FROM ERASMUS LEWIS, ESQ. SIR, July 29, 1714. I HAVE yours of the 27th. I write this in the morning, for I go in the evening to Kensington. If I am well received, I will continue my homage; if not, they shall hear of me no more. Where shall I write to you again for I cannot stir from hence till the 16th of August at soonest. Nothing could please me more than to pass a few months with you at Abercothy *; but I am yet uncertain whether I shall go there at all. All I am sure of is, that I will go out of town to some place for some time; first to the Bath, for I cannot bear staying in this room. I want physick to help my digestion of these things, though the 'squire t is kinder to me than before. I am not mortified at what you tell me of Mercurialis; only I would know, whether any disrespectful conduct of mine has brought it upon me; or whether it is only a general dislike of me, because I am not a man of parts, or because I am in other interests? They would not give the Dragon the least quarter, excepting only a pension, if he will work journeywork by the quarter. I have long thought his parts decayed, and am more of that opinion than ever. The new commission is not yet named. Would not the world have roared against the Dragon for such a thing? Mercurialis entertained Stanhope, Craggs, Pulteney, and Walpole. What if the Dragon had done so? The duke of Somerset dines to day with the fraternity at Greenwich, with Withers. Nobody goes out with the Dragon; but many will sit very loose. Some say the new men will 1 * In Caermarthenshire, of which county Mr. Lewis was a native. B. + William Bromley, esq., secretary of state. B. be Lexington, Wyndham, Strangeways, sir John Stonehouse, and Campion. DEAR SIR, FROM MR. BARBER. July 31, 1714. Six at night. You I AM heartily sorry I should be the messenger of so ill news, as to tell you the queen is dead, or dying: if alive, it is said, she cannot live till morning. may easily imagine the confusion we are all in on this sad occasion. I had set out yesterday to wait on you, but for this sad accident, and should have brought letters from lord Bolingbroke and lady Masham, to have prevented your going. Pray do not go, for I will come to you when I see how things stand. My lord Shrewsbury is made lord treasurer, and every thing is ready for the proclaiming the duke of Bruns. wick king of England. The parliament will sit to morrow, and choose a new speaker; for sir Thomas* is in Wales. For God's sake do not go; but either come to Lon. don, or stay till I come to you. SIR, FROM ERASMUS LEWIS, ESQ. Kensington, Saturday, July 31, 1714. six in the evening. AT the time I am writing, the breath is said to be in the queen's nostrils; but that is all. No hope left of her recovery. Lord Oxford is in council; so are the whigs. We expect the demise to night. There is a prospect, that the Elector will meet with * Hanmer. H. no opposition; the French having no fleet, nor being able to put one out soon. Lady Masham did receive me kindly. Poor woman, I heartily pity her. Now, is not the Dragon born under a happy planet, to be out of the scrape? Dr. Arbuthnot thinks you should come up. You will not wonder if all my country resolutions are in suspense. Pray come up, to see how things go. FROM CHARLES FORD, ESQ. London, July 31, 1714. I DO not doubt but you have heard the queen is dead, and perhaps we may be so unfortunate before this comes to you; but at present she is alive, and much better than could have been expected. I am just come from Kensington, where I have almost spent these two whole days. I am in great haste: but, till dinner comes up, I will write to you, and give you as full an account as I can of her illness. Her disorder began between eight and nine yesterday morning. The doctors ordered her head to be shaved; and while it was doing, she fell into a fit of convulsion, or as they thought an apoplexy. This lasted near two hours, and she was speechless, and showed little sign of life during that time; but came. to herself upon being blooded. As soon as she recovered, my lord Bolingbroke went to her, and told her the privy council was of opinion, it would be for the public service to have the duke of Shrewsbury made lord treasurer. She immediately consented, and gave the staff into the duke's hands. The great seal was put to the patent by four o'clock. She continued ill the whole day. In the evening I spoke to Dr. Arbuthnot, and he told me he did think her distemper was desperate. Radcliffe was sent for to Carshalton about noon, by order of council; but said he had taken physick, and could not come. In all probability he had saved her life; for. I am told the late lord Gower had been often in the same condition with the gout in his head; and Radcliffe kept him alive many years after *. This morn *In the account that is given of Dr. Radcliffe, in the Biographia Britannica, it is said that the queen was struck with death the 28th of July that Dr. Radcliffe's name was not once mentioned, either by the queen or any lord of the council; only that lady Masham sent to him without their knowledge, two hours before the queen's death.' In this letter from Mr. Ford to Dean Swift, which is dated the 31st of July, it is said, that the queen's disorder began between eight and nine the morning before, which was the 30th; and that about noon, the same day, Radcliffe was sent for by an order of council. These accounts being contradictory, the reader will probably want some assistance to determine what were the facts. As to the time when the queen was taken ill, Mr. Ford's account is most likely to be true, as he was upon the spot, and in a situation which insured him the best intelligence. As to the time when the doctor was sent for, the account in the Biographia is manifestly false; for if the doctor had been sent for only two hours before the queen's death, which happened incontestibly on the first of August, Mr. Ford could not have mentioned the fact on the 31st of July, when his letter was dated. Whether Radcliffe was sent for by lady Masham, or by order of council, is therefore the only point to be determined. That he was generally reported to have been sent for by order of council, is certain; but a letter is printed in the Biographia, said to have been written by the doctor to one of his friends, which, supposing it to be genuine, will prove, that the doctor maintained the contrary. the fifth of August, four days after the queen's death, a member of the house of commons, a friend of the doctor's, who was also a membef, and one who always voted on the same side, moved, that he might be summoned to attend in his place, in order to be censured for not attending on her majesty. Upon this occasion the doctor is said to have written the following etter to another of his friends. ་ DEAR SIR, On Carshalton, Aug. 7, 1714. "I COULD not have thought, that so old an acquaintance, and so good a friend, as sir John always professed himself, ing, when I went there before nine, they told me she was just expiring. That account continued above three hours, and a report was carried to town, that she was actually dead. She was not prayed for, even at her own chapel at St. James's; and what is more infamous, stocks arose three per cent. upon it in the city. would have made such a motion against me. God knows my will to do het inajesty any service has ever got the start of my ability; and I have nothing that gives me greater anxiety and trouble than the death of that great and glorious princess. I must do that justice to the physicians that attended her in her illness, from a sight of the method that was taken for her preservation by Dr Mead, as to declare nothing was omitted for her preservation; but the people about her, the plagues of Egypt fall on them, put it out of the power of physick to be of any benefit to her. I know the nature of attending crowned heads in their last moments too well to be fond of waiting upon them, without being sent for by proper authority. You have heard of pardons being signed for physicians, before a sovereign's demise; however, ill as I was, I would have went to the queen in a horselitter, had either` her majesty, or those in commission next to her, commanded me so to do. You may tell sir John as much, and assure him from me, that his zeal for her majesty will not excuse his ill usage of a friend, who has drank many a hundred bottles with him; and cannot, even after this breach of a good understanding that ever was preserved between us, but have a very good esteem for him. I must also desire you to thank Tom Chapman for his speech in my behalf, since I hear it is the first he ever made, which is taken more kindly; and to acquaint him, that I should be glad to see him at Carshalton, since I fear (for so the gout tells me) that we shall never more sit in the house of commons together. I am, &c. "JOHN RADCLIFFE."' But whatever credit may now be paid to this letter, or however it may now be thought to justify the doctor's refusal to attend her majesty, he became at that time so much the object of popular resentment, that he was apprehensive of being assassinated; as appears by the following letter di rected to Dr. Mead, at Child's coffeehouse in St. Paul's Churchyard. "DEAR SIR, Carshalton, Aug. 31714. "I GIVE you, and your brother, many thanks, for the favour you intend me to morrow; and if there is any other friend, that will be agreeable to you, he shall meet with a hearty |