Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/156

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138 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. Such solid proofs of genuine and unostentatious benevolence will be allowed to have compensated for many a rude speech : overbearing and hasty in his temper, he possessed at the same time many redeeming qualities ; and it should be recollected, in considering his rough conduct towards his pro- fessional brethren,, that he had been spoiled by an uninterrupted course of successful practice, and that the habits of jovial indulgence, in which he was countenanced by the society of persons of the first quality of that period, would naturally tend to make him less circumspect in his manners and con- versation than the decorum of modern days would tolerate. Notwithstanding these numerous acts of liber- ality, his professional gains enabled him to pur- chase various estates ; in 1708, he added the manor of Linton to his paternal inheritance in Yorkshire, and bought another in Northampton- shire, of the value of 300Z. per annum. In the same year he purchased also the perpetual advowson of the living of Headborne- Worthy, in Hampshire, which he bestowed upon Mr. Bingham, Fellow of University College, Oxford, a person of great learning and merit. The dangerous illness of Prince George of Den- mark caused the queen to forget the former dis- courteous levity of Radcliffe, and he was accord- ingly once more applied to, and admitted into the royal presence ; but his skill proved unavailing, and the prince died of a dropsy, consequent upon an asthma of long standing. On the doctor's arrival in Bath, where the prince was drinking the waters, Pittis says the queen told him, " That no