person as he passes by in any of these places, he will require but 1s. for his advice."

The ridiculous falsehoods of Quacks have long been detested by the sensible part of the Community; but every thing that has been said and written against them avails nothing: thousands of silly people are yet duped, nay, are bigoted in their belief of the efficacy of nostrums. Be it my task to shew the reader a few of the contrivances and schemes of a Century, and to bring before him genuine effusions of impudence which have daily insulted and deceived the inhabitants of London.

A satisfactory experiment for the curious. "If you please to pour one part of Sal volatile oleosum, or any other oily salts into a narrowbottomed wine-glass, and near the like quantity of Stringer's Elixir, febrifugium martis, there will be a pleasant conflict: the elixir will immediately make a preparation of and precipitate those oily volatile salts into a fixed armoniac salt in the bottom, and receive the spirituous aromatic oily parts into itself, and yet retain its own virtues, colour, and taste. There is no other true and genuine elixir but Mr. Stringer's that is exposed to sale; for those called Elixir proprietatu and Elixir salutis, &c. are mere tinctures drawn by brandy or nasty spirits; but this is a perfect elixir or quintessence, whose perfect principles

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of spirits, oil, and salt, are so inseparably united, that it can neither decay, putrefy, nor die, no more than the glass that contains it; and is so far from being a harsh corrosive, that it feels like oil, yet dries like a spirit, cleanses the skin like soap, and not only allays all putrefactive ferments in a moment, but immediately cures the most malignant fevers, takes away all sorts of corns and hardness in the skin, and makes the roughest hands smooth and white, only by anointing with it morning and night for a month together: which medicine with his other called Salt of Lemons, in despite of all opposers, will approve themselves nearest of affinity to an universal medicine."

In this admirable medicine the Londoner of 1700 had an internal and an external application, and materials to cleanse and soften the hands, which would at the same time enable him to walk the streets in comfort and ease, in defiance of corns and horny excrescences. Happy Londoners! possessing such men as Dr. Pechey and Mr. Stringer, aided by Dr. Case, whose unguentum panchrestum, prepared by the Spagyrick art, might justly be called the Golden Mine. This wonderful preparation cured by its sympathetical powers; in short, the Doctor found "it more infallible than the Zenexton of Paracelsus." This great Doctor was the means of informing us that Quacks were then in the habit of employing persons

passengers

persons to thrust bills into the hands of in the streets. For example: "Your old friend, Dr. Case, desires you not to forget him, although he has left the common way of bills.”

A brother Quack this year issued the following notice: "John Poley, at Broken-wharf, overagainst the Water-mill in Thames-street, next door to the Bell, will undertake to cure any smokey chimneys. No cure, no money."

I very much doubt whether even the lowest class of ignorants would be deceived at present by the ensuing impudent falsehood. "Whereas it has been industriously reported, that Doctor Herwig, who cures madness and most distempers by sympathy, has left England, and returned to Germany: This is to give notice, that he lives at the same place, viz. at Mr. Gagelman's, in Suffolk-street, Charing-cross, about the middle of the street, over-against the green balcony."

The reader will undoubtedly admire the modesty of Mr., Bartlett, who, in 1704, advertised, "Bartlett's inventions of Steel Trusses, Instruments, Medicines, and methods to cure Ruptures and other faults of those parts, and to make the weak strong, and crooked strait, most of which I could help with the twentieth part of the trouble and charge occasioned only by delay. I reduce desperate ruptures in a few minutes, though likely to be mortal in a few hours, and have made the only true discovery of cause and cure.

Infants

Infants and others born so, and to men of fifty or sixty years, in a few weeks cured. I sell strait stockings, collars, and swings, and such like things. Advice and medicines to the poor gratis."

Of all the inventions for the amendment and recovery of the human frame from disease and death, none equals the Dutch stiptick, seriously mentioned in the Supplement, printed by John Morphew, April 27, 1709; but which I suspect proceeded from the waggish pen of Mr. Bickerstaff, or some other wit, who sent their effusions to the publisher of the Tatler. "There is prepared by a person of quality in Holland a stiptick water; for the receipt of which, exclusive of all others, the French King has offered 150,000 pistoles; but the proprietor refused to take the same. It was tried upon a Hen, before his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, on board the Peregrine galley. The feathers being all plucked from her head, a large nail was drove through her brains, gullet, tongue, &c. and fastened her head to a table, where it was left near a minute; after which, drawing out the nail and touching the part immediately with the aforesaid stiptick, she was laid upon the deck, and in half an hour's time recovered, and began to eat bread. Several as extraordinary experiments have been made upon dogs, cats, calves, lambs, and other animals, by cutting their guts in several places, the nut

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of the thigh, and other parts; and it is affirmed, that this stiptick cures any part of the body, except the heart or bladder."

John Marten, with his "Attila of the Gout," and specifick, seemed determined in 1712, to expel that disorder from every human body in the Kingdom. Those who in 1807 read his advertisement, and are not thenceforward converts, must be stubborn unbelievers indeed. "I should be wanting (saith Mr. Marten) as well to the publick as myself, did I not reveal the stupendious effects of my specifick in the gout, which daily experience more and more confirms. And whatever mean opinion any who are strangers to its excellency may entertain of it, either through unbelief, or being prejudiced by those whose interest it is to explode it; let them remember, I tell them (as will many reputable people I will refer them to who have tried it), that if they ever expect certain and speedy relief, without the least detriment to their healths, they must have it. I say they must, because the surprising benefit all receive by it indicates that nothing else can more intimately dilute, and friendly and instantly obtrude and subdue by its soft balmy alterative nature, the acrimony of the humours that distend and torture the joints, and gently lead them away by urine, the only sensible operation it has. And as it is a medicine that will make its own way, it cannot but come (by degrees)

J