148 THE RISE OF MEDICAL SOCIETIES CHAP. 



were ready to sell their honours at a paltry price to any 

 man. 1 



In these disorderly proceedings Fothergill and Huck took 

 no part. The matter was now to be put to a legal test, the 

 opinions of Sir F. Norton and other counsel giving the licen- 

 tiates reason to think that on application to the Court of 

 King's Bench they would be declared fellows of the college. 

 With the exception of a few who did not see their way to enter 

 on the lawsuit, the licentiates subscribed liberally to carry it 

 forward ; none offered less than 50, some gave 100, and 

 Hunter and Fothergill 500 each. Having ascertained the 

 names of the new censors of the college, the licentiates brought 

 a suit against them for acting as such when illegally elected. 

 The judges held the election valid, but Lord Mansfield and 

 Mr. Justice Aston both expressed the opinion that duly 

 qualified licentiates ought to be admitted as members of the 

 community of the college, the former advising the college to 

 review its statutes and attend to the design of its institution. 

 Encouraged by these opinions, twenty-four licentiates sent 

 identical letters to the college on June 25, 1768, as follows : 

 " GENTLEMEN Apprehending myself entitled by law to be a 

 member of the college or commonalty of the faculty of physic 

 in London, I do hereby request that you will admit me injto 

 the commonalty and fellowship of the said college, and am 

 now ready to wait upon you for that purpose. I am with 

 due respect, Gentlemen, your most obedient servant." They 

 received a brief reply declining to admit them, as not entitled 

 to be members. 



Fothergill and Archer now undertook to try to compel the 



1 Sir W. Browne, whose small figure, wig, spy-glass and muff marked him 

 as a singular and pedantic physician, was at this time seventy-five years old. 

 The battle with the doughty Scots led him, it seems, to apostrophise himself, 

 from his favourite Horace whose poems, comes vice vitczque dulcis et utilis, 

 were by his will buried with him : 



" Integer vitae, scelerisque purus 

 Non timet Scott obloquium neque tram, 

 Nee venenatis gravidam sagittis 

 FUSCE, pharetram. 



Pone te Scotis ubi nulla campis 

 Arbor a^stiva recreatur aura : 

 Dulce ridentem comites te habebunt 

 Dulce loquentem." 



See his Oratiuncula Coll. Med. Land., 1767, in which he rails at the licentiates : 

 they were wasps, they were the tail of the college no term of derision was 

 too bad for them. The licentiates do not seem to have vied with the college 

 president in dignity of language. 



