Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/138

 120 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. tell me, that the bottle I am now drinking with some of your acquaintance is a wheel-barrow, and the glass in my hand a salamander, I should ask leave to dissent from them all. " You mistake my temper, in being of an opi- nion that I am otherwise byass'd than the gene- rality of mankind are. I had one of your new convert's poems in my hands just now ; you will know them to be Mr. Dryden's, and on what ac- count they were first written, at first sight. Four of the best lines, and most apropos, run thus : — By education most have been misled, So they believe, because they were so bred : The priest continues what the nurse began, And thus the child imposes on the man. " You may be given to understand from hence, that, having been bred up a Protestant at Wakefield, and sent from thence in that persuasion to Oxford, where, during my continuance, I had no relish for absurdities, I intend not to change jDrinciples, and turn Papist, in London. " The advantages you propose to me, may be very great, for all that I know : God Almighty can do very much, and so can the king, but you'll pardon me if I cease to speak like a physician for once, and with an air of gravity am very ap- prehensive that I may anger the one, in being too complaisant to the other. You cannot call this pinning my faith to any man's sleeve : those that know me, are too well apprized of a quite con- trary tendency. As I never fliattered a man my- self, so 'tis my firm resolution never to be wheedled out of my real sentiments ; which are, that since it has been my good fortune to be educated ac-