grace."
The autocrat of the Mosquitoes, as the greatest only are, in his
simplicity sublime, was contented with rum or its equivalent.
"Mo' drink for king! Mo' drink for king!" he would bellow, dancing
round the grand-master of the governor's household.
"King," the grand-master would reply, "you are drunk already."
"No, no; king no drunk. Mo' drink for king! Broder George" (_i. e._
George III.) "love drink!"
_Grand-Master._--"Broder George does not love drink: he is a sober
man."
_Autocrat._--"But King of Musquito love drink. Me will have mo' drink.
Me love drink like devil. Me drink whole ocean!"
The different meagre memoirs of Peter Pindar are conflicting as to
whether he ever received ordination from the hands of the Bishop of
London. It seems most probable that he never did. But, consecrated or
not, there is no doubt that he officiated as a colonial rector for
some time. Droll stories of him as a parish priest used to circulate
amongst his friends, as well as amongst his enemies. He read prayers
and preached whenever a congregation appeared in his church, but three
Sundays out of every four not a soul came to receive the benefit of
his ministrations.
The rector was an admirable shot, and on his way from his house to
church used to amuse himself with shooting pigeons, his clerk--also an
excellent shot--walking behind with a fowling-piece in his hand, and
taking part in the sport. Having reached the sacred edifice, his
reverence and attendant opened the church door and waited in the porch
ten minutes for the advent of worshippers. If none had presented
themselves at the end of ten minutes, the pastor beat a retreat. If
only a few black Christians straggled up, the rector bought them off
with a few coins and then went home. One cunning old negro, who saw
that the parson's heart was more with the wild-fowl of the neighboring
bay than bent on the discharge of his priestly functions, after a
while presented himself every Sunday, when the following interview and
arrangement were regularly repeated:--
"What do you come here for, blackee?" the parson would exclaim.
"Why, massa, to hear your good sermon and all de prayer ob de church."
"Would not a _bit_ or two do you more good?"
"Yes, massa doctor--me lub prayer much, but me lub money too."
The "bit or two" would then be paid, and the devotee would retire
speedily from the scene. For an entire twelve-month was this
_black_-mail exacted.
On his return to England, Wolcot, after a few unsuccessful attempts to
establish himself in practice, relinquished the profession of physic
as well as that of divinity, and, settling himself in London, made
both fame and a good income by his writings. As a political satirist
he was in his day almost without a rival, and the popularity of his
numerous works would have placed a prudent man in lasting affluence.
Improvidence, however, necessitated him to sell the copyright of his
works to Messrs. Robinson, Golding, and Walker for an annuity of £250,
payable half-yearly, during the remainder of his life. Loose
agreements have always been the fashion between authors and
publishers, and in the present case it was not clearly stated what
"copyright of his works" meant. The publishers interpreted it as the
copyright of both what the author had written at the time of making
the agreement, and also of what he should subsequently write. Wolcot,
however, declared that he had in the transaction only had regard to
his prior productions. After some litigation and more squabbling, the
publishers consented to take Wolcot's view of the case; but he never
forgave them the discomfort they had caused him. His rancour against
"the trade" increased with time, and inspired some of his most violent
and unjust verses:--
"Fired with the love of rhyme, and, let me say,
Or virtue, too, I sound the moral lay;
Much like St. Paul (who solemnly protests
He battled hard at Ephesus with beasts),
I've fought with lions, monkeys, bulls, and bears,
And got half Noah's ark about my ears;
Nay, more (which all the courts of justice know),
Fought with the brutes of Paternoster Row."
For medicine Peter Pindar had even less respect than Garth had. He
used to say "that he did not like the practice of it as an art. He was
entirely ignorant, indeed, whether the patient was cured by the vis
_medicatrix naturæ_, or the administration of a little pill, which was
either directly or indirectly to reach the part affected." And for the
practitioners of the art held in such low esteem, he cherished a
contempt that he would at times display with true Pindaric warmth. In
his two-act farce, "Physic and Delusion; or Jezebel and the Doctors,"
the dialogue is carried on in the following strain:--
"_Blister._-- By God, old prig!
Another word, and by my wig----
"_Bolus._--Thy wig? Great accoucheur, well said,
'Tis of more value than thy head;
And 'mongst thy customers--poor ninnies!
Has helped thee much to bag thy guineas."
Amongst Peter Pindar's good services to the world was the protection
he afforded to Opie (or Oppy, as it was at one time less euphoniously
spelt and pronounced) the artist, when he was a poor country clown,
rising at three o'clock in the summer mornings, to pursue his art with
rude pieces of chalk and charcoal. Wolcot presented the boy with his
first pencils, colours, and canvas, and put him in the way to paint
portraits for the magnificent remuneration of half-a-guinea, and
subsequently a guinea a-head. And it was to the same judicious friend
that Opie, on leaving the provinces, owed his first success in London.
Wolcot used to tell some droll stories about his artist friend. Opie's
indiscreet manner was a source of continual trouble to those who
endeavoured to serve him; for, priding himself on being "a rough
diamond," he took every pains that no one should fail to see the
roughness. A lady sitter was anxious that her portrait should be "very
handsome," and frankly told the painter so. "Then, madam," was the
reply, "you wish to be painted otherwise than you are. I see you do
not want your own face." Not less impudent was he at the close of his
first year in London, in taking out writs against several sitters who
were rather tardy in their payments.
Opie was not the only artist of celebrity deeply indebted to Peter
Pindar. Bone, the painter in enamel, found an efficient friend in the
same discerning lover of the arts. In this respect Wolcot was worthy
of the profession which he deserted, and affected to despise; and his
name will ever be honourably mentioned amongst those physicians who
have fostered art, from the days of picture-loving Mead, down to those
of the writer's very kind friend, Dr. Diamond, who gathered from
remote quarters "The Diamond Collection of Portraits," which may be
seen amongst the art treasures of Oxford.
One of the worthies of Dr. Diamond's family was Robertus Fludd, or De
Fluctibus, the writer of Rosicrucian celebrity who gave Sterne more
than one lesson in the arts of eccentricity. Sir Thomas Fludd of
Milgate, Bearsted, co. Kent (grandson of David Fludd, _alias_ Lloyd of
Morton, in Shropshire), had five sons and a daughter. Of this
offspring, one son, Thomas, purchased Gore Court, and fixed there a
family, the vicissitudes of which may be learnt by a reference to
Hasted's Kent. From this branch of the Fludds descended Dr. Diamond,
who, amongst other curious family relics, possesses the diploma of
Robertus de Fluctibus.
When Robertus de Fluctibus died, Sept. 8, 1637, in Coleman St.,
London, his body, under the protection of a herald of arms, was
conveyed to the family seat in Kent, and was then buried in Bearsted
Church, under a stone which he had before laid for himself. The
monument over his ashes was ordered by him in his last will to be made
after that of William Camden in the Abbey at Westminster. The
inscription which marks his resting-place declares his, rather than
our, estimate of his intellectual greatness;
Magnificus non hæc sub odoribus urna vaporat,
Crypta tegit cineres nec speciosa tuos.
Quod mortale minus, tibi te committimus unum;
Ingenii vivent hic monumenta tui
Nam tibi qui similis scribit, moriturque, sepulchrum
Pro totâ æternum posteritate facit.
More modest, and at the same time more humorous, is the epitaph, in
Hendon Church, of poor Thomas Crossfield, whose name, alike as surgeon
and politician, has passed from among men:--
"Underneath Tom Crossfield lies,
Who cares not now who laughs or cries.
He always laughed, and when mellow
Was a harum scarum sort of fellow.
To none gave designed offence,
So--_Honi soit qui mal y pense_."
Amongst the medical poets there is one whom all scholarly physicians
jealously claim as of their body--John Keats; he who, dying at Rome,
at the age of twenty-six, wished his epitaph to be, "Here lies one
whose name was writ in water." After serving his apprenticeship under
an Edmonton surgeon, the author of "Endymion" became a medical student
at St. Thomas's hospital.
Mention here, too, may be made of Dr. Macnish, the author of "The
Anatomy of Drunkenness," and "The Modern Pythagorean"; and of Dr.
Moir, the poet, whose death, a few years since, robbed the world of a
simple and pathetic writer, and his personal acquaintance of a
noble-hearted friend.
But of all modern English poets who have had an intimate personal
connection with the medical profession, the greatest by far is
Crabbe--
"Nature's sternest painter, yet the best."
In 1754 George Crabbe was born in the old sea-faring town of
Aldborough, in the county of Suffolk. His father, the collector of
salt-duties, or salt-master of the town, was a churlish sullen fellow
at the best of times; but, falling upon adversity in his old days, he
became the _beau-ideal_ of a domestic tyrant. He was not, however,
without his respectable points. Though a poor man, he did his best to
educate his children above the ranks of the very poor. One of them
became a thriving glazier in his native town; another went to sea, and
became captain of a Liverpool slave-ship; and a third, also a sailor,
met with strange vicissitudes--at one time enjoying a very
considerable amount of prosperity, and then suffering penury and
persecution. A studious and a delicate lad, George, the eldest of the
party, was designed for some pursuit more adapted to his disposition
and physical powers than the avocations of working mechanics, or the
hard duties of the marine service. When quite a child, he had, amongst
the inhabitants of Aldborough, a reputation for mental superiority
that often did him good service. On one occasion he chanced to offend
a playmate--his senior and "master," as boys and savages term it--and
was on the point of receiving a good thrashing nigh the roaring waves
of old ocean, when a third boy, a common acquaintance, exclaimed in a
voice of affright:--
"Yar marn't middle a' him; lit him aloone--he ha' got l'arning."
The plea was admitted as a good one, and the future bard, taking his
benefit of clergy, escaped the profanation of a drubbing.
George was sent to two respectable schools, the one at Bungay, in
Suffolk, and the other (the better of the two) at Stowmarket, in the
same county. The expense of such an education, even if it amounted to
no more than £20 per annum, was no small undertaking for the
salt-master of a fishing-village; for Aldborough--now a handsome and
much frequented provincial watering-place--was in 1750 nothing better
than a collection of huts, whose humble inhabitants possessed little
stake in the commonweal beyond the right of sending to parliament two
members to represent their interests and opinions. On leaving school,
in his fourteenth year, George was apprenticed to a country doctor of
a very rough sort, who plied his trade at Wickham Brook, a small
village near Bury St. Edmunds. It is a fact worthy of note, as
throwing some light on the state of the profession in the provinces,
that the apprentice shared the bed of his master's stable-boy. At
Wickham Brook, however, the lad did not remain long to endure such
indignity. He was removed from that scene of trial, and placed under
the tutelage of Mr. Page, a surgeon of Woodbridge, a gentleman of good
connections and polite tastes, and through the marriage of his
daughter with the late famous Alderman Wood, an ancestor of a learned
judge, who is not more eminent as a lawyer than beloved as a man.
It was during his apprenticeship to Mr. Page of Woodbridge that Crabbe
made his first important efforts in poetry, publishing, in the year
1772, some fugitive pieces in _Wheble's Magazine_, and in 1775
"Inebriety, a poem, in three parts. Ipswich: printed and sold by C.
Punchard, bookseller, in the Butter-market." While at Woodbridge, too,
his friend Levett, a young surgeon of the neighborhood, took him over
to Framlingham, introducing him to the families of that picturesque
old town. William Springall Levett was at that time engaged to Alethea
Brereton, a lady who, under the _nom de plume_ of "Eugenia Acton,"
wrote certain novels that created a sensation in their brief day.
Amongst them were "Vicissitudes of Genteel Life," "The Microcosm,"
and "A Tale without a Title." The love-making of Mr. Levett and Miss
Eugenia de Acton was put a stop to by the death of the former, in
1774. The following epitaph, transcribed from the History of
Framlingham, the work of the able antiquarian, Mr. Richard Green, is
interesting as one of Crabbe's earlier compositions.
"What! though no trophies peer above his dust,
Nor sculptured conquests deck his sober bust;
What! though no earthly thunders sound his name,
Death gives him conquest, and our sorrows fame!
One sigh reflection heaves, but shuns excess,
More should we mourn him, did we love him less."
Subsequently Miss Brereton married a gentleman named Lewis, engaged in
extensive agricultural operations. However brief her literary
reputation may have been, her pen did her good service; for, at a
critical period of her husband's career, it brought her sums of
much-needed money.
Mr. Levett's romance closed prematurely together with his life, but
through him Crabbe first became acquainted with the lovely girl whom
he loved through years of trial, and eventually made his wife. Sarah
Elmy was the niece of John Tovell, _yeoman_, not _gentleman_--he would
have scorned the title. Not that the worthy man was without pride of
divers kinds, or that he did not hold himself to be a gentleman. He
believed in the Tovells as being one of the most distinguished
families of the country. A Tovell, by mere right of being a Tovell,
could thrash more Frenchmen than any Englishman, not a Tovell, could.
When the good man said, "I am nothing more than a plain yeoman," he
never intended or expected any one to believe him, or to regard his
words in any other light than as a playful protest against being
deemed "a plain yeoman," or that modern hybrid, "a gentleman farmer."
He was a well-made, handsome, pleasant fellow--riding a good horse
with the hounds--loving good cheer--enjoying laughter, without being
very particular as to the cause of it--a little too much addicted to
carousing, but withal an agreeable and useful citizen; and he lived at
Parham Lodge, a house that a peer inhabited after him, without making
any important alterations in the place.
On Crabbe's first introduction to Parham Lodge he was received with
cordiality; but when it was seen that he had fallen in love with the
squire's niece, it was only natural that "his presumption" should not
at first meet the approval either of Mrs. Tovell or her husband. But
the young people plighted troth to each other, and the engagement was
recognized by the lady's family. It was years, however, before the
wedding bells were set ringing. Crabbe's apprenticeship to Mr. Page
finished, he tried ineffectually to raise the funds for a regular
course of hospital instruction in London. Returning to Aldborough, he
furnished a shop with a few bottles and a pound's worth of drugs, and
set up as "an apothecary." Of course it was only amongst the poor of
his native town that he obtained patients, the wealthier inhabitants
of the borough distrusting the knowledge of a doctor who had not
walked the hospitals. In the summer of 1778, however, he was appointed
surgeon to the Warwickshire militia, then stationed at Aldborough, and
in the following winter, on the Warwickshire militia being moved and
replaced by the Norfolk militia, he was appointed surgeon to the
latter regiment also. But these posts were only temporary, and
conferred but little emolument on their holder. At length poverty
drove the poet from his native town. The rest of his career is matter
of notoriety. Every reader knows how the young man went to London and
only escaped the death of Otway or Chatterton by the generous
patronage of Burke, how through Burke's assistance he was ordained,
became the Duke of Rutland's chaplain, obtained comfortable church
preferment, and for a long span enjoyed an amount of domestic
happiness that was as great and richly deserved as his literary
reputation.
Crabbe's marriage with Sarah Elmy eventually conferred on him and his
children the possession of Parham Lodge, which estate, a few years
since, passed from them into the hands of wealthy purchasers. The poet
also succeeded to other wealth through the same connection, an
old-maid sister of John Tovell leaving him a considerable sum of
money. "I can screw Crabbe up and down like an old fiddle," this
amiable lady was fond of saying; and during her life she proved that
her boast was no empty one. But her will was a handsome apology for
all her little tiffs.