The Sun. — 1864-04-23 (London, England)

VIII., and enjoyed his confidence to a remarkable degree, being knighted by the King under the title of Sir William Butts, of Norfolk. Shakspere pictures in a few words the physic;an's powerfr.l infllence with tha monarch. Cranmer's enemies at court have contrived that he shall be kept waiting amidst the servants outside the door of the council chamber. Butts remarking this, says— " This is a piece of malice. lam glad I came this way so happily; the king Shall understand it presently." Cranmer, upon this, exclaims—  " 'Tis Butts, The king's physician : as he passed along, How earnestly he cast his eyes upon me I Pray Heaven he sound not my disgrace!"  Dr, Caius, who plays such a prominent part in the " Merry Wives of Windsor," is described as a French physician. The character seems to have been devised simply for the sake of the fun which is get out of the foreigner's broken English. In the whole play there is scarcely an allusion to the doctor's profession, and he might for all practical purposes have belonged to any other. Oar laughter is entirely directed against the man, i❑ no respect against the physician. The poisoned goblet ever accompanies the dagger as en emblem of the tragic muse. The treacherous draught has been, from earliest times, employed by the dramatist as the most terrible of all the means by which life is taken upon the stage. Shakspere makes frequent use of this agency. One might be led to expect that occasions of this nature would furnish opportunities for the introduction of the physician into the play ; but, curiously enough, this only happens once—in the play of " Cymbeline." When the Queen is plotting the destruction of her step-daughter Imogen, she applies to Cornelius, her physician, for some poisonous drugs. The physician cautions an unskilled woman against experiments which seem to be dictated by curiosity and can lead to no useful result. Had not the action of drugs been tested by himself or some other skilled ob:crver, ho would nit have been in a position to substitute in safety those he gave her for the poisonous kinds which she desired, and Imogen would have perished miserably. He communicates (to the audience) the reason of his justifiable deception in the following passage : "I do not like her. She does think she has Strange lingering poisons: I do know her spirit, And will not trust one of her malice with A drug of such damn'd nature. Those she has Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile : Which first, perchance, she'll prove on cats and dogs; Then afterwards up higher ; but there is No dangerin what shcw of death it makes, More than the locking up the spirits a time, To be more fresh, reviving."  It is interesting to contrast the conduct of Cornelius with that of the Apothecary in "Romeo and Juliet," under somewhat similar circumstance— " Meagre were his looks, Sharp misery had worn him to the bones,"  The poor wretch, starving and over-tempted by Romeo, makes but a brief resistance to the bribe of forty ducats; but, as he parts with the poison, there is evidence of a painful struggle in his exclamation—  "My poverty, but not my will, coneents I"  Following Dr. Johnson's example, we might here express a hope that Romeo, were he living now in London, might find as much trouble in procuring a dose of poison a 3 he did in Mantua. We fancy, however, that he would not need either to seek out a starving drug vendor, or to give him such a sum as 40 ducate, so much have we improved in these matters during the last three or four centuries. Two doctors figure in "Macbeth"—an Englishman and a Scot. The former has very little to do. He merely describes to Malcolm how the King (Edward the Confessor) is curing a crowd of persons affected with" the evil" by a touch of his royal band. The latter has a much more important part. He is present with a waiting gentlewoman when Lady Macbeth walks in her sleep. Not a gesture escapes his attention ; and with judicious care, when Lady Macbeth speaks, he takes written notes of her words. He is soon struck by their terrible import. The physician sees in the condition of mind of his patient a danger of suicide, and properly takes precautions against it. To iNhcbetla's inquiry, shortly afterwards—  " How does your patient, doctor?" he replies—  " Not so sick, my lord, As she is troubled with thick coming fancies, That keep her from her rei,t.