In
simoniacal purchases he thinks his soul goes in the bargain, and is
loath to come by promotion so dear: yet his worth at length advances
him, and the price of his own merit buys him a living. He is no base
grater of his tithes, and will not wrangle for the odd egg. The lawyer
is the only man he hinders, by whom he is spited for taking up quarrels.
He is a main pillar of our church, though not yet dean or canon, and his
life our religion's best apology. His death is the last sermon, where,
in the pulpit of his bed, he instructs men to die by his example.[10]
A MERE DULL PHYSICIAN.
His practice is some business at bedsides, and his speculation an
urinal: he is distinguished from an empiric, by a round velvet cap and
doctor's gown, yet no man takes degrees more superfluously, for he is
doctor howsoever. He is sworn to Galen and Hippocrates, as university
men to their statutes, though they never saw them; and his discourse is
all aphorisms, though his reading be only Alexis of Piedmont,[11] or the
Regiment of Health.[12] The best cure he has done is upon his own purse,
which from a lean sickliness he hath made lusty, and in flesh. His
learning consists much in reckoning up the hard names of diseases, and
the superscriptions of gallipots in his apothecary's shop, which are
ranked in his shelves and the doctor's memory. He is, indeed, only
languaged in diseases, and speaks Greek many times when he knows not. If
he have been but a bystander at some desperate recovery, he is slandered
with it though he be guiltless; and this breeds his reputation, and that
his practice, for his skill is merely opinion.
Pages:
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202