Dec. 25. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



599 



DR. WALKER AND THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 



The accompanying letter, from a singular person 

 who forty years ago was a London celebrity, may 

 noj; be uninteresting on the present occasion, when 

 every anecdote relating to the great Duke attracts 

 attention. I shall feel obliged if you will give it 

 insertion in " N. & Q. ;" and I shall also be thank- 

 ful if any of your correspondents can furnish any 

 biographical notices of Dr. Walker.* He practised 

 in AValbrook, and was a curiosity in his day. He 

 wore the rigid Quaker costume, spoke much in the 

 style of his letter, was a zealous vaccinator, went 

 out to Alexandria with Sir Ralph Abercrombie's 

 expedition, and was in some way acknowledged as 

 on the medical staff of the army, and practised 

 vaccination on a liberal scale in the expectation of 

 equally protecting the soldiery from ophthalmia 

 and the plague. He founded a museum, which he 

 called the " E Donis Museum," as it was not to 

 contain any article which was not a gift. As it 

 may be imagined, some queer things were con- 

 tributed : amongst others which figured in his 

 catalogue, was a rusty buckle worn at the waist- 

 band of Harry VHI. ; a "holy farthing;" a 

 farthing with a hole in it ; a paring of the hoof of 

 the cow that first propagated cow-pox, &c. The 

 ■catalogue I once possessed of it is yet in existence : 

 it is a curiosity. 



*' John Walker, M.D., to the Editor of the 'Sunday 

 Tlmes.^ 



•'Bond Court, Walbrook, 15 x, 1828. 



'• Friend ! — In the extensive range of the readers 

 of thy hebdomadal tidings, some of my professional 

 friends, I mean sectarian as well as medical, &c. , are 

 included. From both, I received the information of 

 thy honourable mention of a very courteous, conde- 

 scending, attention of the chairman, the Duke of Wel- 

 lington, to a piece of enthusiasm, on my part, on the 

 founding of King's College, London, at the Free- 

 masons' Tavern, on the day of the Estival Solstice. 



" On the memorable day of founding of that aca- 

 demic institution, under the modest or unassuming 

 title of College, — a college for general education. In 

 which one department is proposed for the younger 

 pupils, and one for the elder students ; In which a pro- 

 vision Is contemplated for the instruction of casual 

 attendants, as well as of residential students ; in which 

 the progress of the pupil, not the privilege of the pro- 

 fessor, not the power of the institution to confer degrees 

 as in imiversities, is the professed object of the eminent 

 characters who have founded the great national esta- 

 blishment — the man at the head of the ministerial 

 executive of the greatest empire of the world, conde- 

 scended to come down to the meeting, and to give it 

 his countenance, his counsel, his support. In thy 

 account of the memorable meeting at the Freemasons' 



[*■ Dr. Epps has written a Life of Dr. Walker, which 

 may frequently be met with on the book -stalls of the 

 metropolis. — Ed.] 



Tavern, Lincoln's Inn Fields, thou sayest, « Dr. Walker, 

 a member of the Society of Friends, stepped on the 

 platform, and^ after pressing the Duke of Wellington's 

 hand, which Was courteously extended, the Doctor 

 addressed the meeting,' &c. 



" A sort of growl of Impatience from behind the chair 

 prevented me from fully expressing my ideas ; or I 

 might have called aloud on the chairman to follow the 

 example of an elder brother. Thou, Arthur, Duke of 

 Wellington, I remember, hast, heretofore, pressed that 

 hand (which thou kindly extendest to me) on the thorax 

 of a fallen tyrant at the gate of Seringapatam, to try 

 whether he yet respired. After all thy martial achieve- 

 ments in two different quarters of the world, I wish 

 thee to go on, ' conquering and to conquer,' in that 

 warfare into which thou art now enlisted, — the strife 

 of Michael and his angels against the Dragon and his 

 angels. May ye not cease from your labours till the 

 galling chain of African bondage, heretofore connecting 

 the opposite hemispheres, and now happily rent iu 

 twain at its centre and sunken in the ocean, be broken, 

 in pieces in all its yet remaining extremities. Remem- 

 ber, though there may still be duties for thee to perform 

 beyond De Gama's Cape of Storms ; and as a noble 

 relative, by liberal remuneration of the Bramins, op- 

 posed barriers in Hindostan, more extensively than 

 other individual against the spotted plague, which has 

 heretofore ravaged all the regions of the earth; and by 

 ordinance most decisive, as Governor- General of India, 

 from his palace of oriental splendour at Calcutta, sup- 

 pressed a usage more atrocious than the rites of Moloch 

 — seeing that there was not any superstition mingled 

 in the mode of Indian infanticide, as in the sacrificing 

 of children by certain tribes in Africa to their idols, on 

 commencing their expeditions ; so, from the compara- 

 tively smoky caverns of Westminster, in Christian com- 

 passion, if chivalric feeling be not sufficiently stimulant 

 to the deed of relieving the female sex consigned to de- 

 struction, let the mandate go forth that the Suttees be 

 hereafter suppressed — that the Bramins be compelled 

 to abandon the murderous sacrifice. — Farewell." 



James Cornish. 



ROBIN HOOD S HILL. 



The following song was formerly well known in 

 the district to which it refers, and is taken from a 

 manuscript copy in my possession, written in the 

 latter part of last century. The orthography is 

 the same exactly. 



The peasantry pronounce it as it is above spelt, 

 but its proper pronunciation and name is " Robin's 

 Wood Hill." TFis always sounded in Gloucester- 

 shire as H. The "prattling rill" mentioned is 

 strongly impregnated with iron, great quantities 

 of which were formerly dug here for the Glou- 

 cester forges. 



Ye bards who extol the gay vallies and glades, 

 The jessamine bowers, and amorous shades, 

 Who prospects so rural can boast at your will, 

 Yet never once mention'd sweet " Robin Hood's 

 Hill." 



