ble opinion, some faculties, which they have in contempt, are superiour to them in point of time, which I have already proved to be the natural ground of precedency; and it is enough here but to name the excellent faculties of musick and poetry, whose antiquity, I think, no man of sense or modesty will call in question. But having mentioned poetry, I must go aside a little, to salute my worthy friend the professor of or (to speak more properly) the reader in, that faculty in Oxford; who has befriended the world so much by his incomparable performances of that kind, especially his latest: I will own, he has taught me, and I believe some other gentlemen who had lost their Latin, the true grammatical construction of Vig→ gil; and deserves, not our acknowledgments only, but those of Eaton and Westminster. I am sensible, construction is as necessary to the relish and use of * Dr. Joseph Trapp was elected poetry professor in 1708, and published his lectures under the title of "Prælectiones Poe+ tica; the first volume of which is dedicated to Mr. secretary St. John; to whose father, in the early part of his life, he had been chaplain. He was also made chaplain to the son by Swift's recom mendation, Journal to Stella, July 17, 1712; and had been chaplain to the lord chancellor of Ireland in 1711, in which year he pub. lished "A Character of the present Set of Whigs;" which Swift, who conveyed it to the printer, calls " a very scurvy piece;" see the Journal to Stella, May 14, 1711. In a short time after,. he printed at Dublin a poem on the duke of Ormond, which was republished at London, and the printer sold just eleven of them;" see Journal, Aug. 24, 1711, Our author, having mentioned to Stella, that Trapp and Sacheverell had been to visit him, adds, Trapp " is a coxcomb, and the other is not very deep; and their judg"ment in things of wit and sense is miraculous!" Journal, March 17, 171-12. He was an agreable and pathetick preacher; and published several volumes of sermons. He died Nov. 22, 1747. an an author, as chewing is to taste and digestion. However, I must take upon me to admonish him of one great mistake; and I know that the modesty of the man, and the good nature familiar to him, and which shines as nuch in his conversation, as wit and true poetry do in his works, will bear it from a friend: he has more than once, as I remember, put jasmine for sweet marjoram, the true version; but as this, and a few more, are his only variations from the letter of the original, it may well be excused; my fear is, that school boys may come to suffer by his mistake. I dare venture to affirm, in favour of that good potherb, that sweet marjoram is not improper either in broth or heroicks. Though I think what has been urged is sufficient to weigh in favour of the faculty I have here espoused; yet, upon occasion, I could allow all this to go for nothing, and place the controversy upon another footing, and argue from the natural dignity of medicine itself, and the universal use and benefit of it to mankind; for it is well known, that physick has been always necessary to the world, and what mankind cannot be without. It has been requisite in all ages and places; which is more than can be asserted in behalf of law, either civil or canon. I do not believe they know any thing of these in China or the mogul's country; but we know they do of physick, which prevails in the east, which supplies us with great part of our materia medica; and no Englishman ought in gratitude to forget, that the great genius and honour of England was cured of a fit of the gout by a salutary moss from the east. * Sir William Temple; see his " Essay upon the Cure of the Gout," by the application of a moss called Moxa, Temple's works, 8vo. vol. III, p. 246. But But that is not all: The force of physick goes farther than the body, and is of use in relieving the mind under most of its disorders: and this I dare venture to affirm, having frequently made the experiment upon my own person with never failing success; and this I did by the direction of my worthy parish minister, who is indeed an excellent divine, and withal an able physician; and a good physician, only to be the better divine. That good man has often quieted my conscience with an emetick, has dissipated troublesome thoughts with a cordial or exhilarating drops, has cured me of a love fit by breathing a vein, and removed anger and revenge by the prescription of a draught, thence called bitter; and, in these and other instances, has convinced me, that physick is of use to the very soul, as far as that depends on the crasis of the body: Mentem sanari corpus ut ægrum LUCRET. And I am so fully persuaded of this, that I never see a wretch go to execution, but I lament that he had not been in the hands of a good physician, who would have corrected those peccant humours of his body which brought him to that untimely death. Now can any thing like this be pleaded in behalf of one or the other of the two laws we are dealing with, or of both together?. By the way, I must observe here, that these two laws, civil and canon, are put in couples for their unluckiness, and, I think, they ought to be muzzled too. And here lies the disadvantage of the present dispute: physick, we know, is a plain simple thing: now that this single VOL. XVIII. 'faculty, faculty, without one friend on earth to take its part and be a second, should dispute with a pair at once, is as if one poor bloodhound should engage with a couple of mastiffs; or that a man should fight a gentleman and his lackey, or with a single rapier against sword and pistol: it is very foul play, and standers by should interpose, so hard are the terms of this debate; but there is no help for it: these two fast friends can scarce be parted, and are seldom found asunder; they must rise and fall together. My lord Bacon used to say, very familiarly, "When I rise, .66. my a rises with me.' I ask pardon for the rudeness of the allusion; but it is certain that the Canon law is but the tail, the fagend, or footman, of the civil, and, like vermin in rotten wood, rose in the church in the age of its corruption, and when it wanted physick to purge it. But I am weary of proving so plain a point. To me it is clear beyond contradiction, that the antiquity and dignity of physick do give it the precedence of civil law and its friend. I could here very easily stop the mouths of ecclesiastical civilians, by an example or two of great authority; but I hope they will take the hint, and save me the trouble and for layprofessors, I will only say, he that is not convinced, has little sense, not only of religion (perhaps that is their least consideration), but of good manners and loyalty, and good fellowship. The blood of the de Medicis flows in the best veins in Europe; and I know not how far any slight offered to the faculty. may exasperate the present king of France, or the grand duke, to a resentment prejudicial to our wines, * See the history of the house of MEDICIS, and the publick peace, and the present posture of affairs. All that love their country, and right good Florence, will perceive by this on which side of the argument they ought to appear. And now, for the universal peace of mankind, I make the following rule, to be observed by all professors in each faculty, and their understrappers:`I decree, that a doctor of physick shall take place of a doctor of laws; a surgeon, of an advocate; an apothecary, of a proctor of office; and a toothdrawer, of a register in the court. I intended this for a parallel; but here it fails me, and the lines meet *. I shall now only observe farther, that as the case seems desperate on the side of civilians in point of reason, so I hear they have another game to play, and. are for appealing to authority; as I have known a schoolboy, fairly beaten at cuffs, run with a bloody nose to complain to his master. I am credibly informed, there is a design on foot to bring in heads of a bill in favour of civilians, next session of parliament; but how generous that sort of proceeding is, I leave the world to judge. I am but one; and will certainly oppose any such motion in my place; though, from the number of civilians in the house, I have reason to apprehend, it will be to little purpose. The college, a true alma mater, has dubbed most of us doctors, and has been more wise than christian in her favours of that kind; for she has not given, hoping for nothing again. But here I enter my protest against all designs that nay any way prejudice so great and illustrious a body * Alluding to Dr. Sacheverell's mathematicks in a sermon before the university of Oxford, wherein he makes two parallel lines meet in a centre. |