“Meric Casaubon entered at Christ-church; he soon became a student there; he took both his degrees in arts; he published several useful works in literature and theology; he was preferred by Archbishop Laud; he was created Doctor of Divinity by the order of Charles I. Though deprived of his livings, he refused to accept any employment under Cromwell, when an immediate present of nearly four hundred pounds, an annual pension of three hundred pounds, and the valuable books of his father, which had been purchased by James I., and then deposited in the Royal Library, were proffered to him at different times. He recovered his ecclesiastical preferment after the Restoration; he lived prosperously and studied diligentlv, till he had reached his seventy-second year; and by his learning, affability, charity, and piety, he proved himself worthy of all the attentions which had been shewn to him by the parent who loved him, the university which had educated him, and the princes who had succoured him.”
*⁎* In the folio edition of Casauboni Epistolae there are fine portraits of Isaac and Meric, also the filial vindications of the former by the latter, reprinted from the original pamphlets. It appears (from a note by the Parker Society) that Isaac Casaubon’s manuscripts found a home in Archbishop Marsh’s Library in Dublin.
II. De Mayerne.[1]
Louis Turquet, a learned Protestant of Lyons, with his wife, Louise, daughter of Antoine Le Maçon, fled from the St. Bartholomew massacre to Geneva. He called himself De Mayerne from a country house which he acquired in the neighbourhood of Geneva. His son Theodore (named after the great Beza) was born at Mayerne, 28th September 1573.
Theodore Turquet de Mayerne received his early education in Geneva, and then studied at Heidelberg. He chose the medical profession, for which he was educated at Montpellier, where he took his Bachelor’s degree (M.B.) in 1596, and the degree of M.D. in 1597. He is said to have come to Paris immediately thereafter. Certainly he obtained eminence in that metropolis at an early date as a physician and a lecturer. He was an accomplished chemist; and his introduction of chemical remedies into his medical practice brought upon him the enmity of the Faculty of Paris, who regarded him as an innovator and an empiric. He, however, obtained the countenance and possessed the confidence of a veteran reformer in medicine, Joseph Duchesne (known by the Latin name of Quercitanus), physician to Henri IV. The king favoured De Mayerne in spite of the Medical Faculty, and appointed him, in 1600, physician to the Due de Rohan, ambassador or envoy to Germany and Italy. In 1603 one of his opponents published a book entitled “Apologia pro medicinà Hippocratis et Galeni contra Mayernium et Quercitanum.” To this attack Mayerne, in the same year, printed a reply with the title, “Apologia in quâ videre est, inviolatis Hippocratis et Galeni legibus, remedia chemicè praeparata tutò usurpari posse.” The Faculty, by an interdict, now excluded him from their fraternity. He ceased to lecture but continued to practise, and was enrolled among the king’s physicians.
The office of First Physician (premier medecin) to the King was open to him on the death of Du Laurens. There was, however, a condition annexed, namely, that he should abjure the Protestant religion. Cardinal Du Perron undertook to convert him, but failed to make the slightest impression. Notwithstanding this, Henri IV., being convinced of his pre-eminent claims, would have given him the appointment, but was prevented by the Queen, Marie de Medicis. In 1606 Du Mayerne sold his office of physician-in-ordinary and came to England. He was immediately made physician to Anne, Queen Consort of England. He was invited to Oxford, and on 8th April 1606 was incorporated as M.D. “with more than ordinary solemnity.” But probably, too, he was induced to return to France, to a king who had already profited by his skill. On the assassination of the gallant monarch in 1610, our King James recalled him to England by letters under his own hand, and sent a messenger to conduct him. It is said that the widowed Queen of France endeavoured to change his religion and to retain his services, and, according to one authority, this was the date of Cardinal Du Perron’s attack upon his faith.
On his arrival in England, a new patent as royal physician was granted to him. Among our State papers there is a letter from Dr. Mayerne to Sir Thomas Windebank, dated 6th June 1611, in which he “asks what ceremonies there are on taking the oath — hopes there will be no expense thereon, his patent having cost him enough already.” On the following June 18, there is a memorandum of a grant of £200 to Dr. Th. Mayerne “for charges in removing himself and his family out of France.” His name appears pretty often in State Papers and Patent-Rolls, sometimes in grants of pensions for himself and his wife. The learned Casaubon, with whom he was intimate, spoke with envy of his fortune in money matters; but he exag-
- ↑ See Wood’s “Athenae Oxon:” (Fasti), anno 1606; “The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London,” by William Munk, M.D., Vol. I.; and Haag, “La France Protestante.”
