Doctors out of practice / by J. Cordy Jeaffreson.

  • Jeaffreson, John Cordy, 1831-1901.
Date:
[1884]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Doctors out of practice / by J. Cordy Jeaffreson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    smonstrate the power of his powder, took the irter out of the solution, and in his grace’s iesence dried it before the fire. Scarcely was it ty, when Mr. Howel’s servant ran into the room Jith the announcement that his master’s hands lore worse than ever—ay, were burning as though ley were placed between coals of fire. The 'rvant having been dismissed with an assurance lat on returning to his master he would find his aunds painless and free from inflammation, Sir lenelm put the garter back in the solution, with (result altogether satisfactory to Mr. Howel and Is servant. During the next six days there was (tie talk in the best houses of James the First’s mdon on any subject but Mr. Howel’s case and Jr Ivenelm’s powder. King lames required a series of bulletins, giving him quick intelligence of every change in the patient’s state ; and on thp completion of the cure his Majesty successfully besought Sir Kenelm to tell him how the powder was made. If he is to be trusted, Sir Kenelm learnt how to make the sympathetic vitriol from a French philosopher, who described the process in an oration delivered to “ a solemn assembly of nobles and learned men at Montpellier in France.” Whatever the confidence or distrust to which the knight is entitled, it is certain tha!t for a time educated English people believed in Sir Kenelm and his powder quite as readily and generally as uneducated people of the present time believe in any imposture of the hour which tickles and fasci- nates them. CHASING THE DEER. My heart’s in the Hielands a-chasing the deer .—Old Song. 'FIE picture of “ Mary Stuart returning from the Chase,” by the Italian painter, Corrodi, of which we give a copy, sets us thinking of (me of the many traditions which have gathered aund the chase in Scotland. Many striking :idents, pathetic ballads, and glowing poems (ve their foundation in it. The tender passages j love and the pathos of sorrowing affection, the enerosity of a noble spirit and the courage of a tadfast patriotism, the horrors of feud and war lid the humour of rosy rusticity, are all blended jgether in the story of the Scottish chase. To lat source also not a few ancient families, rightly | wrongly, trace their rise. i Although the deer has long since ceased to pant ■ the rivers and runlets in the southern moors Scotland, the memory of its existence there in icat abundance is still preserved in many tradi- 'uns and ballads of the Border. The family of cott, now exalted to the first seat below the jlrone itself, owes its first start, according to the 3end, to a bit of plucky work done in Ettrick 3rest over eight hundred years ago. Ettrick was pee a real forest, covered with mighty trees and ive with deer. For hundreds of years it was the vourite hunting-ground of the royal Stuarts; Jd it was there that James n, with fifteen pusan d men, encountered the outlaw Murray, ■o had five hundred men of his own, all dressed U]Lanu°ln green’ anc* 'Jho> says the popular Itv u- aa<^ a cast*e h*s own and rode about I h his lady in robes of royal purple. That ballad |ls us,— I “ Ettrick is a fair forest, In it grows many a seemly tree ; The hart, the hind, the doe, the rec, And of all wild beasts great plentie.’ ijln the tenth century, savs the old sennachy of the Scott clan, two youths fled from Galloway, and, making their way to Ettrick, were hospitably entertained by Brydon, the keeper of the royal forest. Finding them accomplished in “ the mystery of woods,” the ranger kept them in his service. One day, as King Kenneth was hunting with his courtiers, one of the young men observed a buck hard pressed by the hounds, and eagerly joined in the chase. At the Rankilburn—a glen near the Ettrick, where stood of old the manor of Buccleuch—the buck was brought to bay, and turned furiously on the hounds, as a knowing “ royal stag ” will do to some purpose. The young Gallowegian rushed in, seized the pugilistic buck by the horns, and then, like a modern Milo, “ Alive he threw him on his back, Ere any man came there, And to the Cacra-Cross did trot, Against the hill a mile or mair.” King Kenneth, mightily taken with the doughty deed of the young forester, presented him off- hand with the territory of Buccleuch, thus addressing him:— “ And for the buck thou stoutly brought To us up that steep heugh, Thy designation ever shall Be John Scot in Bttckseleugh.” The simple legend of the deer-hunt is still an article of belief among the peasants of the Border, and at the beginning of the present century a magnificent piece of silver plate was prepared, under the direction of Sir Walter Scott, as a memorial of the incident. There can be no doubt, however, as to the fabulous nature of the story, for Buccleuch did not come into the possession of the Scotts for at least two hundred years after the date H-7