"He father, John Cheyne, practised medicine and surgery. would visit the poor as promptly as the rich, and his half-crown was as freely given to those who had no means of procuring food as his prescription." His uncle, John Cheyne, also of the same profession, acquired the name of "the friend of the poor.""The generation of the upright shall be blessed." Family estates and titles are but the types and shadows of such an inalienable heritage as this. The peerage of such men may be dormant, but will never be extinct.-The ambitious blood and maxims, and the high principles of worldly honour, were on the mother's side. His education, which it appears terminated at thirteen, was, though professedly liberal, of course, in all respects, imperfect. We find ourselves standing too near, in imagination, his melancholy tomb in Sherington church-yard, to sketch the ludicrous account of one of his schoolmasters, though it belongs to the defects of his education. Before he was sixteen he had begun to attend medical lectures in the University of Edinburgh. This he calls the "second false step in his education," as being premature. In 1795 he entered upon his duties as assistant-surgeon in the Royal Regiment of Artillery at Woolwich, which he discharged for about four years, when, dissatisfied with his prospects, he returned to Scotland, assisted his father, learnt lessons of more than professional wisdom from Sir Charles Bell (who, "as an example of diligence in study, could not be surpassed"); ultimately determined to practise as a physician, and, providentially, was led to select Dublin. In the latter end of 1809 he took up his position there, as a candidate for public favour, where he passed the summer, "neither expecting, nor indeed wishing, for rapid advancement, as what is easily acquired is little valued, and not unfrequently soon lost." We omit to notice other professional details, and merely add, that in obtaining the appointment of Physician-General to the Army in Ireland," he had fully attained the object of his ambition." The course of his prosperity was at last arrested by the failure of his health. Atossa, with that dark mythology which would make prosperity a curse, and not a privilege, might have introduced the rest of the story thus: εἰς δ ̓ ὑμᾶς ἐρῶ μῦθον, οὐδαμῶς ἐμαυτῆς οὖσ ̓ ἀδείμαντος, φίλοι, 4 Esch. Persæ. Scholf. 163-166. 66 In the year 1825, when Dr. Cheyne was about to enter on his forty-ninth year, a period which is often critical to those who are engaged in anxious business," he became affected with a species of nervous fever, brought on, or much increased, by the frequent failure of means in individual cases, for stemming the tide of a fatal disease then prevalent in Dublin. To this were added anxieties of another kind, until he became so weak, as to be in fact no longer fitted for such arduous duties. Two months' relaxation in England appeared to partially restore his lost strength, and he again returned to Dublin, to encounter one duty, which completed the downfall. "I found," he says, "one of my most esteemed professional friends, the father of fifteen children, labouring under a disease which ultimately proved fatal. He had awaited my return, in order to put himself under my care. His sufferings proved an incubus on my spirits, which strangled every cheerful thought. I now began to comprehend the nature of my own illness—a climacteric disease was forming, which ever since has been slowly executing its appointed mission." After a few more vain efforts, he relinquished his profession, crowned with honours (as significant to him as the votes of both houses of parliament to the successful patriot), which were conveyed in two letters expressing the deep sympathies of his professional brethren; one signed by forty-five of the most eminent physicians practising in Dublin, telling him of "their deepest sentiments of esteem for his private virtues, and respect for his exemplary professional character, proved whilst he occupied for many years the very first rank in his profession:" the other, signed in behalf of the apothecaries in Dublin. A glorious type, surely, of another verdict, "Well done, good and faithful servant. He took up his abode in the village of Sherington, in Buckinghamshire, where he continued to heap up materials to justify the formula of acquittal before the future Judge: "I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me." Three mornings in the week he went to a neighbouring cottage, and saw the sick villagers, giving advice and dispensing medicines, which were prepared in his own house. On the fourth morning, the sick came to him from distant parts of the county, for whom he prescribed. ἄνδρα δ ̓ ὠφελεῖν ἀφ ̓ ὧν ἔχοι τε καὶ δύναιτο, κάλλιστος πόνων. 5 Edip. Tyr. 314, 315. Brunck. The above records have been gathered from his own autobiographical sketch. The remainder is told by the editor, we presume one of his children. In a very few months after he had made his first corrections to the manuscript of these Essays, having already lost the sight of one eye, and being otherwise reduced to a wreck, he died, January 31, 1836. We learn from the following unfinished letter to a friend, that what was the true secret of his life of honour, was, also, the secret of his death of peace : "On a bed of languishing from which I know not that I shall ever rise, I write once more... to tell you the condition of my mind. I am humbled to the dust by the consideration that there is not one action of my busy life which will bear the eye of a holy God. But when I reflect that on the invitation of the Redeemer (Matt. xi. 28), and that I have accepted that invitation; and moreover that my conscience testifies that I earnestly desire to have my will in all things conformed to the will of God, I have peace-I have promised rest― promised by Him in whom was found no guile in his mouth." Once more, just before his decease, he took up his pen-so far as we know, for the last time--and we give what proceeded from it, without mutilation or abbreviation :· 66 "DIRECTIONS RELATIVE TO MY BURIAL, ETC. My body, attended only by my sons, is to be carried to the grave by six of the villagers, very early on the fourth or fifth morning after my decease. I would have no tolling of bells, if it can be avoided. The ringers may have an order for bread, to the amount usually given upon such occasions; if they get money they will spend it in the alehouse; and I would have them told, that in life or death I would by no means give occasion for sin. My funeral must be as inexpensive as possible let there be no attempt at a funeral sermon. I would pass away without notice from a world which, with all its pretensions, is empty. Tinnit, inane est.' "Let not my family mourn for one whose trust is in Jesus. By respectful and tender care of their mother, by mutual affection, and by irreproachable conduct, my children will best show their regard for my memory. 66 My decease may be announced in the Irish newspapers in the following words :-Died, at Sherington, Newport Pagnel, Bucks, on the day of, Dr. Cheyne, late Physician-General to the Forces in Ireland.' Not one word more. No panegyric. "I believe there is a vault belonging to the manse, but if it be under the church I should not wish my body to be laid in it, but in the churchyard, two or three yards from the wicket which opens from the path through the fields. I pointed out the spot to and chose it as a fit place for a rustic monument, without marble or sculpture; a column, such as is represented in the accompanying sketch, about seven or eight feet high. On the column, on hard, undecomposing stone, are to be engraven the following texts :-St. John iii. 16, For God so loved the world,' &c.; St. Matthew xi. 28, 29, 30, Come unto me all ye that labour,' &c.; Hebrews xii. 4, Follow peace with all men,' &c. "As these texts are meant to rouse the insensible passenger, they must be distinctly seen. The following inscription is to be engraven on the opposite side of the column : ""Reader! the name, profession, and age of him whose body lies beneath, are of little importance; but it may be of great importance to you to know, that, by the grace of God, he was brought to look to the Lord Jesus, as the only Saviour of sinners; and that this 'looking to Jesus' gave peace to his soul. "Reader! pray to God that you may be instructed in the Gospel, and be assured that God will give his Holy Spirit, the only teacher of true wisdom, to them that ask Him.' "If any objection be made to the spot pointed out for interment of my body, let some other be chosen, where the inscription on the column to be erected over me may be seen with advantage. The monument is for the benefit of the living, and not in honour of the dead. "I wish the inscription to be preserved, and leave this to my children and my children's children." These directions, says the editor, were scrupulously attended to; and the monument which marks the spot where Dr. Cheyne lies buried, besides the texts and inscription, bears only the initials, J. C. Few efforts of our own pen have given us keener enjoyment than this endeavour to rescue from oblivion, and hand down to posterity, the name and the writings of a great and good man. "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well." What a glorious reward for one to whose body and mind, for the greater part of life, the stern demands of duty had refused the sweets of calm repose by day or by night, to realize the promise, "there remaineth a rest for the people of God!" And what a glorious change for one whose earthly sun had, at its setting, shone upon all but sightless orbs, to find himself where his "sun would no more go down, neither the moon withdraw itself." Or, in the words of the divinest poet of Greece, who thus marries the same thoughts to immortal verse :— ἴσον δὲ νύκτεσσι αἰεὶ, ἴσα δ' ἐν ἁμέραις ἅλιον ἔχοντες ἀπονέστερον PINDAR, Ol. 2. ART. IV.-1. Sanctus Thomas Cantuariensis. Ed. J. A. GILES. Oxford: J. H. Parker. London: Dolman. 1845-6. 8 vols. 8vo. [I. II. Lives. III. IV. Letters of Becket and others. V. VI. Letters of Foliot and others. VII. VIII. Works of Herbert of Bosham.] 2. The Life and Letters of Thomas à Becket, now first gathered from the Contemporary Historians. By the Rev. J. A. GILES, D.C.L., late Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Whittaker. 1846. 3. The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England. By JOHN, LORD CAMPBELL, A.M., F.R.S.E. First Series. 3 vols. 8vo. London: Murray. 1845. (Continued from No. XI., Article II.) THE archbishop was accompanied in his flight from Northampton by two monks and a servant. He himself was disguised in the dress of a monk, and assumed the name of Brother Dearman. After having ridden about five-and-twenty miles, in a night of violent storm, the party rested for some hours at a village1; and early on the following day they reached the city of Lincoln. Thence they descended the Witham, about forty miles, to a lonely hermitage, belonging to the monks of Sempringham2; and at length, travelling by an unusual route, and for the most part during the night, the archbishop reached Eastrey, a manor near Sandwich, the property of Christ Church in Canterbury. At this place he remained a week, waiting for the means of passing over to the continent; and we are told that the chamber which he occupied had an opening into the church, through which he was able, without being seen, to share in the service, to receive the kiss of peace, and at the end of the offices to bestow 1 Called in the printed books Grabam or Graham. The position does not agree with that of Grantham; perhaps Gretton, in the north of Northamptonshire, may be meant. 2 This and other circumstances relating to Sempringham bring St. Thomas across the path of one of the Littlemore Cyclics, who introduces his story as an episode into the Life of St. Gilbert. The hermitage is called Haverolot in the books. |