for I could never know no thynge of no maner of matter butt only by them, and they wolde cawse me wrett full incypyently to ye prior of London when he was in ye tower before he was putt to exicuyon. for ye which I trustt yor mastershepp hath pardonyd me, for god knoweth I was keppt in prison straytly, and glad I was to wrett att theyr request, but I wrott nothyng that I thought shold be agenst my prince nor you nor no other man. I pray god that you may provyde a good prior for that place of London, for truly there be many wylfull and obstynatt yowng men that stondeth to much in their owne consaytt and wyll nott be reformyd butt playth ye chyldryn, and a good prior wolde so serve them lyke chyldryn. News I have to wrett to you butt I yntende to be with ou shortly. for I am half wery off this baryn contry, as Jesu Chryst knowth, who ever keppe you in helthe and honor. a myle from Edynborough, the fyrst day off Apryll, by the hand of yor poer skoler and servantt,--Andrew Boorde Preest." Literary physicians have, as a rule, not prospered as medical practitioners. The public harbour towards them the same suspicious and unfavourable prejudices as they do to literary barristers. A man, it is presumed, cannot be a master of two trades at the same time, and where he professes to carry on two it is usually concluded that he understands neither. To display the injustice of such views is no part of this writer's work, for the task is in better hands--time and experience, who are yearly adding to the cases that support the converse proposition that if a man is really a proficient in one subject, the fact is of itself a reason for believing him a master of a second. Still, the number of brilliant writers who have enrolled themselves in the medical fraternity is remarkable. If they derived no benefit from their order, they have at least generously conferred lustre upon it. Goldsmith--though no one can say on what his claim to the title of doctor rested, and though in his luckless attempts to get medical employment he underwent even more humiliation and disgrace than fell to his lot as the drudge of Mrs. Griffiths--is one of the most pleasant associations that our countrymen have in connection with the history of "the Faculty." Smollett, like Goldsmith, tried ineffectually to escape from literary drudgery to the less irksome and more profitable duties that surround the pestle and mortar. Of Garth, Blackmore, Arbuthnot, and Akenside, notice has already been taken. Anything like a complete enumeration of medical men who have made valuable contributions to _belles lettres_ would fill a volume, by the writing of which very little good would be attained. By no means the least of them was Armstrong, whose portrait Thomson introduced into the "Castle of Indolence."