[54] "Deceased" (folio).
[55] Roger Grant was sworn oculist and operator in ordinary to Queen
Anne, September 27, 1710; and on the death of Sir William Read, he
was sworn oculist in ordinary to George I. in 1715 (_Weekly Packet_,
No. 159). He died in 1724. A pamphlet, published in 1709, price 2d.,
called, "A full and true Account of a Miraculous Cure of a Young Man
in Newington, that was born Blind, and was in Five Minutes brought to
perfect Sight. By Mr. Roger Grant, Oculist," was in reality intended to
expose Grant as an impostor. William Jones, son of Annabella Jones, of
Newington, Surrey, was, in the twentieth year of his age, couched by
Grant, on June 19, 1709. On Sunday, July 24, he went, we are told, to
the parish church of St. Mary, Newington, and requested the minister
to offer up thanks for his recovery; and next day he and his mother
went to the minister to ask him to certify a statement to the effect
that Jones was born blind and now had his sight very well. The minister
objected to doing this, although Jones and his mother urged that Grant
would charge for the cure if they did not get the certificate. The
pamphlet states that at last they got the minister's signature forged,
and then Grant published the certificate in the _Daily Courant_ for
July 30, 1709. On August 16 another paper came out, stating that the
minister was present at the operation. The minister told all who made
inquiries the truth; that the boy was not born blind, but only with an
imperfection in his sight; and that now he saw very little with the
left eye, and not at all with the right. On August 8, Grant got the
mother to make an affidavit respecting her son's blindness and cure
before a magistrate. This affidavit is printed in the "British Apollo,"
vol. ii. No. 91 (January 20 to 23, 1710). The following advertisement
is taken from the same periodical, vol. ii. No. 39 (August 5 to 10,
1709): "As it would be no less disrespectful and injurious to the
public, to conceal the merits of Mr. Grant, oculist; therefore, we,
the Minister, Churchwardens, and Overseers of the poor of the parish
of St. Mary, Newington Butts, do certify, that William Jones, of the
same parish, aged twenty years, who was born blind, on his application
to Mr. Grant aforesaid, who dwells in St. Christopher's Court, behind
the Royal Exchange, was by him couched on Wednesday, June 29, 1709,
and by the blessing of God, on the skilful hand of Mr. Grant, the said
Jones, in five minutes' time, was brought to see, and at this time
hath his sight very well. This case being so particularly remarkable,
and gratisly performed, we do, therefore, give this public testimony
under our hands, this 25th of July, 1709.--Minister, William Taswell;
Churchwardens, James Comber, William Dale; Overseers, Francis Trosse,
William Benskin, Walker Wood, John Ship." The Jones case is included
in a list of Grant's cures, "Account of some Cures," &c., printed on a
folio sheet which is supposed to have been issued in 1713 (Brit. Mus.
1830, c. (18)). The pamphleteer from whom I have quoted, adds that
Grant was bred up a cobbler, or, as some say, a tinker; and he was an
Anabaptist preacher. Nichols says that "Grant seems to have been more
ingenious and reputable than most of his brother and sister oculists;
but, if we may judge from his very numerous advertisements, he was not
less vain, or less indelicate." A correspondent of the _Spectator_ (see
No. 472) bore testimony to the benefit he had himself derived from
Grant, and said that many blind persons had been cured.
[56] Dr. William Taswell (here called Caswell), king's scholar at
Westminster, was elected student of Christ Church in 1670. He became
M.A. in 1677, B.D. in 1685, and D.D. in 1698.
[57] Charles XII. of Sweden was defeated by the Czar at Pultowa in
July 1709, and was wounded by a musket-ball in the heel. After the
defeat of his army he crossed the Boristhenes with three hundred men.
Two thousand Swedes under General Lewenhaupt surrendered to Prince
Menzikoff on the banks of the Boristhenes after the battle. Charles
XII. sought refuge among the Turks, and retired to Bender.
No. 56. [STEELE.
From _Tuesday, August 16_, to _Thursday, August 18, 1709_.
Quicquid agunt homines ... nostri farrago libelli.
JUV., Sat. I. 85, 86.
_White's Chocolate-house, August 17._
There is a young foreigner committed to my care, who puzzles me
extremely in the questions he asks about the persons of figure we meet
in public places. He has but very little of our language, and therefore
I am mightily at a loss to express to him things, for which they have
no word in that tongue to which he was born. It has been often my
answer, upon his asking, who such a fine gentleman is? that he is what
we call a "sharper," and he wants my explication. I thought it would
be very unjust to tell him, he is the same the French call Coquin; the
Latins, Nebulo; or the Greeks, #Raskal#.[58] For as custom is the most
powerful of all laws, and that the order of men we call sharpers are
received amongst us, not only with permission, but favour, I thought
it unjust to use them like persons upon no establishment. Besides
that, it would be an unpardonable dishonour to our country, to let him
leave us with an opinion, that our nobility and gentry kept company
with common thieves and cheats; I told him, they were a sort of tame
hussars that were allowed in our cities, like the wild ones in our
camp, who had all the privileges belonging to us, but at the same time
were not tied to our discipline or laws. Aletheus, who is a gentleman
of too much virtue for the age he lives in, would not let this matter
be thus palliated, but told my pupil, that he was to understand, that
distinction, quality, merit, and industry, were laid aside amongst
us by the incursions of these civil hussars, who had got so much
countenance, that the breeding and fashion of the age turned their way
to the ruin of order and economy in all places where they are admitted.
But Sophronius, who never falls into heat upon any subject, but applies
proper language, temper, and skill, with which the thing in debate is
to be treated, told the youth, that gentleman had spoken nothing, but
what was literally true; but fell upon it with too much earnestness to
give a true idea of that sort of people he was declaiming against, or
to remedy the evil which he bewailed: for the acceptance of these men
being an ill which hath crept into the conversation part of our lives,
and not into our constitution itself, it must be corrected where it
began, and consequently is to be amended only by bringing raillery and
derision upon the persons who are guilty, or converse with them. "For
the sharpers," continued he, "at present are not as formerly, under
the acceptation of pickpockets; but are by custom erected into a real
and venerable body of men, and have subdued us to so very particular a
deference to them, that though they are known to be men without honour
or conscience, no demand is called a debt of honour so indisputably
as theirs. You may lose your honour to them, but they lay none against
you: as the priesthood in Roman Catholic countries can purchase what
they please for the Church, but they can alienate nothing from it. It
is from this toleration, that sharpers are to be found among all sorts
of assemblies and companies, and every talent amongst men is made use
of by some one or other of the society for the good of their common
cause: so that an unexperienced young gentleman is as often ensnared
by his understanding as his folly: for who could be unmoved, to hear
the eloquent Dromio explain the constitution, talk in the key of Cato,
with the severity of one of the ancient sages, and debate the greatest
question of State in a common chocolate or coffee-house; who could, I
say, hear this generous declamator, without being fired at his noble
zeal, and becoming his professed follower, if he might be admitted.
Monoculus'[59] gravity would be no less inviting to a beginner in
conversation, and the snare of his eloquence would equally catch one
who had never seen an old gentleman so very wise, and yet so little
severe. Many other instances of extraordinary men among the brotherhood
might be produced; but every man who knows the town, can supply himself
with such examples without their being named." Will. Vafer, who is
skilful at finding out the ridiculous side of a thing, and placing it
in a new and proper light (though he very seldom talks), thought fit
to enter into this subject. He has lately lost certain loose sums,
which half the income of his estate will bring in within seven years:
besides which, he proposes to marry to set all right. He was therefore
indolent enough to speak of this matter with great impartiality. "When
I look round me," said this easy gentleman, "and consider in a just
balance us bubbles, elder brothers, whose support our dull fathers
contrived to depend upon certain acres; with the rooks, whose ancestors
left them the wide world; I cannot but admire their fraternity, and
contemn my own. Is not Jack Heyday much to be preferred to the knight
he has bubbled? Jack has his equipage, his wenches, and his followers:
the knight so far from a retinue, that he is almost one of Jack's.
However, he is gay, you see, still; a florid outside--his habit speaks
the man--and since he must unbutton, he would not be reduced outwardly,
but is stripped to his upper coat. But though I have great temptation
to it, I will not at this time give the history of the losing side, but
speak the effects of my thoughts, since the loss of my money, upon the
gaining people. This ill fortune makes most men contemplative and given
to reading; at least it has happened so to me; and the rise and fall of
the family of sharpers in all ages has been my contemplation."
* * * * *
I find, all times have had of this people; Homer, in his excellent
heroic poem, calls them Myrmidons, who were a body who kept among
themselves, and had nothing to lose; therefore never spared either
Greek or Trojan, when they fell in their way, upon a party. But there
is a memorable verse which gives us an account of what broke that
whole body, and made both Greeks and Trojans masters of the secret
of their warfare and plunder. There is nothing so pedantic as many
quotations; therefore I shall inform you only, that in this battalion
there were two officers called Thersites and Pandarus; they were both
less renowned for their beauty than their wit; but each had this
particular happiness, that they were plunged over head and ears in
the same water, which made Achilles invulnerable; and had ever after
certain gifts which the rest of the world were never to enjoy. Among
others, they were never to know they were the most dreadful to the
sight of all mortals, never to be diffident of their own abilities,
never to blush, or ever to be wounded but by each other. Though some
historians say, gaming began among the Lydians to divert hunger, I
could cite many authorities to prove it had its rise at the siege of
Troy; and that Ulysses won the sevenfold shield at hazard. But be that
as it may, the ruin of the corps of the myrmidons proceeded from a
breach between Thersites and Pandarus. The first of these was leader
of a squadron, wherein the latter was but a private man; but having
all the good qualities necessary for a partisan, he was the favourite
of his officer. But the whole history of the several changes in the
order of sharpers, from those myrmidons to our modern men of address
and plunder, will require that we consult some ancient manuscripts.
As we make these inquiries, we shall diurnally communicate them to
the public, that the knights of the industry may be better understood
by the good people of England. These sort of men in some ages, were
sycophants and flatterers only, and were endued with arts of life to
capacitate them for the conversation of the rich and great; but now
the bubble courts the impostor, and pretends at the utmost to be but
his equal. To clear up the reasons and causes in such revolutions,
and the alteration of conduct between fools and cheats, shall be one
of our labours for the good of this kingdom. How therefore pimps,
footmen, fiddlers, and lackeys, are elevated into companions in this
present age, shall be accounted for from the influence of the planet
Mercury[60] on this island; the ascendency of which sharper over Sol,
who is a patron of the Muses, and all honest professions, has been
noted by the learned Job Gadbury[61] to be the cause, that cunning and
trick are more esteemed than art and science. It must be allowed also,
to the memory of Mr. Partridge, late of Cecil Street in the Strand,
that in his answer to an horary question, at what hour of the night
to set a foxtrap in June 1705, he has largely discussed, under the
character of Reynard, the manner of surprising all sharpers as well as
him. But of these great points, after more mature deliberation.
_St. James's Coffee-house, August 17._
"_To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq._
"SIR,
"We have nothing at present new, but that we understand by some
owlers,[62] old people die in France. Letters from Paris of the 10th
instant, N.S., say, that Monsieur d'André Marquis d'Oraison died at
85; Monsieur Brumars, at 102 years, died for love of his wife, who
was 92 at her death, after seventy years' cohabitation. Nicolas de
Boutheiller, parish preacher of Sasseville, being a bachelor, held out
till 116. Dame Claude de Massy, relict of Monsieur Peter de Monceaux,
Grand Audiencer of France, died on the 7th instant, aged 107. Letters
of the 17th say, Monsieur Chrestien de Lamoignon died on the 7th
instant, a person of great piety and virtue; but having died young, his
age is concealed for reasons of State. On the 15th his most Christian
Majesty, attended by the Dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy, the Duke and
Duchess of Berry, assisted at the procession which he yearly performs,
in memory of a vow made by Lewis XIII. 1638: for which act of piety,
his Majesty received absolution of his confessor, for the breach of all
inconvenient vows made by himself. I am,
"Sir,
Your most humble Servant,
HUMPHREY KIDNEY."[63]
_From my own Apartment, August 17._
I am to acknowledge several letters which I have lately received; among
others, one subscribed "Philanthropis," another "Emilia," both which
shall be honoured. I have a third from an officer of the army, wherein
he desires I would do justice to the many gallant actions which have
been done by men of private characters, or officers of lower stations,
during this long war; that their families may have the pleasure of
seeing we lived in an age wherein men of all orders had their proper
share in fame and glory. There is nothing I should undertake with
greater pleasure than matter of this kind: if therefore they who are
acquainted with such facts, would please to communicate them, by letter
directed to me at Mr. Morphew's, no pains should be spared to put them
in a proper and distinguishing light.
* * * * *
This is to admonish Stentor,[64] that it was not admiration of his
voice, but my publication of it, which has lately increased the number
of his hearers.