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 a rises with me." I ask pardon for the rudeness of the allusion; but it is certain that the canon law is but the tail, the fagend, 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 physick 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 physick 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 will take 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[1] flows in the best veins in Europe; and I know not how far any slight offered to the faculty may exasperate the present king of France, or the grand duke, to a resentment prejudicial to our wines,
- ↑ See the history of the house of Medicis.
