the "sick man," and the "drugs," which his friends the apothecaries were so ready to supply, would have seened extraordinary enough to us. The poet tells us the doctor's study was but "little in the Bible," and that though a "perfect practitioner," the ground of his scientific knowledge was astronomy, i.e., astrology; the "better part of medicine," as Roger Bacon calls it. In dealing with his patients he was guided by "natural magic." his To this practice Chaucer alludes in another of poems, the "House of Fame." "And clerks eke, which con well, All this magic naturell, That craftily do her intents, To make a man be whole or sick." So that in spite of what appears to us the charlatanry in his make up, the doctor was supposed to be a person of importance in the eyes of his fellow pilgrims, with quite the standing of an accredited medical man of to-day, is evidenced by the manner in which mine host Bailly addresses him. Master Bailly was no particular respecter of persons, indeed, on the contrary, he was somewhat of a Philistine; yet he was all It is as "Sir" respect to this man of medicine. It is as Doctor of Physic, the host addresses him; also declaring him to be a "proper man," and like a prelate. After the story of chicanery related by the Canon's Yeoman, it is to the physician he looks to tell a tale of "honest matter." his bearing towards him throughout. Such is The doctor's contribution to the "Canterbury Tales," too, is of a serious, sober kind, in keeping with his character; and concludes with some sound moral advice. Therefore, whatever foibles he may have, the "doctor of physic" is presented to us as a sterling gentleman, no unworthy predecessor of those who to-day, on more modern lines, still follow in his footsteps. The Doctors Shakespeare knew. By A. H. WALL. "O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies In herbs, plants, shrubs, and their true qualities. -Romeo and Juliet. "By medicine life may be prolong'd."-Cymbeline V. 5. N Walckenaer's "Memoirs of Madame de IN Sévigné," and in the amusing, interesting volume which Gaston Boissier devoted to her works and letters, we have glimpses of the medical profession in France, which show us it was in her time and country, just what it was in England in the same century when it was known to Shakespeare. For one more or less genuine physician there were thousands of charlatans and quacks, and the contempt which our great dramatic poet frequently expresses in his works for medical practitioners must, in fairness, be regarded as applicable to the latter, not to the former. In 1884, an American writer on this subject (Dr. Rush Field, in his "Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare") strove to show that our great philosophic poet and playwright's opinion of all the medical practitioners was a low one. "He uses them frequently," he says, "as a tool by which deaths are produced through the means of poison, and generally treats them with. contempt." That he might fairly do this, and that in doing it he rather displayed respect and regard for the genuine, more or less scientific professors of the healing art, can be very readily demonstrated by anyone at all familiar with his plays. But to return to Madame de Sévigné. At a time when she was growing old, when her letters speak so sadly of the dying condition of Cardinal de Retz at Commercy, of Madame de la Fayette's being consumed by slow fever, and La Roche confined to his armchair by gout, of Corbinelle's threatened insanity, and of his taking potable gold" as a remedy for headache, she writes also of small-pox and other fevers having permanently settled at Versailles and SaintGermain, where the King and Queen were attacked, and ladies and gentlemen of the Court were decimated, and cases of apoplexy and rheumatism were rapidly increasing in every direction. Fashionable folk, used up with pleasure-making, sick through disappointed ambition, fidgetting without motive, agitating without aim, tainted with morbid fancies and suspicion," found themselves in the doctor's hands, and were far more ready to select practitioners who promised magically swift and easy cures, than those who spoke of slow and gradual recovery by means which were neither painless nor pleasurable. "Everybody," says Boissur, "women included, battled with one another to possess marvellous secrets whereby obstinate complaints should be immediately cured. Madame Fouquet applied a plaster to the dying Queen, which cured her, to the great scandal of the Faculty unable to save her; and the Princess de Tarente served out drugs to all her people at Vitre. Madame Sévigné wrote of her as "the best doctor in the upper classes; she has rare and valuable compounds of which she gives us three pinches with prodigious effect." When writing to her daughter, she begs her not to neglect taking such medicines as "cherry water," "extract of periwinkles," "viper-broth," "uric acid," and "powdered crab's-eyes." She says the extract of periwinkles "endowed Madame de Grignam with a second youth." Writing to her daughter, "If you use it, when you re-appear so |