RADCLIFFE. 129 in-law, I shall ever take pride in being among the number of your friends, who am, " Sir, " Your most obedient servant, John Radcliffe." After this disappointment, it is related that, notwithstanding the urgent entreaties of his friends, lie gave up all thoughts of marriage : though an idle story is told of a lady of quality having fallen in love with him, and feigned herself sick, that she might the more frequently enjoy the opportunities of his society and conversation ; that Radcliffe very ungallantly laid the whole affair before the lady's father ; and that, in consequence, she was almost immediately married to a nobleman who had been before in vain soliciting the honour of her hand. In the month of December, 1694, Queen Mary was seized with the small-pox, and her sickness assumed the most alarming symptoms. Her Ma- jesty's physicians were at their wit's end, and it was decided by the Privy Council to send for Radcliffe, to avert, if possible, the calamity with which the nation was threatened. At first sight of the prescriptions, without having even entered the chamber of the royal patient, he exclaimed, with his characteristic rudeness, that " her Majesty was a dead woman, for it was impossible to do any good in her case, where remedies had been given that were so contrary to the nature of the dis- temper : yet he would endeavour to do all that lay in him to give her some ease." For a short time there were some faint hopes of K
