# The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 18/The Right of Precedence Between Physicians and Civilians Inquired Into

THE
RIGHT OF PRECEDENCE
BETWEEN
PHYSICIANS AND CIVILIANS
INQUIRED INTO.
"Tu major, tibi me est æquum parere, Menalca."Virg.
"Fidis offendar medicis? irascar amicis?" Hor.
FIRST PRINTED IN 1720.
THE
RIGHT OF PRECEDENCE
BETWEEN
PHYSICIANS AND CIVILIANS.
I HAVE waited hitherto with no little impatience, to see some good effect of that debate, which I thought was happily started at a late meeting of our university, upon the subject of precedence between professors of law and physick. And, though I cannot join in opinion with the worthy gentleman who first moved in it, I must needs say, the motion was seasonable, and well became him: for, beside that he intended an honour to a faculty he was promoted above, and was so self-denying as to wave all debates of that nature as long as he was a party concerned in the motion, he did what in him lay to put an end, by authority, to a point in controversy, which had long divided the gentlemen of those two faculties; and I am very much mistaken if the same ​person does not hereafter prove as much a friend to piety and learning in his other designs, as he has been already in this, to the peace and agreement of learned men.
But, to my great disappointment, little more has been said upon the subject, since the first debate, than what has been argued in private, more for the entertainment of single gentlemen, than the use and information of mankind. I have heard that the matter is brought to a compromise; and professors in both faculties have agreed to yield precedence to one another, according to their standing and the date of their commencement.
But this to me appears no satisfactory way of deciding a point of such importance. And, to speak freely, it is but drawing a skin over a wound, and giving it a face of a soundness; when there lies filth and purulence within, which will another time break out with more pain and greater danger.
The time is approaching, when it will be proper once more to bring this affair upon the carpet; and I am humbly of opinion, that the point is of such consequence, that it ought not to subside, as it has done of late; it should neither rest upon that slight baffle it received at its first appearance in publick, nor be hushed up in silence, under the pretence of any private accommodation, which the parties concerned have since come to, for the sake of civility and good manners in company.
I am one of those who love peace upon a good foundation; and do, for that reason, no less admire truth, upon which alone a lasting peace can be founded. And, as I am qualified to introduce this matter at the next meeting of our university, and ​fully determined to do so, I thought it reasonable to give this friendly notice to all parties, that they study the point, and make themselves masters of it, and give it so thorough a canvassing in what manner they think fit, as to leave no room for exception and wrangling when the question comes to be solemnly debated in that assembly.
But, before I come to the merits of the cause itself, you must give me leave to make one observation in the way, concerning the importance of precedence in general; which may prove of singular use to mankind, who are for the most part unapprised of it.
As I remember there fell a very rash expression from a certain gentleman (with whom it is not usual to be unguarded) who appeared an advocate for physicians, when the motion was first made to thrust them from their place. He was pleased to call it a womanish debate, if I took him right; but, as much a friend as I am to his person and cause, I will not follow him in that opinion; and will farther say, the expression was mean, and beneath the dignity of his character. There is an unkind reflection couched in it upon a sex, by which much of the decencies of life and little morals are supported; and it does not agree with that taste of gallantry which he is thought to have, and is very consistent with his profession; and is even ungrateful in a man of that faculty, which is more in favour with the ladies than any other except divinity.
But, not to insist upon this, I cannot think as that expression implies, that the matter is at all beneath the consideration of the greatest and most learned of men. On the contrary, I think the question ​was well moved; and, since it has been moved, every one should endeavour to find on which side of the argument the advantage lies; and I wonder that in this interval of parliament and business (the usual vacation of this kingdom) something has not been offered before this time for the quieting men's minds. It is a difference among his majesty's subjects, which it becomes every healing spirit to compose, and is a duty both of religion and loyalty.
I would ask, is precedence, or distinction of place, of no moment among men? Are women only concerned in it? Does society owe nothing of conveniency to it? Is it indifferent, whether a man sits at a lady's elbow, or her pert chaplain's? near a soup at the head of the table, or beef at the bottom? Is there no advantage in the first plate, or the earliest compliment of the glass, or the respect of waiters, or in ruling the books at a quarter sessions, and being honoured with the cushion in the face of one's country? Is it of no consequence to be in the eye of the government? and does not precedence contribute to that at a Tholsel entertainment? What are academical degrees so dearly purchased for, but place? and can a professor answer it to his trust or interest, to disparage precedence? For what other reason in nature but precedence, did a great man of my acquaintance lately become a double grand compounder for his degree? and another, undeceive mankind, or rather deceive women, and suffer himself to be pronounced a venerable man in spite of his youthful looks? Shall not the solemn doctor —— in his chariot take place of ​plain Mr. —— in his? and have the heels of him in preferment, according to the start he has in precedence?
Give me leave to say, that the notion of the insignificancy of place has been of infinite prejudice to many worthy men, and of as great advantage to others, who have juster thoughts of it. While dignity sinks with its own weight, the scum of mankind will naturally rise above it.
I have a pious concern upon me for all the important mistakes of mankind, and this among the rest; as to which, I have observed strong prejudice runs counter to the nature of things, and the principles of truth and reason. Sure I am, nature directs every person and thing to maintain its situation, or rather not so much to keep its own place, as to aspire and displace others. And the reason is plain, because that is a tendency to the uppermost point, and an approach to perfection; and therefore, contrary to common opinions, I have ever thought there is piety in pride and ambition, and that it is virtue to be emulous and aspiring. And when I hear, as in my time I have many, conceited declamations against pride; I suspect it is with the design of a monopoly, and to engross it; as I have known an ingenious schoolboy spit in his mess of porridge, not to abuse the good creature, but to secure it all to himself. What is that dominion so early given to mankind, but superiority of power and place? and then to act up to it, is not womanish, but manly. And if that was a precept, I will take upon me to say, ​there is not one point of duty so universally and exactly observed.
And society has so great consideration of place, that we find wise provisions made for the regulating of it, and for settling the due preeminence of all degrees of men, and an office of heraldry for that purpose, which may be found in almost every house of quality. I could go farther than this, but for this reason, that it is out of my way, and none of my business, to determine the force of great examples, and make conclusions upon Scripture; and perhaps iny friend's best apology is, that the Bible is out of the road of his profession and study: but I will say thus much, that as I have observed divines to be so far scriptural in their carriage, as to take "the right hand of fellowship" on all occasions, and carry their disputes about place as high as any other sort of men; so their practice (such is my deference) is to me the best gloss upon duty, and my conviction, and should be his. And this plainly determines the point against him, and shows the importance of precedence; and then it will follow in logick, that, if taking place be matter of moment, to dispute about place is not womanish or trivial.
And, this allowed, I am inclined to believe, that, upon this religious principle, all our late promotions of nobility have proceeded; and that so many gentlemen have procured themselves titles, not, as some have injuriously thought, that they might take place of their betters, but out of a sense of duty; and while some (alas! too many) ignorantly despise them for their worthless ambition, I regard them with another eye, and honour them for their piety, and courage, and conscience, and even condescension in ​being made great: and do from my heart pity such as cannot be greater, without being less. Indeed the roll of our nobility is at present very voluminous; but no matter for that. If there were more of them, such is the ductility of my respects, I could, with a smaller quantity of esteem, do honour to them all. I make the same account of nobility of all dates, as I do of books; I value the old, as usually more exact, and genuine, and useful, though commonly unlettered, and often loose in the bindings; and I value the new, because —— but the notion is obvious, and I leave my reader to pursue it. I was led into this comparison from the curiosa felicitas of those, whose way it is to paste their arms and titles of honour on the reverse of title pages, which shows the affinity of the two. My love to the nobility has made me sometimes seriously lament the great damp which must have fallen on honour and laudable ambition, had the peerage bill succeeded in England; but I had this consolation, that, had the sluice been shut there, the flood of honour had risen the higher here, and overflowed this my native kingdom.
I could here, according to custom, produce, in favour of this uncommon position, many bright authorities; and have now before me above a score of quotations, gathered with infinite labour from St. Chrysostom, by his index; but, to the discouragement of my learning, the Greek types are not ready, and will not be set till the twentieth of next month, when the following editions of this work shall be enriched with learned languages, in great variety. The author of a late state sermon should have waited ​as I do, rather than suffer his learning to look asquint as it does, and make so frightful a figure from the press. I am master of the stochastick art; and by virtue of that I divine, that those Greek words in that discourse have crept from the margin into the text, otherwise than the author intended; and indeed some of those Greek maggots are so uneasy in, and ashamed of, their place, that they seem to be upon the crawl backward.
I hope what has been offered will clear this case of conscience, and is sufficient to show any man of candour, and who loves and searches after truth as I do, the importance of place and precedency among men; that the peace, and order, and honour, of society is owing to it: and, as women have been remarkably strenuous in asserting these rights, I do hereby take upon me to return them the thanks of mankind (asking pardon for the professor's misbehaviour), and do wish them perseverance and success in all their laudable attempts of that nature. Let them enjoy the wall and the right hand of us from this day forward: not in consideration of their weakness, or out of our courtesy, but in their own righf, as patriots, and stout defenders of the privileges of their own and our sex.
But to proceed. It were perhaps a proper method, in this, as in other debates concerning precedency, to appeal to the herald's office, and be determined by usual and stated rules there, how place in this case is to be given or taken; but a certain lord has assured me upon his honour, that nothing concerning the present question is there taken notice of; and whatever orders may be delivered in heraldry about personal precedence, there is nothing said as to ​faculties, except only this, that doctors in divinity, and those not specialists, as we use to call them, i. e. such as have received that degree by the special indulgence and undeserved favour and grace of the university, shall have a place immediately above esquires that are not of noble families.
Upon which observation, if it be true, as I fear it is, I have reason to apprehend some disturbance in the country, among the ladies there; therefore I do present my most humble service to madam ——, wife to a very reverend divine, D. D. speciali gratiâ, who has of many years past, to my knowledge, in mistake of her husband's right, taken place at table of a certain justice of the peace's lady; and do advise her, that, in order to maintain her precedency, she would once more send her spouse up to a commencement, and engage him to perform his acts, and be readmitted, and take up his large cautionary bonds, for her own and her children's advantage.
And I would farther observe, for the use of men who love place, without a title to it either by law or heraldry; as some have a strange oiliness of spirit, which carries them upward, and mounts them to the top of all company (company being often like bottled liquors, where the light and windy parts hurry to the head, and fix in froth) — I would observe, I say, that there is a secret way of taking place without sensible precedence, and consequently without offence. This is a useful secret; and I will publish it here, from my own practice, for the benefit of my countrymen, and the universal improvement of mankind.
It is this. I generally fix a sort of first meridian in ​my thoughts before I sit down: and, instead of observing privately, as the way is, whom in company I may sit above, in point of birth, age, fortune, or station; I consider only the situation of the table by the points in the compass, and the nearer I can get to the east (which is a point of honour for many reasons, for "por recta majestas ad ortum solis") I am so much the higher; and my good fortune is to sit sometimes, or for the most part, due east, sometimes N. b. E, seldom with greater variation; and then I do myself honour, and am blessed with invisible precedence, mystical to others; and the joke is, that by this means I take place (for place is but fancy) of many that sit above me; and while most people in company look upon me as a modest man, I know myself to be a very assuming fellow, and do often look down with contempt on some at the upper end of the table. By this craft I at once gratify my humour (which is pride), and preserve my character; and this I take to be the art of life. And, sticking to this rule, I generally possess a middle place in company, even in the vulgar account, and am at meat, as wise men would be in the world,
Extremi primorum, etremis usque priores.
And, to this purpose, my way is to carry a little pocket compass in my left fob, and from that I take my measures imperceptibly, as from a watch, in the usual way of comparing time before dinner; or, if I chance to forget that, I consider the situation of the parish church, and this is my never failing regulator.
I know some people take another way for this, and place themselves nearest the dish they like best; and ​their ambition is gratified where their appetite is so. Eating well is commonly, and with justice, called good living; and their rule is that of Horace,
Ut quocunque loco fueris, vixisse libenter Te dicas ——
And it must be allowed, as a standard, their honour lies in their stomach; as indeed I have always thought that, contrary to vulgar notions, the seat, not of honour only, but of most great qualities of the mind, as well as of the disorders of the body.
Give me leave to explain myself. I think I can reduce to this one principle all the properties of the mind; and, by the way, as I take our grand devourer of fire to have the best stomach of any man living, I conclude him the greatest person our age or any other has produced, not excepting Cato's daughter; nor shall time, although edax rerum, ever digest the memory of one who has a better appetite than even time itself. But to go on: Does not the stomach make men ambitious, covetous, amorous, obsequious, and timeserving? What made a certain judge keep his place on the bench when his brethren left it, but his sense of honour; i.e. his keen appetite? Does not the stomach alone carry all debates in both houses, and support parties, and make court-parasites lose their dinners sometimes, that they and theirs may dine the better all their lives after? Do not we use to say a man of honour stomachs an indignity? Is not English feeding the foundation of English bravery? and good claret, of fierté and French sprightliness?
In short, courage, honour, wit, and sense, and all arts and sciences, take their rise here; and this an ​ancient has observed, magister artis ingeniique largitor venter;" which, if it be true, I will take upon me to declare our vulgar saying, "that men have guts in their brains," is a vulgar errour, and should be rectified, and that rather their brains are in their guts; and when we see some men less courageous, witty, or learned, than others, we should pity their bad stomachs or indigestion, rather than their incapacity or indisposition of brain: I am so sensible of this, that I have of many years disused, as an absurdity, that saying to a simple fellow, "God help your head!" but I wish him, with more propriety, a good stomach, or a better dinner.
I could here chemico-mechanically resolve men's parts into their feeding, and show what sort of humours and genius must necessarily proceed from particular sorts of meats, and explain a great deal of the heathen mythology by it; but this I reserve for a treatise by itself. Yet this I will say, that a writer's stomach, appetite, and victuals, may be judged from his method, style, and subject, as certainly as if you were his messfellow, and sat at table with him. Hence we call a subject dry, a writer insipid, notions crude and indigested, a pamphlet empty or hungry, a style jejune, and many such like expressions, plainly alluding to the diet of an author; and I make no manner of doubt but Tully grounded that saying of "helluo librorum" upon the same observation.
Now, I say, it is evident, if this be true, that every man at meat is most honoured when he is most humoured, or when he sits nearest to that which pleases his palate best; and consequently that is the first place to him upon that principle, and such men must ​be allowed to have the truest taste of honour of all others. I have observed, these sort of people have generally a great propensity to roast beef; and it will be granted, that to sit even at the foot of the table next a surloin, which is a dish of dignity, and of old hereditary knighthood, is, in strictness of heraldry, more honourable than a place next the biggest plain country squire at the upper end; and I have often chosen it.
But to return from this useful digression: The noble personage aforementioned, who honoured me with his sentiments upon this abstruse point, must be allowed to have as good a local memory as any lord in the kingdom; and has never been known once to mistake, or forget, or recede from, that place of distinction which is due to him. He could settle the forms of a royal interment, and adjust the ceremonies of a coronation, if occasion were; and I must add, but that he has more honour than to be officious, he could have determined that late controverted point of an English bishop's place among ours, and had saved the house, had he been called upon, the trouble and delays of referring to the English precedents.
I say, his lordship (who is expert in heraldry, and as communicative of that useful knowledge as becomes noble spirits) has assured me, there is no notice taken in that science of any distinction of place for learned faculties; and for mechanical ones, such as appear on collar days, or riding the franchises, ​they are below the thoughts of a man of quality. He pretends not to know what by-laws, or private compacts of precedency, there may be between goldsmiths and grocers, vintners and shoemakers.
I have now before me a table of precedence, given me by the same noble hand, reaching down from a prince of the blood to a country squire, and regarding every branch of their families in the minutest manner; which I reserve for my own use, and am envious enough to deny it to the worlds and the rather, that it is to be found in Mackenzie and Gwillim, and may be had for half a crown in the office.
The case being so, there can be no other way, as I conceive, of deciding a question of precedency between the two faculties of law and physick, but by inquiring into their antiquity and dignity; and whichsoever of them shall appear to be most ancient and most useful to the world, I presume, the world will, injustice, think fit to have the greater honour for, and give the precedence to.
I take it for granted, that priority of time, cæteris paribus, gives a preference of place; and this naturally, or by common consent; for that I take to be the meaning of nature in most cases, viz. what is found reasonable in itself, and has been always agreed to by mankind, and is confirmed by constant and uninterrupted practice; and this I desire some young preachers to take good notice of, and get by rote. I likewise, by the way, take upon me, now I think of it, to advise a certain deacon of my acquaintance, to read doctor Cumberland all through, and twice ​before he presumes to plead "the law of nature" in the pulpit; to learn mathematicks, before he, pretends to demonstrate there; to peruse Aristotle, Tacitus, and the State Tracts, before he meddles with politicks; and be able to act Eteocles, before he attempts Greek quotations in his sermons. What if Jocasta or Antigone should hear a mispronunciation from the pulpit; or any other of those young Greeks who so lately did an honour to Euripides, transported their audience into Thebes, and inspired the old bachelors on the foremost bench with that παιδοποίην ἡδονὴν which they so handsomely represented!
I say, time gives a natural right of precedence by common consent; and hence age is honoured above youth, and by it. The very heathens thought it indecency, and a trespass in point of manners, "si juvenis seni non assurrexerit," if a young man did not rise up, and give way to an older; and the canonists, I hope, will be ingenuous enough to own, though in this argument against their brethren the civilians, that it was a rule of the primitive church, that a deacon should not sit in the presence of a presbyter. In a word, wisdom and experience, which are divine qualities, are the properties of age, and make it honourable, and youth in the want of them contemptible.
​But I do not say this to mortify or discourage young men. I would not by any means have them despise themselves, for that is the ready way to be despised by others; and the consequences of contempt are fatal. For my part, I take self-conceit and opinionativeness to be of all others the most useful and profitable quality of the mind. It has, to my knowledge,, made bishops, and judges, and smart writers, and pretty fellows, and pleasant companions, and good preachers.
It is a sure way of being agreeable to the ladies, who ever judge of men as they observe men do of themselves. If all men were to have the same opinion of themselves that others have of them, there would not be, out of mere shame, above two sermons next Sunday in this large city; nor five lawyers to go through with the business of next term. Self-conceit supports the dignity of church and state; and I pronounce him an enemy to the publick who is so to that.
Much less do I intend any trouble to young clergymen of the court or city by the foregoing remark; as if, because deacons of old used to stand before presbyters, that now it were fit to rise when they come in, or give the civility of the hat or wall to any rusty rum in the street; I know the inconvenience of that mistaken piece of old breeding to both parties, and think it prudently laid aside. It is respect to an old parson, not to oblige him to uncover in the cold, and unsocket his head with both hands, and so daggle his gown out of ceremony; it is the same respect to a spruce bob, to let it lie quiet and undisturbed in its hatcase. I know no reason ​why powder and oil should submit to grease and grayness, that a white wig should lower to hoary hair, or a brushed beaver strike to a Carolina hat with stays.
I cannot forbear here to applaud the present refinement of ecclesiasticks in their habits, and say they are more primitive and regular in their dress than those of any age before them. A clergyman ought to be κοσμιος, i. e. not (as we read) of good behaviour, but well dressed, as, indeed, nothing contributes more to polite behaviour than good clothes. This is a various reading. And here I observe, for the use of young stagers in divinity, that nothing will bring them into greater repute for deep learning, than to enterprise in criticism, and adventure betimes to change the common reading of any text in the Bible. This single word is, in my opinion, enough to vindicate their silks and velvets against all the fanaticks in Christendom, and our own canons to back them.
It is an old observation, that piety is mostly supported by the female sex; so that whatever is agreeable to them is for the advantage of religion; and consequently the clergy should dress, in respect to the ladies, i. e. for the good of the church: and indeed I have known some of the younger sort, that could not preach with a ruffled band, or a wig out of curl; and a certain lady of my acquaintance, very religious, and who had a good taste of men, always made a judgment from the air and dress of the preacher, and never relished any doctrine that came not recommended with a scarf and a diamond ring. I am not one that "ambitiosa recidet ornamenta" would strip the young clergy, and ​retrench their decencies of dress; so far from it that I wish them with all my heart greater elegance, and finer apparel. Well fare the heart of that sprightly youth, a deacon of this church, who I foresee shall first adventure to hoop his canonical coat, and border his band or shirt with mechlin lace, or a modest fringe.
But to return from this incident to my subject again (from which a vast impetuous force of wit and learning, and love of my country, have led me devious): The nicest logicians will allow it a fair way of arguing, in all cases, to refer to things what is true as to persons; and therefore I conclude, if physick be a faculty more ancient than that of civil law, then it literally goes before it, i. e. takes place of it; and I hope it will not be denied, that physick is as old as the occasion of it, as old, indeed, within a few days, as mankind, which can by no means be said of the other (in comparison) upstart profession, unless any one will be so hardy to affirm, there was a doctor's commons or bishop's court in Paradise. And if any man should insist to know the year and day of the rise of physick, I take him to be ignorant of religion and history, and will disdain an answer; though I could tell him not only what the first distemper was, and that epidemical, viz. a falling sickness; but also who it was that cured it; but I do not think fit to satisfy dulness and ignorance so far.
I have ever blamed St. Jerom in my heart, for indiscretion, that when some pragmatical deacons set up for equality with presbyters, he, to humble them, made presbyters equal in effect to bishops: and I could do something of the same kind in the present dispute; and show those assuming civilians, that they can with so little reason arrogate a place above physicians, or an equality with them, that, in my ​humble 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 Virgil; 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 ​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 much 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.
​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 Cernimus, et flecti Medicinâ posse videmus. 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 ​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, 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 lay-professors, 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, ​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 may any way prejudice so great and illustrious a body ​ of men, as our college of physicians are; and I shall take care to draw out the substance of this argument, and present it, in short heads, to each member at a proper time; and not without some hopes that reason may weigh them.
In the mean time, I hope a worthy gentleman, a member of our house, will stand up on that occasion, and assert the rights of a faculty, which he has entered into, and does an honour to: it must be remembered to his credit, that, being equally skilled in physick and civil law, and, perhaps, in divinity as well as either, he chose to commence in medicine, having chiefly qualified himself for that noble faculty by repeated travels, and enriched his mind with many curious observations, which the world may, in time, expect incredible benefit from.
If any man thinks fit to reply to this argument, and rectify any mistakes in it; I desire him to preserve his temper, and debate the matter with the same coolness that I have done; that no blood may be drawn in the controversy, nor any reason given me to complain of "civilis vulnera dextræ." As conviction chiefly engaged me on the side of physicians; so, in some measure, a sense of gratitude for a faculty, to which I owe the comforts of life, and perhaps life itself; having received from it unspeakable ease in the two inveterate distempers of the spleen and the gout.
* ↑ Trinity College, Dublin.
* ↑ Some eminent civilian, probably, who had recently received preferment.
* ↑ Where the corporation of Dublin hold their meetings.
* ↑ The same thought (not an overdelicate, one, it must be owned) occurs in the close of our author's Epistle to Mr. Gay.
* ↑ In Ireland.
* ↑ The dependance of the whole Irish peerage on that of Britain was a subject then in agitation.
* ↑ A well known cavalcade in Dublin.
* ↑ This learned divine, born July 15, 1632, was educated at St. Paul's School, and thence removed to Magdalen College, Cambridge. He was presented to the rectory of Bramton in Northamptonshire in 1657, and had the living of Alhallows in Stamford given to him in 1667. From this private station he was unexpectedly elevated to the bishoprick of Peterborough, May 15, 1691; and enjoyed that preferment with the highest reputation till his death, Oct. 9, 1718.
* ↑ Dublin.
* ↑ Dr. Joseph Trapp was elected poetry professor in 1708, and published his lectures under the title of "Prælectiones Poeticæ;" 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 recommendation, Journal to Stella, July 17, 1712; and had been chaplain to the lord chancellor of Ireland in 1711, in which year he published "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 judgment in things of wit and sense is miraculous!" Journal, March 17, 1711-12. He was an agreable and pathetick preacher; and published several volumes of sermons. He died Nov. 22, 1747.
* ↑ 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.
* ↑ See the history of the house of Medicis.
* ↑ Alluding to Dr. Sacheverell's mathematicks in a sermon before the university of Oxford, wherein he makes two parallel lines meet in a centre.