provoked his refentment fo highly, that he seemed refolved on a perpetual enmity against the members of that body; who, on their part, looking on him as little better than a foreign mountebank, declined, as much as poffible, meeting him in confultation, and thereby, for fome time, checked his practice. He had a fon whom he brought up to his own profeffion, who took it into his head, that having been admitted a licentiate, he was virtually a fellow, and claimed to be admitted as fuch: his father encouraged him, and instituted a process in his behalf, of which there had been no precedent fince the time. that Jefferies was chancellor. It was no less than a petition to the king, requesting him, in the perfom of the lord-chancellor, to exercife his visitatorial power over the college, and reftore the licentiates to their rights, which, by their arbitrary proceedings, the prefident and fellows had, for a fucceffion of ages, deprived them of. This petition came on to be heard at Lincoln's-inn hall, before the lord chief justice Willes, the lord chief-baron Smythe, and Sir John Eardley Wilmot, lords commiffioners of the great feal, but the allegations therein contained not being fufficiently fupported, the fame was difmiffed; it was nevertheless looked on as the most formidable attack on the college it had ever fuftained, and may be faid to have fhaken its conftitution to the very centre. Political affociations and religious fects are excel-, lent nurses to young men of profeffions, especially of that of which I am fpeaking; Ratcliffe and Freind owed their fortunes to the fupport of the tories and jacobites; Mead and Hulfe to the whigs, and Schom、 berg to the jews. The quakers alfo, no contemptible VOL. I. R body body of men, had power and intereft fufficient to introduce into great practice one of their own denomination; this was John Fothergill, a young man of parts and induftry, who being bred an apothecary, and having obtained a Scotch degree, fettled in London, and attached himfelf to Schomberg, taking him, in many parts of his conduct, for his exemplar: fo that, upon Schomberg's decease, he flid into his practice, and became one of the most popular of the city phyficians. Thefe two perfons, firft one, and then the other, for full thirty years, carried all before them; and within that fpace of time, not fewer than twenty of the profeffion, whom I could name, lived in great ftraits, fome of them leaving, at their decease, fcarce fufficient to bury them. From thefe, and many other instances that might be produced, it is evident, that neither learning, parts, nor fkill, nor even all thefe united, are fufficient to enfure fuccefs in the profeffion I am fpeaking of; and that, without the concurrence of adventitious. circumftances, which no one can pretend to define, a physician of the greatest merit may be loft to the world; and further it may be faid, that the fairest hopes may be fruftrated by the want of that quality, which Swift fomewhere calls an aldermanly virtue, difcretion, but is in truth, of greater efficacy in our intercourfe with mankind, than all fcience put together. Had Akenfide been poffeffed of this gift, he had probably become the first in his faculty; but that he was able to acquire no other kind of celebrity than that of a scholar and a poet, is to be accounted for by fome particulars in his life and conduct, with which few but myfelf, who knew knew him well, are acquainted, and which I here infert as fuppletory to those which Johnfon has recorded of him. Mr. Dyfon and he were fellow ftudents, the one of law and the other of phyfic, at Leyden; where, being of congenial tempers, a friendship commenced between them that lafted through their lives. They left the univerfity at the fame time, and both fettled in London: Mr. Dyson took to the bar, and being poffeffed of a handsome fortune fupported his friend while he was endeavouring to make himfelf known as a physician; but in a short time, having purchased of Mr. Hardinge, his place of clerk of the house of commons, he quitted Westminster hall, and for the purpofe of introducing Akenfide to acquaintance in an opulent neighbourhood near the town, bought a house at North-End, Hampstead; where they dwelt together during the fummer feafon : frequenting the long room, and all clubs, and affemblies of the inhabitants. At these meetings, which as they were not felect, must be supposed to have confifted of fuch perfons as ufually meet for the purpose of goffiping, men of wealth, but of ordinary endowments, and able to talk of little elfe than news, and the occurrences of the day, Akenfide was for difplaying thofe talents which had acquired him the reputation he enjoyed in other companies; but here they were of little use to him, on the contrary, they tended to engage him in difputes that betrayed him into a contempt of thofe that differed in opinion from him. It was found out that he was a man of low birth, and a dependant on Mr. Dyfon; circumftances that furnifhed thofe whom he offended with a ground of re proach, that reduced him to the neceffity of afferting in terms that he was a gentleman. Little could be done at Hampstead after matters had proceeded to this extremity; Mr. Dyson parted with his villa at North-End, and fettled his friend in a small house in Bloomsbury fquare; affigning for his fupport fuch a part of his income as enabled him to keep a chariot. In this new fituation Akenfide ufed every endeavour to become popular, but defeated them all by the high opinion he every where manifefted of himself, and the little condefcenfion he fhewed to men of inferior endowments; by his love of political controverfy, his authoritative cenfure of the public councils, and his bigotted notions refpecting government, fubjects foreign to his profeffion, and with which fome of the wifeft of it have thought it prudent not to concern themselves. In the winter evenings he frequented Tom's coffee-houfe in Devereux court, then the refort of fome of the most eminent men for learning and ingenuity of the time, with fome of whom he became entangled in difputes and altercations, chiefly on fubjects of literature and politics, that fixed on his character the stamp of haughtinefs and felf-conceit, and drew him into difagreeable fituations. There was at that time a man of the name of Ballow, who ufed to pafs his evenings in the fociety abovementioned, a lawyer by profeflion*, but of no practice; he having, by the intereft of fome of the Townfhends, to whom he had been a kind of law tutor, obtained a place in the exchequer, which yielded him a handfome He was the author of a treatife on equity, in folio, published without a name. income, income, and exempted him from the neceffity of attending Westminster-hall. He was a man of deep and extenfive learning, but of vulgar manners; and being of a splenetic temper, envied Akenfide for that eloquence which he displayed in his converfation, and fet his own phrafeology very low. Moreover he hated him for his republican principles; and finally, being himself a man of folid learning, affected to treat him as a pretender to literature, and made it his study to provoke him. One evening at the coffee-house a dispute between these two perfons rofe fo high, that for fome expreffion uttered by Ballow, Akenfide thought himfelf obliged to demand an apology, which not being able to obtain, he sent his adversary a challenge in writing. Ballow, a little deformed man, well known as a faunterer in the park, about Westminster, and in the streets between Charing cross and the houses of parliament, though remarkable for a fword of an unusual length, which he conftantly wore when he went abroad, had no inclination for fighting, and declined an anfwer. The demand of fatisfaction was followed by feveral attempts on the part of Akenfide to fee Ballow at his lodgings, but he kept clofe, till by the interpofition of friends the difference could be adjusted. By his conduct in this business, Akenfide This method of refenting affronts offered to phyficians is not new. The grave and placid Dr. Mead was once provoked to it by Dr. Woodward of Gresham college, who, in the exercise of his. profeffion, had faid or done fomething to offend him he went to Woodward's lodgings to demand fatisfaction, and meeting him under the arch in the way from the outer court to the green |