Anecdotes of the late Dr. Monsey. ANECDOTES OF THE LATE DR. MONSEY. [Continued from page 304, in last Vol.]. DR. Monsey was now to retire from St. James's, adjoining to which Lord Godolphin lived, and to quit the splendour, equipage, and retinue of a Peer, with an agreeable circle of London friends, for a solitary apartment at Chelsea, his plate at the hall table, his timepiece, and his old woman. It now became necessary for him to call forth the fruitful resources of his own mind, to fill up the tedious intervals of a life which had bitherto been completely occupied by the interesting offices of friendship, by science, and by amuse ment. In this nice point, so productive of crimes or of follies in us all, he, in a great measure, succeeded, without giving way to irrational excess, by correspondence in which, in a manner peculiar to himself, he excelled, by his profession, mechanics, books, whist, and backgam mon. The situation and change of cir cumstance undoubtedly required a wonderful exertion of temper; nor ought we to be surprised if it was injured in the painful effort. An alteration was observed; the strong features of genius and sterling sense, the attic wit, happy allusion, and well-timed anecdote, were mellowed and improved on the canvas; but the gentle tints, the delicate colouring, the morbidezza of refined manners, produced by the attrition of elegant society, were found to be gradually impaired: he possessed, in high perfection, the fortiter in re, but neglected or despised the leviter in modo. Yet an instance occurred, after he had passed his eightieth year, in VOL. XIX.- No. 109. 9 which he usefully reproved a friend' without gratifying his satirical ta⇒ lent. No one who pretended to understand Monsey's character, can forget that it was impossible for folly or affectation to pass in his company undiscovered, and very seldom unpunished. A young popular clergyman, of a good heart and sound understanding, was infected with a solemn theatric mode of speaking at times, accompanied with a mincing, finical gesture, bordering on the coxcomb. This foible did not escape the eye of his friend, who knew his worth, and would not hurt hisfeelings; the Doctor therefore took an opportunity, when they were alone, to censure him. and agreed, whenever he saw the "affectio dramatica" (as he called it) coming on, as a signal, always to offer him his snuff box, with two smart raps, to prevent his lapsing into such an erroneous habit. The gentleman speaks of it to this day with gråtitude. A visible improvement in his deportment took place, and Monsey was very probably instru mental in his procuring, what I wish him long to enjoy, preferment, and a wife with a good fortune. When the Doctor removed to Chelsea, he found Mr. Ranby, the Surgeon, there, a man of strong passions, harsh voice, and inelegant manners. King George the Second, with whom he was a great favourite, had appointed him to Chelsea Hospital, and from the humble capacity in which he is saidto have served him in another way, the old and oft-repeated story originated, of “ Fat, fair, and forty *? The interesting chat which novelty of acquaintance often pro duces, at first appeared like intimacy between the Surgeon and Physician; but this gradually declined into indifference, coldness, disgust, and at last, on Ranby's side, into personal outrage. Ever since the establishment of the Hospital, it has been the business of the Physician to overlook the Surgeon's bill, and if he saw no reason to disapprove it, to sign his name as a passport for it through the offices. A bill occurred which the Doctor thought objectionable, and was said by many to have reasonable grounds for his objections: he refused his. signature. This Ranby considered as a reproach on his moral character, and as an insult: mutual ill language took place, and the angry Surgeon concluded by swearing he would be the death of his opponent if he persisted in refusing to sign the account. I believe, but am not certain, that Ranby, on this occasion, was obliged to give surety for keeping the peace. 1 know the Doctor consulted the late Lord Chief Justice De Grey (afterwards Lord Walsingham) on the subject, and I heard his Lordship recommend peace to Monsey, " and, if Ranby repeats his violence, leave me to manage him," were his concluding words. The dread of a Chief Justice's warrant kept the lion a little quiet. Lord Chesterfield told Dr. Monsey he had right* on his side, but that Ranby's connections and influence would carry him through it: his Lordship was not mistakenthe Board to whom Monsey referred the affair dropped it, and the bill was paid. This affair Ranby † never for *A Great Personage was of the same opinion. Ranby was the only man I ever gave; and a few years after he died from the effects of a violent fit of passion, occasioned by the late Sir John Fielding not punishing an hackney coachman who happened to be the injured party. In the dispute between Monsey and Ranby concerning the bill, a melancholy instance of profusion in the disposal of the public money occurred. At the Hospital for decayed seamen at Greenwich, more than twelve hundred persons were provided with advice, physic, and surgery, for something less than four hundred and fifty pounds a year-a trifling sum, however fully adequate to the purpose, when compared to the medical and surgical department at Chelsea. In the College at that place it was found, that Govornment was at the enormous expence of more than two thousand four hundred pounds a year*, besides providing houses, furniture, a table, coals, and candle. When the late Duke of Newcastle appointed Mr. Graham, senior, to this post as Apothecary, he might probably find it convenient to get rid of a long apothecary's bill of many years standing, to the amount of a thousand pounds; but surely Mr. Pitt or Mr. Grenville have no purposes to answer in tolerating so wanten a waste of the public money; and as a vacancy in the Surgeon's appointment cannot be far remote, a fixed salary, without a contingent bill, should be ordered by the Board, without injury to the present possessors. It ought to have been premised that Cheselden was Surgeon when heard coolly defend the use of laudanum in effecting his designs on women, which he confessed he had practised with success, * I speak on an average of the last fourteen years. Dr. Anecdotes of the late Dr. Monsey. Dr. Monsey was first appointed to the Hospital: he resided not till many years after; during which time Mr. Cheselden died, and Ranby was appointed to succeed him-Cheselden treated him with great attention and civility; but was more flattered by having the mechanism of his chariot, and the splendour of his equipage admired, than by being told, which was really the case, that he was the first Surgeon in Europe.-Pope, whom the Doctor often saw at his friend's house, found out this secret, and profited from it: by introducing his name into his epistles, and humouring this blameless foible, the house, carriage, and servants of Cheselden were always at the Poet's disposal. I have often heard the Doctor mention an extraordinary opinion of Mrs. Cheselden, who was a sensible, but by no means a handsome, woman; and, if I mistake not, the daughter of Mr. Knight, the cashier, in the unfortunate South Sea Bubble. This singularity related to the excessive severity of the criminal code of laws, as it extended to unnatural gratifications*: it did not amount to a defence of these abominable practices; but she thought if men had so bad a taste, and were so absurd as to seek amusement so much out of the way, that they should be considered as fools and madmen; but that taking away their lives was making the punishment greater than the crime, and unjust-an idea so odd, so inimical to female sway, to drop from a woman, is so rare a phænomenon, that I could not help (however I may be blamed) recording it. As with its additional cares, age, came on, an asperity of manners and a neglect of decorum was ob *Cum hominibus aut feris. II served in Monsey: it became the fashion for the young, the delicate, and the gay, to exclaim against him as an interrupter of established forms, and as a breaker of those various and minute rules which, however trifling they may appear to the Sage and the Philosopher, contribute essentially to the ease and comfort of modern life. The character which usually passes under the denomination of an oddity, has been defined as a man who sacrifices the good opinion of others to his own whim and conveniency. Nor can our Friend be wholly exculpated from these charges. In his intercourse with mankind, he met with so many trifling and worthless characters, that he was apt to suspect that what such persons so much valued was beneath his attention; but idle, fantastic, vain women, and men like women, always excited in him the most violent emotions of anger and con tempt. He was acquainted with a clergyman of this class, a near neighbour, remarkable for puerile and silly behaviour, and very much in the habit of contradicting the Doctor, without learning, or even a single idea to support his arguments. "If faith in your have you opinion, will you venture a small wager on it?"_ "I cou'd, but I won't," was the answer." Then you have very little wit, or 'very little money," said Monsey. any ******* ****, more famous for his wheel-barrow amours with the cast-off mistress of a Royal Duke, and the marked contempt of his wife, who found solace in the arms of the fortunate Irishman, than his military achievements, contributed very much to render the Doctor's situation uncomfortable. It was owing to the following circum This hoary veteran, who pretends to reform now he is no longer able to sin, was, in a very illiberal manner, abusing a friend of the Doctor's, in his absence, as a coward and a debauchee, and the Doctor .or defending him. He instantly silenced the forma. but empty prater by these words: "You have mule right to abuse him or gallantry, for you attempted to debauch his mother; and as to his courage, ne did not stay at home whoring and drinking, and get his bones broke in a hay under the Piazza, while his regiment was cut to with a Mr. Robinson, a well. meaning man, who was lamenting the deplorable state of the times, and concluded his harangue with saying, "and, Doctor, I talk with people who believe there is na God;"-" And I, Mr. Robinson, talk with people who believe there are three."-The frightened Trinitarian immediately set spurs to his horse, and would never after speak to the author of so prophane a reply. It has been said that Dean Swift was Monsey's model; and as far as ruling the company and guid pieces in Germany, and then hurrying the conversation of those with over ther time enough to hear peace proclaimed, bring home infir mities produced by vice, and boast of them as the consequence of wounds received in the service of his country." It was Monsey's misfortune to launch into the boundless ocean of metaphys.cs, where so many ad venturers wander without rudder, sail, or compass. His voyage produced the usual return of doubt, uncertainty, and di-appointment. To those who are infatuated enough to sacrifice their ume and attention to such a wid and unprofitable study, I think it my duty to observe, that in the intervals of cool reflection, he confessed a great part of the unnappiness of his life orginated from these unavailing per plexities, As to religion, after long study and much reading, he was a staunch and rational supporter of the Unitarian doctrine, and early imbibed an unconquerable aversion to bishops and establishments, to creeds, and to tests; but when the "Blasphemous Athanasian doctrine" (as he called it, was mentioned, he burst into the most venement expressions of abhorrence and disgust. During his abode at Lord Godolphin's, he was riding in Hyde Park whom he associated, there was a resemblance. In this department they were both rather tyrannical; for he who seldom meets with his equal either in parts or power in any, is too apt to expect deference and submission from all. Another axiom of Monsey's brings to our minds a similar, but unfortunate, taste in Swift Medico & philosopho nihil indecens, The Author of the Ladies Dressing Room, and a man who produced an almond which he boasted had travelled four times down his throat, could neither of them be very nice, though, according to a doctrine of the Dean's, they botn abounded in nasty ideas. But Swift, the patriot of Ireland, the lover of laughter, the genius, and the poet, Swift was a rank churchman, with all the mitred notions of a high priest, hierarchy and prerogative; and, except where temporary popularity led for the moment, was a stickler for the infamous Sacheverell, a Tory, with all the narrow bigotry of the party, an enemy to the civil and religious liberties of mankind. Extract from the Journal of a City Tippy. Swift's religious intolerancy I shail not try to prove: he defended it publicly with his pen, and complimented Archbishop (I was going to say Arch-zealot) King for his furious prosecutions in the ecclesiastical, and other Courts, for specalauve errors in doctrine. His passion for invading the liberty of the press, which he grossly abused himself, bursts out frequently in his letters, which I quote from mory. In one, he says, he has laid one of his antagonists by the heels at a messenger's; and for another, he has long had a sharp knife and a pillory ready for his ears. me. I thank God such language, or such treatment, would not be suffered in the present day; and in a man who abounded in wit and poignant invective, it was mean and ungenerous; it savoured of the argumentum bacu.inum, or club law. I always think the following line very applicable to Swift, whether basking in the warm sunshine of Harley's favour, or wielding a despotic sceptre at the head of the chapter of St. Patrick; Dat Deus immiti cornua curta bovi." There are too well-written letters which strongly mark the Dean's character-they are in his works; but, after a twenty years absence from the book, i cannot point the page. The first is to the abovementioned Dr. King, who, at the Hanoverian accession, turned his back on, and tried to oppress, his old friend: the other is addressed to a Lord Palmerston, a descendant, I think, of Sir William Temple's. He tells his Lordship, that his character has not bulk enough to be worth crushing, and that he owes his safety to his insignificance. Swift undoubtedly had a thousand faults, but he possessed ten thousand good qualities; and I take this public opportunity, having no other, of 13 wholly dissenting from the ingenious Mr. Hayley's theory, which, without one good argument, but with much plausibility, he aims against the Dean in his Triumphs of Temper. [To be continued.] EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL - ROSE at eleven, and called at the Counting house Oid Humbug had been there, and Dick said he looked out of humour. No money-borrowed some of Dick for my breakfast at the Coffee-house. Mem. Dick is a useful lad-raw from the country, industrious in my absence, and thinks himself honoured by my borrowing his money,-Pity I can't bring hun to tell a few lies for me. Twelve o'clock-went to business again office hours intolerably tedious and oppressive-ought to be looked into-read the Sporting Magazine till one-books out of order-but too late now to set them right-Dick promised to do them for me in the evening. One o'clock--went out about some bills-collected cash-felt the comfort of being trusted. Two o'clock-met Tom Dashproposed a game at billiards, for the table only-I play better than Tom was provoked to staked-d irregular table-could not make a hazard-lost ten gumeas. Three o'clock-returned to the office the Old One out-deter mined to dine well, and wash down my loss in a glass of punch.-Mem. --the ten guineas lost with Tom make this week's account worse than the last, and to-morrow settling day-dined excellently off a turbet, and et cetera sauce. Six o'clock-groggy-won't go to business any more to day--took a strole |