that this single faculty, without one friend on earth to take its part and be a second, should dispute with a pair at once, is as if one poor bloodhound should engage with a couple of mastiffs;: or that a man should fight a gentleman and his lackey, or with a single rapier against sword and pistol: it is very foul play, and standers-by should interpose, so hard are the terms of this debate; but there is no help for it: these two fast friends can scarce be parted, and are seldom found asunder; they must rise and fall together. My lord Bacon used to say, very familiarly, "When I rise, my arises with me." I ask pardon for the rudeness of the allusion; but it is certain that the canon law is but the tail, the fag-end, or footman, of the civil, and, like vermin in rotten wood, rose in the church in the age of its corruption, and when it wanted physic to purge it.

But I am weary of proving so plain a point. To me it is clear beyond contradiction, that the antiquity and dignity of physic do give it the precedence of civil law and its friend. I could here very easily stop the mouths of ecclesiastical civilians, by an example or two of great authority; but I hope they willtake the hint, and save me the trouble: and for lay-professors, I will only say, he that is not convinced, has little sense, not only of religion (perhaps that is their least consideration), but of good manners and loyalty, and good fellowship. The blood of the de Medicis* flows in the best veins in Europe; and I know not how far any slight offered to the faculty may

* See the History of the House of Medicis. N.

exasperate the present king of France, or the grand duke, to a resentment prejudicial to our wines, and the public peace, and the present posture of affairs. All that love their country, and right good Florence, will perceive by this on which side of the argument they ought to appear.

And now, for the universal peace of mankind, I make the following rule, to be observed by all professors in each faculty, and their understrappers: I decree, that a doctor of physic shall take place of a doctor of laws; a surgeon, of an advocate; an apothecary, of a proctor of office; and a tooth-drawer, of a register in the court. I intended this for a parallel; but here it fails me, and the lines meet*.

I shall now only observe farther, that as the case seems desperate on the side of civilians in point of reason, so I hear they have another game to play, and are for appealing to authority; as I have known a schoolboy, fairly beaten at cuffs, run with a bloody nose to complain to his master. I am credibly informed, there is a design on foot to bring in heads of a bill in favour of civilians, next session of parliament: but how generous that sort of proceeding is, I leave the world to judge. I am but one; and will certainly oppose any such motion in my place; though, from the number of civilians in the house, I have reason to apprehend, it will be to little purpose. The college, a true alma mater, has dubbed most of us doctors, and has been more wise than christian

* Alluding to Dr. Sacheverell's mathematics in a sermon before the university of Oxford, wherein he makes two parallel lines meet in a centre.

N.

in her favours of that kind; for she has not given, hoping for nothing again.

But here I enter my protest against all designs that may any way prejudice so great and illustrious a body of men, as our college of physicians are; and I shall take care to draw out the substance of this argument, and present it, in short heads, to each member at a proper time; and not without some hopes that reason may weigh them.

In the mean time, I hope a worthy gentleman, a member of our house, will stand up on that occasion, and assert the rights of a faculty, which he has entered into, and does an honour to: it must be remembered to his credit, that, being equally skilled in physic and civil law, and perhaps in divinity as well as either, he chose to commence in medicine, having chiefly qualified himself for that noble faculty by repeated travels, and enriched his mind with many curious observations, which the world may, in time, expect incredible benefit from.

If any man thinks fit to reply to this argument, and rectify any mistakes in it; I desire him to preserve his temper, and debate the matter with the same coolness that I have done; that no blood may be drawn in the controversy, nor any reason given me to complain of “ civilis vulnera dextræ." As conviction chiefly engaged me on the side of physicians; so, in some measure, a sense of gratitude for a faculty, to which I owe the comforts of life, and perhaps life itself; having received from it unspeakable case in the two inveterate distempers of the spleen and the gout.

456

THE

LAST SPEECH AND DYING WORDS

OF

EBENEZER ELLISTON†,

WHO WAS EXECUTED ON THE SECOND OF MAY, 1722.

Published, at his desire, for the common good.

I

AM now going to suffer the just punishment for my crimes prescribed by the law of God and my country. I know it is the constant custom, that those who come to this place should have speeches made for them, and cried about in their own hearing, as they are carried to execution; and truly they are such speeches, that although our fraternity be an ignorant, illiterate people, they would make a man ashamed to have such nonsense and false English charged upon him, even when he is going to the gallows. They contain a pretended account of our birth and family, of the fact for which we are to die, of

* About the time that this speech was written, the town was much pestered with street-robbers; who, in a barbarous man ner, would seize on gentlemen, and take them into remote corners, and after they had robbed them, would leave them bound and gagged. It is remarkable, that this speech had so good an effect, that there have been very few robberies of that kind committed since.

F.

The parents of Ebenezer Elliston, who were rigid dissenters, had given him a good education, put him apprentice to a silk-weaver, and settled him in that profession, which he gradually exchanged for those of a fine gentleman, a gamester, and a housebreaker.

F.

our sincere repentance, and a declaration of our religion. I cannot expect to avoid the same treatment with my predecessors.

However, having had an education one or two degrees better than those of my rank and profession; I have been considering, ever since my commitment, what it might be proper for me to deliver upon this occasion.

And first. I cannot say from the bottom of my heart, that I am truly sorry for the offence I have given to God and the world; but I am very much so for the bad success of my villanies, in bringing me to this untimely end; for it is plainly evident that after having some time ago obtained a pardon from the crown, I again took up my old trade; my evil habits were so rooted in me, and I was grown so unfit for any other kind of employment. And therefore, although, in compliance with my friends, I resolved to go to the gallows after the usual manner, kneeling, with a book in my hand and my eyes lifted up; yet I shall feel no more devotion in my heart, than I have observed in my comrades, who have been drunk among common whores the very night before their execution. I can say farther, from my own knowledge, that two of my fraternity, after they had been hanged, and wonderfully came to life and made their escapes, as it sometimes happens, proved afterward the wickedest rogues I ever knew, and so continued until they were hanged again for good and all; and yet they had the impudence at both times they went to the gallows, to smite their breasts and lift up their eyes to Heaven all the way.