suddenly in 1641, while on a visit to Oxford, and in the centuries which have succeeded he has not been displaced in the front rank of refined and deeply versed Latin scholars and poets. It would be a matter of considerable difficulty to make a complete list of literary doctors, but enough has perhaps been written to show that they are no small band so far as numbers go, and that their influence in the world of books has been very considerable and distinguished. We owe to them many great works of enduring repute, of value to the student, of perpetual entertainment to the general reader. When, too, we consider the willingness and the zeal with which the writing members of the medical profession have imparted their knowledge, we are led to believe that they accepted as their motto the noble utterance of Sir Thomas Browne, the chief of literary doctors:--"To be reserved and caitiff in goodness is the sordidest piece of covetousness, and more contemptible than pecuniary Avarice. To this (as calling myself a Scholar) I am obliged by the duty of my condition: I make not therefore my head a grave, but a treasure of knowledge; I intend no Monopoly, but a community, in learning; I study not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves. I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less. I instruct no man as an exercise of my knowledge, or with an intent rather to nourish and keep it alive in mine own head than beget and propagate it in his; and in the midst of all my endeavours there is but one thought that dejects me, that my acquired parts must perish with myself, nor can be Legacied among my honoured Friends." The "Doctor" in time of Pestilence. BY WILLIAM E. A. AXON, F.R.S.L. "I do not feel in me those sordid and unchristian desires of my profession; I do not secretly implore and wish for Plagues, rejoice at Famines, revolve Ephemerides and Almanacks in expectation of malignant Aspects, fatal Conjunctions, and Eclipses."--SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S "Religio Medici," pt. ii., sec. ix. Of the great epidemics which have from time to time devastated Europe, Great Britain has had its full share. Between 664 and 1665 there were many visitations, resulting in heavy mortality, to which the general name of plague or pestilence has been given, although they were not always identical in form. Often the dread sisters Famine and Pestilence went hand in hand in the domains of merrie England in the good old times.