MAKE WAY FOR THE LADIES!
"For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches
and old women and impostors have had a competition with
physicians. And what followeth? Even this, that physicians
say to themselves, as Solomon expresseth it upon a higher
occasion, 'If it befall to me as befalleth to the fools, why
should I labour to be more wise?'"--Lord Bacon's
_Advancement of Learning_.
It is time to say something about the ladies as physicians. Once they
were the chief practitioners of medicine; and even to recent times had
a monopoly of that branch of art over which Dr. Locock presides. The
question has lately been agitated whether certain divisions of
remedial industry ought not again to be set aside for them; and the
patronage afforded to the lady who (in spite of the ridicule thrown on
her, and the rejection of her advances by various medical schools to
which she applied for admission as a student), managed to obtain a
course of medical instruction at one of the London schools, and
practised for a brief time in London previous to her departure for a
locality more suited to her operations, would seem to indicate that
public feeling is not averse to the thought of employing--under
certain conditions and for certain purposes--female physicians.
Of the many doctresses who have flourished in England during the last
200 years, only a few have left any memorial of their actions behind
them. Of _the wise women_ (a class of practitioners, by-the-by, still
to be found in many rural villages and in certain parts of London) in
whom our ancestors had as much confidence as we of the present
generation have in the members of the College of Physicians, we
question if twoscore, including Margaret Kennix and Mrs. Woodhouse, of
the Elizabethan era, could be rescued from oblivion. Some of them
wrote books, and so, by putting their names "in print," have a slight
hold on posthumous reputation. Two of them are immortalized by mention
in the records of the "Philosophical Transactions for 1694." These
ladies were Mrs. Sarah Hastings and Mrs. French. The curious may refer
to the account there given of the ladies' skill; and also, for further
particulars relative to Sarah Hastings, a glance may be given to M. de
la Cross's "Memoirs for the Ingenious," published in the month of
July, 1693. We do not care to transcribe the passages into our own
pages; though, now that it is the fashion to treat all the unpleasant
details of nursing as matters of romance, we presume there is nothing
in the cases mentioned calculated to shock public delicacy.
A most successful "wise woman" was Joanna Stephens, an ignorant and
vulgar creature, who, just before the middle of the last century,
proclaimed that she had discovered a sovereign remedy for a painful
malady, which, like the smallpox, has become in the hands of modern
surgery so manageable that ere long it will rank as little more than
"a temporary discomfort." Joanna was a courageous woman. She went
straightway to temporal peers, bishops, duchesses, and told them she
was the woman for their money. They believed her, testified to the
marvellous cures which she had effected, and allowed her to make use
of their titles to awe sceptics into respect for her powers. Availing
herself of this permission, she published books containing lists of
her cures, backed up by letters from influential members of the
nobility and gentry.
In the April number of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for the year 1738,
one reads--"Mrs. Stephens has proposed to make her medicine publick,
on consideration of £5000 to be raised by contribution and lodged with
Mr. Drummond, banker; he has received since the 11th of this month
about £500 on that account." By the end of the month the banker had in
his hands £720 8_s._ 6_d._
This generous offer was not made until the inventor of the nostrums
had enriched herself by enormous fees drawn from the credulity of the
rich of every sect and rank. The subscription to pay her the amount
she demanded for her secret was taken up enthusiastically. Letters
appeared in the Journals and Magazines, arguing that no humane or
patriotic man could do otherwise than contribute to it. The movement
was well whipped up by the press. The Bishop of Oxford gave £10
10_s._; Bishop of Gloucester, £10 10_s._; The Earl of Pembroke, £50;
Countess of Deloraine, £5 5_s._; Lady Betty Jermaine, £21; Lady Vere
Beauclerc, £10 10_s._; Earl of Godolphin, £100; Duchess of Gordon, £5
5_s._: Viscount Lonsdale, £52 10_s._; Duke of Rutland, £50; the
Bishop of Salisbury, £25; Sir James Lowther, Bart., £25; Lord Cadogan,
£2 2_s._; Lord Cornwallis, £20; Duchess of Portland, £21; Earl of
Clarendon, £25; Lord Lymington, £5; Duke of Leeds, £21; Lord Galloway,
£30; General Churchill (Spot Ward's friend), £10 10_s._; Countess of
Huntingdon, £10 10_s._; Hon. Frances Woodhouse, £10 10_s._; Sir Thomas
Lowther, Bart., £5 5_s._; Duke of Richmond, £30; Sir George Saville,
Bart., £5 5_s._
These were only a few of the noble and distinguished dupes of Joanna
Stephens. Mrs. Crowe, in her profound and philosophic work,
"Spiritualism, and the Age we live in," informs us that "the
solicitude" about the subject of table-turning "displayed by many
persons in high places, is the best possible sign of the times; and it
is one from which she herself hopes that the period is arrived when we
shall receive further help from God." Hadn't Joanna Stephens reason to
think that the period had arrived when she and her remedial system
would receive further help from God? What would not Read (we do not
mean the empiric oculist knighted by Queen Anne, but the cancer quack
of our own time) give to have such a list of aristocratic supporters?
What would not Mrs. Doctor Goss (who in this year, 1861, boasts of the
patronage of "ladies of the highest distinction") give for a similar
roll of adherents?
The agitation, however, for a public subscription for Joanna Stephens
was not so successful as her patrician supporters anticipated. They
succeeded in collecting £1356 3_s._ But Joanna stood out: her secret
should not go for less than £5000. "No pay, no cure!" was her cry. The
next thing her friends did was to apply to Parliament for the
required sum--and, positively, their request was granted. The nation,
out of its taxes, paid what the individuals of its wealthy classes
refused to subscribe. A commission was appointed by Parliament, that
gravely inquired into the particulars of the cures alleged to be
performed by Joanna Stephens; and, finding the evidence in favour of
the lady unexceptionable, they awarded her the following certificate,
which ought to be preserved to all ages as a valuable example of
senatorial wisdom:--
"THE CERTIFICATE REQUIRED BY THE ACT OF
PARLIAMENT.
March 5, 1739.
"We, whose names are underwritten, being the major part of
the Justices appointed by an Act of Parliament, entitled,
'_An Act for providing a Reward to Joanna Stephens, upon
proper discovery to be made by her, for the use of the
Publick, of the Medicines prepared by her_-- --' --do
certify, that the said Joanna Stephens did, with all
convenient speed after the passing of the said Act, make a
discovery to our satisfaction, for the use of the publick,
of the said medicines, and of her method of preparing the
same; and that we have examined the said medicines, and of
her method of preparing of the same, and are convinced by
experiment of the _Utility_, _Efficacy_, and _Dissolving
Power_ thereof.
"JO. CANT, THO. OXFORD,
HARDWICKE, C., STE. POYNTZ,
WILMINGTON, P., STEPHEN HALES,
GODOLPHIN, C. P. S., JO. GARDINER,
DORSET, SIM BURTON,
MONTAGUE, PETER SHAW,
PEMBROKE, D. HARTLEY,
BALTIMORE, W. CHESELDEN,
CORNBURY, C. HAWKINS,
M. GLOUCESTER, SAM. SHARP."
When such men as Cheselden, Hawkins, and Sharp could sign such a
certificate, we need feel no surprise at the conduct of Dr. Nesbit and
Dr. Pellet (Mead's early friend, who rose to be president of the
College of Physicians). These two gentlemen, who were on the
commission, having some scruples about the words "dissolving power,"
gave separate testimonials in favour of the medicines. St. John Long's
cause, it may be remembered, was advocated by Dr. Ramadge, a Fellow of
the College.
The country paid its money, and obtained Joanna's prescriptions. Here
is a portion of the lady's statement:--
"_A full Discovery of the Medicines given by me, Joanna
Stephens, and a particular account of my method of preparing
and giving the same._
"My medicines are a Powder, a Decoction, and Pills.
"The Powder consists of egg-shells and snails--both calcined.
"The Decoction is made by boiling some herbs (together with a ball
which consists of soap, swine's-cresses burnt to a blackness, and
honey) in water.
"The Pills consist of snails calcined, wild carrot seeds, burdock
seeds, ashen keys, hips and hawes--all burnt to a blackness--soap and
honey.
"The powder is thus prepared:--Take hen's egg-shells, well drained
from the whites, dry and clean; crush them small with the hands, and
fill a crucible of the twelfth size (which contains nearly three
pints) with them lightly, place it on the fire till the egg-shells be
calcined to a greyish white, and acquire an acrid, salt taste: this
will take up eight hours, at least. After they are thus calcined, put
them in a dry, clean earthen pan, which must not be above three parts
full, that there may be room for the swelling of the egg-shells in
stacking. Let the pan stand uncovered in a dry room for two months,
and no longer; in this time the egg-shells will become of a milder
taste, and that part which is sufficiently calcined will fall into a
powder of such a fineness, as to pass through a common hairsieve,
which is to be done accordingly.
"In like manner, take garden snails, with their shells, cleaned from
the dirt; fill a crucible of the same size with them whole, cover it,
and place it on the fire as before, till the snails have done
smoaking, which will be in about an hour--taking care that they do not
continue in the fire after that. They are then to be taken out of the
crucible, and immediately rubbed in a mortar to a fine powder, which
ought to be of a very dark-grey colour.
"_Note._--If pit-coal be made use of, it will be proper--in
order that the fire may the sooner burn clear on the
top--that large cinders, and not fresh coals, be placed upon
the tiles which cover the crucibles.
"These powders being thus prepared, take the egg-shell powder of six
crucibles, and the snail-powder of one; mix them together, and rub
them in a mortar, and pass them through a cypress sieve. This mixture
is immediately to be put up into bottles, which must be close stopped,
and kept in a dry place for use. I have generally added a small
quantity of swine's-cresses, burnt to a blackness, and rubbed fine;
but this was only with a view to disguise it.
"The egg-shells may be prepared at any time of the year, but it is
best to do them in summer. The snails ought only to be prepared in
May, June, July, and August; and I esteem those best which are done in
the first of these months.
"The decoction is thus prepared:--Take four ounces and a half of the
best Alicant soap, beat it in a mortar with a large spoonful of
swine's-cresses burnt to a blackness, and as much honey as will make
the whole of the consistence of paste. Let this be formed into a ball.
Take this ball, and green camomile, or camomile flowers, sweet fennel,
parsley, and burdock leaves, of each an ounce (when there are not
greens, take the same quantity of roots); slice the ball, and boil
them in two quarts of soft water half an hour, then strain it off, and
sweeten it with honey.
"The pills are thus prepared:--Take equal quantities by measure of
snails calcined as before, of wild carrot seeds, burdock seeds, ashen
keys, hips and hawes, all burnt to a blackness, or, which is the same
thing, till they have done smoaking; mix them together, rub them in a
mortar, and pass them through a cypress sieve. Then take a large
spoonful of this mixture, and four ounces of the best Alicant soap,
and beat them in a mortar with as much honey as will make the whole of
a proper consistence for pills; sixty of which are to be made out of
every ounce of the composition."
Five thousand pounds for such stuff as this!--and the time was coming
when the nation grudged an inadequate reward to Jenner, and haggled
about the purchase of Hunter's Museum!
But a more remarkable case of feminine success in the doctoring line
was that of Mrs. Mapp, who was a contemporary of Mrs. Stephens. Under
the patronage of the Court, "Drop and Pill" Ward (or "Spot" Ward, as
he was also called, from a mole on his cheek) was astonishing London
with his cures, and his gorgeous equipage which he had the royal
permission to drive through St. James Park, when the attention of the
fashionable world was suddenly diverted to the proceeding of "Crazy
Sally of Epsom." She was an enormous, fat, ugly, drunken woman, known
as a haunter of fairs, about which she loved to reel, screaming and
abusive, in a state of roaring intoxication. This attractive lady was
a bone-setter; and so much esteemed was she for skill in her art, that
the town of Epsom offered her £100 if she would reside there for a
year. The following passage we take from the _Gentleman's Magazine_
for 1736: "Saturday 31. In the _Daily Advertiser_, July 28, Joshua
Ward, Esq., having the queen's leave, recites seven extraordinary
cases of persons which were cured by him, and examined before her
Majesty, June 7, objections to which had been made in the _Grub Street
Journal_, June 24. But the attention of the public has been taken off
from the wonder-working Mr. Ward to a strolling woman now at Epsom,
who calls herself Crazy Sally; and had performed cures in bone-setting
to admiration, and occasioned so great a resort, that the town
offered her 100 guineas to continue there a year."
"Crazy Sally" awoke one morning and found herself famous. Patients of
rank and wealth flocked in from every quarter. Attracted by her
success, an Epsom swain made an offer of marriage to Sally, which she
like a fool accepted. Her maiden name of Wallin (she was the daughter
of a Wiltshire bone-setter of that name) she exchanged at the altar
for that of Mapp. If her marriage was not in all respects fortunate,
she was not burdened with much of her husband's society. He lived with
her only for a fortnight, during which short space of time he thrashed
her soundly twice or thrice, and then decamped with a hundred guineas
of her earnings. She found consolation for her wounded affections in
the homage of the world. She became a notoriety of the first water,
and every day some interesting fact appeared about her in the prints
and public journals. In one we are told "the cures of the woman
bone-setter of Epsom are too many to be enumerated: her bandages are
extraordinary neat, and her dexterity in reducing dislocations and
setting fractured bones wonderful. She has cured persons who have been
twenty years disabled, and has given incredible relief in the most
difficult cases. The lame come daily to her, and she gets a great deal
of money, persons of quality who attend her operations making her
presents."
Poets sounded her praises. Vide _Gentleman's Magazine_, August, 1736:
"ON MRS MAPP, THE FAMOUS BONE-SETTER OF EPSOM.
"Of late, without the least pretence to skill,
Ward's grown a fam'd physician by a pill;
Yet he can but a doubtful honour claim,
While envious Death oft blasts his rising fame.
Next travell'd Taylor fills us with surprise,
Who pours new light upon the blindest eyes;
Each journal tells his circuit through the land,
Each journal tells the blessings of his hand;
And lest some hireling scribbler of the town
Injure his history, he writes his own.
We read the long accounts with wonder o'er;
Had he wrote less, we had believed him more.
Let these, O Mapp, thou wonder of the age!
With dubious arts endeavor to engage;
While you, irregularly strict to rules,
Teach dull collegiate pedants they are fools;
By merit, the sure path to fame pursue--
For all who see thy art must own it true."
Mrs. Mapp continued to reside in Epsom, but she visited London once a
week. Her journeys to and from the metropolis she performed in a
chariot drawn by four horses, with servants wearing splendid liveries.
She used to put up at the Grecian Coffee-House, where Sir Hans Sloane
witnessed her operations, and was so favourably impressed by them,
that he put under her charge his niece, who was suffering from a
spinal affection, or, to use the exact and scientific language of the
newspapers, "whose back had been broke nine years, and stuck out two
inches." The eminent lady went to the playhouse in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields
to see the _Husband's Relief_ acted. Her presence not only produced a
crowded house, but the fact that she sate between Taylor the quack
oculist on one side, and Ward the drysalter on the other, gave
occasion for the production of the following epigram, the point of
which is perhaps almost as remarkable as its polish:--
"While Mapp to the actors showed a kind regard,
On one side _Taylor_ sat, on the other _Ward_;
When their mock persons of the drama came,
Both _Ward_ and _Taylor_ thought it hurt their fame;
Wonder'd how Mapp could in good humour be,
'_Zoons!_' crys the manly dame, 'it hurts not me;
Quacks without art may either blind or kill,
But demonstration proves that mine is skill.'"
On the stage, also, a song was sung in honour of Mrs. Mapp, and in
derision of Taylor and Ward. It ran thus:--
"You surgeons of London, who puzzle your pates,
To ride in your coaches, and purchase estates,
Give over for shame, for pride has a fall,
And the doctress of Epsom has out-done you all.
Derry down, &c.
"What signifies learning, or going to school,
When a woman can do, without reason or rule,
What puts you to nonplus, and baffles your art;
For petticoat practice has now got the start.
Derry down, &c.
"In physic, as well as in fashions, we find
The newest has always its run with mankind;
Forgot is the bustle 'bout Taylor and Ward,
And Mapp's all the cry, and her fame's on record.
Derry down, &c.
"Dame Nature has given a doctor's degree--
She gets all the patients, and pockets the fee;
So if you don't instantly prove her a cheat,
She'll loll in her carriage, whilst you walk the street.
Derry down, &c."
On one occasion, as this lady was proceeding up the Old Kent Road to
the Borough, in her carriage and four, dressed in a loosely-fitting
robe-de-chambre, and manifesting by her manner that she had partaken
somewhat too freely of Geneva water, she found herself in a very
trying position. Her fat frame, indecorous dress, intoxication, and
dazzling equipage, were in the eyes of the mob such sure signs of
royalty, that she was immediately taken for a Court lady, of German
origin and unpopular repute, whose word was omnipotent at St. James's.
Soon a crowd gathered round the carriage, and, with the proper amount
of swearing and yelling, were about to break the windows with stones,
when the spirited occupant of the vehicle, acting very much as Nell
Gwyn did on a similar occasion, rose from her seat, and letting down
the glasses, exclaimed, with an imprecation more emphatic than polite,
"-- --! Don't you know me? I am Mrs. Mapp, the bone-setter!"
This brief address so tickled the humour of the mob, that the lady
proceeded on her way amidst deafening acclamations and laughter.
The Taylor mentioned as sitting on one side of Mrs. Mapp in the
playhouse was a notable character. A cunning, plausible, shameless
blackguard, he was eminently successful in his vocation of quack. Dr.
King, in his "Anecdotes of his own Times," speaks of him with respect.
"I was at Tunbridge," says the Doctor, "with Chevalier Taylor, the
oculist. He seems to understand the anatomy of the eye perfectly well;
he has a fine hand and good instruments, and performs all his
operations with great dexterity; but he undertakes everything (even
impossible cases), and promises everything. No charlatan ever appeared
with fitter and more excellent talents, or to greater advantage; he
has a good person, is a natural orator, and has a faculty of learning
foreign languages. He has travelled over all Europe, and has always
with him an equipage suitable to a man of the first quality; and has
been introduced to most of the sovereign princes, from whom he has
received many marks of their liberality and esteem."
Dr. King, in a Latin inscription to the mountebank, says:--
"Hic est, hic vir est,
Quem docti, indoctique omnes impense mirantur,
Johannes Taylor;
Cœcigenorum, cœcorum, cœcitantium,
Quot quot sunt ubique,
Spes unica--Solamen--Salus."
The Chevalier Taylor (as he always styled himself), in his travels
about the country, used to give lectures on "The Eye," in whatever
place he tarried. These addresses were never explanatory of the
anatomy of the organ, but mere absurd rhapsodies on it as an ingenious
and wonderful contrivance.
Chevalier's oration to the university of Oxford, which is still
extant, began thus:--
"The eye, most illustrious sons of the muses, most learned Oxonians,
whose fame I have heard celebrated in all parts of the globe--the eye,
that most amazing, that stupendous, that comprehending, that
incomprehensible, that miraculous organ, the eye, is the Proteus of
the passions, the herald of the mind, the interpreter of the heart,
and the window of the soul. The eye has dominion over all things. The
world was made for the eye, and the eye for the world.
"My subject is Light, most illustrious sons of
literature--intellectual light. Ah! my philosophical, metaphysical, my
classical, mathematical, mechanical, my theological, my critical
audience, my subject is the eye. You are the eye of England!
"England has two eyes--Oxford and Cambridge. They are the two eyes of
England, and two intellectual eyes. You are the right eye of England,
the elder sister in science, and the first fountain of learning in all
Europe. What filial joy must exult in my bosom, in my vast circuit, as
copious as that of the sun himself, to shine in my course, upon this
my native soil, and give light even at Oxford!
"The eye is the husband of the soul!
"The eye is indefatigable. The eye is an angelic faculty. The eye in
this respect is a female. The eye is never tired of seeing; that is,
of taking in, assimilating, and enjoying all Nature's vigour."
When the Chevalier was ranting on in this fashion at Cambridge (of
course there terming Oxford the _left_ eye of England), he undertook
to express every passion of the mind by the eye alone.
"Here you have surprise, gentlemen; here you have delight; here you
have terror!"
"Ah!" cried an undergraduate, "there's no merit in that, for you tell
us beforehand what the emotion is. Now next time say nothing--and let
me guess what the feeling is you desire to express."
"Certainly," responded the Doctor, cordially; "nothing can be more
reasonable in the way of a proposition. Now then, sir, what is this?"
"Oh, veneration, I suppose."
"Certainly--quite right--and this?"
"Pity."
"Of course, sir: you see it's impossible for an observant gentleman
like yourself to misunderstand the language of the eye," answered the
oculist, whose plan was only to assent to his young friend's
decisions.
In the year 1736, when the Chevalier was at the height of his fame,
he received the following humorous letter:--
"DOMINE,--O tu, qui in oculis hominum versaris, et quamcunque tractas
rem, _acu_ tangis, salve! Tu, qui, instar Phœbi, lumen orbi, et
orbes luminibus reddis, iterum salve!
"Cum per te Gallia, per te nostræ academiæ, duo regni lumina, clarius
intuentur, cur non ad urbem Edinburgi, cum toties ubique erras, cursum
tendis? nam quædam cœcitas cives illic invasit. Ipsos magistratus
_Gutta Serena_ occupavit, videntur enim videre, sed nihil vident.
Idcirco tu istam _Scoticam Nebulam_ ex oculis remove, et quodcunque
latet in tenebris, in lucem profer. Illi violenter carcerem, tu oculos
leniter reclude; illi lucem Porteio ademerunt, tu illis lucem
restitue, et quamvis fingant se dupliciter videre, fac ut simpliciter
tantum oculo irretorto conspiciant. Peractoque cursu, ad Angliam redi
artis tuæ plenus, Toriosque (ut vulgo vocantur) qui adhuc cœcutiant
et hallucinantur, illuminato. Ab ipsis clericis, si qui sint cœci
ductores, nubem discute; immo ipso Sole lunaque, cum laborant eclipsi,
quæ, instar tui ipsius, transit per varias regiones obumbrans, istam
molem caliginis amoveto. Sic eris Sol Mundi, sic eris non solum nomine
Sartor, sed re Oculorum omnium resarcitor; sic omuis Charta Publica
tuam Claritudinem celebrabit, et ubicunque frontem tuam ostendis, nemo
non te, O vir spectatissime, admirabitur. Ipse lippus scriptor hujus
epistolæ maxime gauderet te Medicum Illustrissimum, cum omnibus tuis
oculatis testibus, Vindsoriæ videre.--VALE."
The Chevalier had a son and a biographer in the person of John Taylor,
who, under the title of "John Taylor, Junior," succeeded to his
father's trumpet, and blew it with good effect. The title-page of his
biography of his father enumerates some half-hundred crowned or royal
heads, to whose eyes the "Chevalier John Taylor, Opthalmiater
Pontifical, Imperial, and Royal," administered.
But this work was feeble and contemptible compared with the
Chevalier's autobiographic sketch of himself, in his proposal for
publishing which he speaks of his loves and adventures, in the
following modest style:--
"I had the happiness to be also personally known to two of the most
amiable ladies this age has produced--namely, Lady Inverness and Lady
Mackintosh; both powerful figures, of great abilities, and of the most
pleasing address--both the sweetest prattlers, the prettiest
reasoners, and the best judges of the charms of high life that I ever
saw. When I first beheld these wonders I gazed on their beauties, and
my attention was busied in admiring the order and delicacy of their
discourse, &c. For were I commanded to seek the world for a lady
adorned with every accomplishment that man thinks desirable in the
sex, I could only be determined by finding their resemblance....
"I am perfectly acquainted with the history of Persia, as well before
as since the death of Thamas Kouli Khan; well informed of the
adventures of Prince Heraclius; was personally known to a minister he
sent to Moscow in his first attempt to conquer that country; and am
instructed in the cruel manner of putting out the eyes of conquered
princes, and of cutting away the eyelids of soldiers taken in war, to
make them unfit for service.
"I have lived in many convents of friars of different orders, been
present at their creation to various degrees, and have assisted at
numberless entertainments upon those occasions.
"I have been in almost every female nunnery in all Europe (_on account
of my profession_), and could write many volumes on the adventures of
these religious beauties.
"I have been present at the making of nuns of almost every order, and
assisted at the religious feasts given on those occasions.
"I have met with a very great variety of singular religious people
called Pilgrims.
"I have been present at many extraordinary diversions designed for the
amusement of the sovereign, viz. hunting of different sorts of wild
beasts, as in Poland; bull-fighting, as in Spain.
"I am well acquainted with all the various punishments for different
crimes, as practised in every nation--been present at the putting of
criminals to death by various ways, viz. striking off heads, breaking
on the wheel, &c.
"I am also well instructed in the different ways of giving the torture
to extract confession--and am no stranger to other singular
punishments, such as impaling, burying alive with head above ground,
&c.
"And lastly, I have assisted, have seen the manner of embalming dead
bodies of great personages, and am well instructed in the manner
practised in some nations for preserving them entire for ages, with
little alteration of figure from what they were when first deprived of
life....
"All must agree that no man ever had a greater variety of matter
worthy to be conveyed to posterity. I shall, therefore, give my best
care to, so to paint my thoughts, and give such a dress of the story
of my life, that tho' I shall talk of the Great, the Least shall not
find cause of offence."
The occasion of this great man issuing so modest a proposal to the
public is involved in some mystery. It would seem that he determined
to publish his own version of his adventures, in consequence of being
dissatisfied with his son's sketch of them. John Taylor, Junior, was
then resident in Hatton Garden, living as an eye-doctor, and entered
into an arrangement with a publisher, without his father's consent, to
write the Chevalier's biography. Affixed to the indecent pamphlet,
which was the result of this agreement, are the following epistolary
statements:--
"MY SON,--If you should unguardedly have suffered your name at the
head of a work which must make us all contemptible, this must be
printed in it as the best apology for yourself and father:--
"TO THE PRINTER.
"Oxford, Jan. 10, 1761.
"My dear and only son having respectfully represented to me that he
has composed a work, intitled _My Life and Adventures_, and requires
my consent for its publication, notwithstanding I am as yet a stranger
to the composition, and consequently can be no judge of its merits, I
am so well persuaded that my son is in every way incapable of saying
aught of his father but what must redound to his honour and
reputation, and so perfectly convinced of the goodness of his heart,
that it does not seem possible I should err in my judgment, by giving
my consent to a publication of the said work. And as I have long been
employed in writing my own Life and Adventures, which will with all
expedition be published, 'twill hereafter be left with all due
attention to the candid reader, whether the Life of the Father written
by the son, or the Life of the Father written by himself, best
deserves approbation.
"THE CHEVALIER TAYLOR,
"Opthalmiater, Pontifical, Imperial, and Royal.
"* * * The above is a true copy of the letter my Father sent
me. All the answer I can make to the bills he sends about
the town and country is, that I have maintained my mother
these eight years, and do this at the present time; and
that, two years since, I was concerned for him, for which I
have paid near £200.
"As witness my hand,
"JOHN TAYLOR, _Oculist_."
"Hatton Garden."
It is impossible to say whether these differences were genuine, or
only feigned by the two quacks, in order to keep silly people
gossiping about them. Certainly the accusations brought against the
Chevalier, that he had sponged on his son, and declined to support his
wife, are rather grave ones to introduce into a make-believe quarrel.
But, on the other hand, when the Chevalier's autobiography appeared it
was prefaced with the following dedicatory letter to his son:--
"MY DEAR SON,--Can I do ill when I address to you the story
of your father's life? Whose name can be so proper as your
own to be prefixed to a work of this kind? You who was born
to represent me living, when I shall cease to be--born to
pursue that most excellent and important profession to which
I have for so many years labored to be useful--born to
defend my cause and support my fame--may I not _presume_, my
son, that you will defend your father's cause? May I not
_affirm_ that you, my son, will support your father's fame?
After having this said, need I add more than remind
you--that, to a father, nothing can be so dear as a
deserving son--nor state so desirable as that of the man who
holds his successor, and knows him to be worthy. Be
prosperous. Be happy.
"I am, your affectionate Father,
"THE CHEVALIER JOHN TAYLOR."
This unctuous address to "my lion-hearted boy" is equalled in drollery
by many passages of the work itself, which (in the language of the
title-page) "contains all most worthy the attention of a
Traveller--also a dissertation on the Art of Pleasing, with the most
interesting observations on the Force of Prejudice; numberless
adventures, as well amongst nuns and friars as with persons in high
life; with a description of a great variety of the most admirable
relations, which, though told in his well-known peculiar manner, each
one is strictly true, and within the Chevalier's own observations and
knowledge."
Apart from the bombast of his style, the Chevalier's "well-known
peculiar manner" was remarkable for little besides tautology and a
fantastic arrangement of words. In his orations, when he aimed at
sublimity, he indulged in short sentences each of which commenced with
a genitive case followed by an accusative; after which came the verb
succeeded by the nominative. Thus, at such crises of grandiloquence,
instead of saying, "I will lecture on the wonders of the eye," he
would invert the order to, "Of the eye on the wonders lecture will I."
By doing this, he maintained that he surpassed the finest periods of
Tully! There is a letter in Nichols's "Literary Anecdotes," in which a
lecture given by this mountebank at Northampton is excellently
described. "The doctor," says the writer, "appeared dressed in black,
with a long light flowing ty'd wig; ascended a scaffold behind a large
table raised about two feet from the ground, and covered with an old
piece of tapestry, on which was laid a dark-coloured cafoy
chariot-seat with four black bunches (used upon hearses) tyed to the
corners for tassels, four large candles on each side of the cushion,
and a quart decanter of drinking water, with a half-pint glass, to
moisten his mouth."
The fellow boasted that he was the author of forty-five works in
different languages. Once he had the audacity to challenge Johnson to
talk Latin with him. The doctor responded with a quotation from
Horace, which the charlatan took to be the doctor's own composition.
"_He said a few words well enough_," Johnson said magnanimously when
he repeated the story to Boswell. "Taylor," said the doctor, "is the
most ignorant man I ever knew, but sprightly; Ward, the dullest."
John Taylor, Junr., survived his father more than fifteen years, and
to the last had a lucrative business in Hatton Garden. His father had
been oculist to George the Second; but this post, on the death of the
Chevalier, he failed to obtain, it being given to a foreign _protégé_
of the Duke of Bedford's. He made a great noise about the sufferings
of the poor, and proposed to the different parishes of London to
attend the paupers labouring under diseases of the eye at two guineas
a-year for each parish. He was an illiterate, vulgar, and licentious
scoundrel; and yet when he died, on the 17th September, 1787, he was
honoured with a long memoir in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, as one
"whose philanthropy was exerted so fully as to class him with a Hanway
or a Howard."
If an apology is needed for giving so much space, in a chapter devoted
to the ladies, to the John Taylors, it must be grounded on the fact
that the Chevalier was the son of an honest widow woman who carried on
a respectable business, as an apothecary and doctress, at Norwich. In
this she resembled Mrs. Blood, the wife of the Colonel of that name,
who for years supported herself and son at Romford, by keeping an
apothecary's shop under the name of Weston. Colonel Blood was also
himself a member of the Faculty. For some time, whilst meditating his
_grand coup_, he practised as a doctor in an obscure part of the City,
under the name of Ayliffe.
Two hundred years since the lady practitioners of medicine in the
provinces not seldom had working for them pupils and assistants of the
opposite sex, and this usage was maintained in secluded districts till
a comparatively recent date. In Houghton's Collection, Nov. 15, 1695,
is the following advertisement,--"If any Apothecary's Widow that keeps
a shop in the country wants a journeyman that has lived 25 years for
himself in London, and has had the conversation of the eminent
physicians of the colledge, I can help to such an one."