Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

and then drop in the place or places red wax, and let it lie unto the time it be consumed, and then if need be reiterate this matter."1 Whether the cure would be efficacious or not, can only be known to those who have tried. But it may be remarked, in passing, that corns afford an admirable illustration of one of the hospitable proverbs of our ancestors, "cut and come again." We may cut out the offending morsel, but it is almost certain to show its hard head and to make its pointed tail felt once more. But for all that the remedy is interesting and worth a trial by those martyrs of an ugly and indiscreet fashion, which insists upon shoes that are neither artistic nor sensible. It is instructive, too, to note how early in our history our countrymen began to take an unhallowed pride in their feet, with the painful result of making them almost deformed, and the no less painful punishment of

corns.

It will not be necessary to cull any more passages from the Extravagantes; the second book of the Breviary of Health is like the first, only more so, if an Americanism may be pardoned. It deals with many interesting forms of disease, such as are practically unknown to-day, and the remedies suggested in each case afford a curious knowledge of the drugs which were used at an earlier date. It is not for a moment hinted that Boorde was a scientific discoverer of unknown laws of healing, nor that his physiology was perfect; nor was his method of treatment invariably successful any more than his remedies were infallible. Still, for the time in which he lived, he was an unusually skilful physician, who for the most part knew what he was doing, and who had a strikingly correct perception of the idiosyncrasies of the general body of patients. His book was undoubtedly popular, though that in itself is not a criterion of excellence in the case of medical books. Mankind has a morbid curiosity into its inner workings, and a strange propensity to imaginary ailments; hence any book which professes to throw light upon the human machine commonly excites an unhealthy zeal for pseudo-scientific inquiry into the minds of the many. But though Boorde's Breviary was popular in aim and in style, he made every effort to set down accurately some part of his extensive knowledge in order to help the sufferers from the more common foes to health. That he 1 Extravagantes, chap. vii,

succeeded in his object can hardly be doubted, though it is true that there were no coroners' inquests in his day to investigate the number of those who poisoned themselves by misapplying his medicines. He benefited the persons for whom he wrote, and whom it was his object to benefit, and he deserves all honour for his real service. Many who have set out with loftier ambitions have achieved less, and those frivolous critics who, without reading his works, have pronounced them foolish, have only made an exhibition of themselves and their own incapacity of rightly estimating a conspicuous and useful servant of his country and his race.

The Breviary of Health contains a mine of folk-lore: old proverbs, old-fashioned remedies which still survive along the countryside, ancient and amusing methods of casting out evil spirits, forgotten elements of diet, obsolete customs, and a host of similar curiosities meet the reader

throughout its pages. To the herbalist the time-worn book is useful from the profound knowledge of simples which its author uniformly displays; though it must be confessed that here and there a remedy suggests that its takers may be simples, as well as the medicines which they take. To the student of the history and social life of a long-past century, the frank candour of Boorde gives many valuable hints and much positive information concerning the inner habits of the nation. It is from works of this kind that the student of sociology, who is not blinded by his own ideal theories, may learn much that will help him to form a less incorrect estimate of human nature than he is wont to do. Customs have changed, and enlightenment has increased with corresponding comforts and educational advantages; but the heart of the nation remains the same, and deep down in its recesses lurk the phantoms of bygone superstitions, unrecognised perhaps by their possessors, but in their breast for all that. Into these Boorde and his books give a clear insight, which is none the less valuable because it is commonly neglected. But in spite of such traces of superstition and the quaint credulousness of an earlier age, he had acquired much skill in diagnosis, and he has but seldom suggested an absolutely foolish remedy. Naturally enough, he believed in such semi-miraculous ceremonies as touching for the King's Evil, just as he believed in the possession of human bodies by the devil and his angels. But such a

belief is no proof either of his ignorance or of his folly, as some of his modern censors would have us admit. These were the commonplace beliefs of his time, in which Protestants and Catholics had an equal share; and to blame a sixteenth-century worthy for not being so wise as a contemporary giant of science, is as wise as to blame the ancient Britons for the scantiness of their raiment. Boorde, like all his contemporaries, had his budget of superstitions; but he was nevertheless a learned and skilful physician, and withal, if his written words are to be trusted, a deeply pious man.

As we turn over the black-letter pages of the Breviary of Health, we meet with the record of many diseases which have vanished from a more cleanly generation, and perhaps there is no more striking sign of progress than the improvement in the condition of prisons and prisoners of the present time. But in the majority of his remedies for these Andrew Boorde was before his day; abstinence, temperance, and cleanliness are words ever on his tongue, nor does he refrain from laying the lash of ridicule upon the shoulders of contemporary folly. He did, it is true, use various electuaries, of the contents whereof he did not inform his readers; he had marvellous faith in the painsubduing power of the Pills of Cochee, whatever they may have been. But a more modern century has worshipped its Solar Elixir and its Pink Pills for Pale People. Hence it is out of place, and a sure mark of critical insanity, to lend a too ready ear to ill-natured slanders about a man of worth, and to mock a physician of no mean skill, because his knowledge was not more than three hundred years in advance of his time. Yet of both these pieces of unfairness the authors of the article on Boorde in Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary and of the article in Chambers's Encyclopedia have been guilty. Writing from inadequate knowledge, they have done gross injustice to their subject, and the southern critic cannot help feeling that had Boorde been born over the Border he might have met with fairer treatment. Whether the eminent physician will be finally cleared from the charge of immorality brought against him late in life, remains to be seen; the probabilities point in this direction, and it is to be hoped that they will be turned to certainty. But whatever sins he may have committed towards the end of his days, this may at least be said of him without exaggera

tion, that he was unusually skilled in his profession, and that he was moreover an able scholar, an observant traveller, an interesting writer, and for the greater part of his life a sincerely pious man.

Now the first and perhaps the wisest Merry Andrew lies almost forgotten, and his works have barely survived their author. Few even so much as dip into their spicy pages, few have ever heard of him. Yet he is worth reading, in spite of the neglect into which he has fallen, and his strong cheerfulness deserves not merely admiration but the sincerer tribute of imitation. A merry man he lived for eight and fifty years, brightening others by his quick wit and his sportive sallies; a sadder man he died in the gloom of a prison, leaving many to mourn the loss of their beloved physician. Neither electuaries, nor decoctions, nor the confection of Alchermes, nor even the mighty Pills of Cochee can grapple with death; the physician may war against this foe in others, but when his turn comes he too must slip from the ranks, leaving his post to another. Yet Andrew Boorde cannot be utterly forgotten; so long as his nation is a mirth-loving people, which takes its pleasures, it is said, with a somewhat sober waggishness, so long shall his nickname be preserved, and his memory be kept undying by those who, unconscious of its origin, freely use it. He sought no doubt the Elixir of Life on earth in the goodly companionship of his fellow philosophers; and now he and they sit quaffing the Elixir of eternal life on the placid plains of heaven, where science has become certainty and faith received its fulfilment. There at least he is cleared of the charge of black hypocrisy, and there let him rest in peace from the envenomed tongue of Poynet and the supercilious sneers of more modern critics.

THE

THE PARSON

HENRY SMITH

"And though he holy were and virtuous,
He was to sinful men not dispitous,
Ne of his speeche dangerous ne dign,

But in his teaching discreet and benign."

CHAUCER, Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 517-520.

HE reign of Elizabeth saw the completion of the Reformation in England, so far as the outward discipline and to a certain extent the inward doctrine of the Church were concerned. But no general measure of reform, however carefully devised, suits all of the parties affected; and the reorganization of the National Church was immediately followed by the birth, or rather the manifestation, of Puritanism. The Calvinistic Articles, the Popish Liturgy, and the Arminian clergy, as by law appointed, did not please the sterner reformers, and many eminent preachers refused to take Orders in consequence. The influence of John Calvin was paramount amongst the Protestant Churches wherever they were found; nay, even in England itself, where much of the ceremonial of the Mass was maintained, the theologians at this period were for the most part Calvinistic in tone if not in disciplinary rigidity. When, therefore, Mary of persecuting fame passed away, the refugees, who had taken shelter amidst the reformed congregations of the Continent, returned once more to their native land, where they fondly hoped that the Church would be established on a Presbyterian basis.

The English exiles on the Continent, when they set about the task of forming themselves into a Church at Frankfort, out of respect for the German Protestants, who were affording them protection, used a simpler service than the one which had contented them during the brief reign of Edward VI. and at home. Fuller, whose loyalty to the Book of Common Prayer is above suspicion,

« ForrigeFortsæt »