FOOTNOTES:
[106] See No. 217.
[No. 226. [Addison.]
From Saturday, Sept. 16, to Tuesday, Sept. 19, 1710.
----Juvenis quondam, nunc femina, Cænis,
Rursus et in veterem fato revoluta figuram.
Virg., Æn. vi. 448.
From my own Apartment, Sept. 18.
It is one of the designs of this paper to transmit to posterity an account of everything that is monstrous in my own times. For this reason I shall here publish to the world the life of a person who was neither man nor woman, as written by one of my ingenious correspondents, who seems to have imitated Plutarch in that multifarious erudition, and those occasional dissertations, which he has wrought into the body of his history. The Life I am putting out, is that of Margery, alias John Young, commonly known by the name of Dr. Young, who (as the town very well knows) was a woman that practised physic in man's clothes, and after having had two wives and several children, died about a month since.
"Sir,
"I here make bold to trouble you with a short account of the famous Dr. Young's life, which you may call (if you please) a second part of the farce of the 'Sham Doctor.' This perhaps will not seem so strange to you, who (if I am not mistaken) have somewhere mentioned with honour your sister Kirleus[107] as a practitioner both in physic and astrology: but in the common opinion of mankind, a she-quack is altogether as strange and astonishing a creature as the centaur that practised physic in the days of Achilles, or as King Phys in 'The Rehearsal.'[108] Æsculapius, the great founder of your art, was particularly famous for his beard, as we may conclude from the behaviour of a tyrant who is branded by heathen historians as guilty both of sacrilege and blasphemy, having robbed the statue of Æsculapius of a thick bushy golden beard, and then alleged for his excuse, that it was a shame the son should have a beard when his father Apollo had none. This latter instance indeed seems something to favour a female professor, since (as I have been told) the ancient statues of Apollo are generally made with the head and face of a woman: nay, I have been credibly informed by those who have seen them both, that the famous Apollo in the Belvedere did very much resemble Dr. Young. Let that be as it will, the doctor was a kind of Amazon in physic, that made as great devastations and slaughters as any of our chief heroes in the art, and was as fatal to the English in these our days, as the famous Joan d'Arc was in those of our forefathers.
"I do not find anything remarkable in the Life I am about to write till the year 1695, at which time the doctor, being about twenty-three years old, was brought to bed of a bastard child. The scandal of such a misfortune gave so great uneasiness to pretty Mrs. Peggy (for that was the name by which the doctor was then called), that she left her family, and followed her lover to London, with a fixed resolution some way or other to recover her lost reputation: but instead of changing her life, which one would have expected from so good a disposition of mind, she took it in her head to change her sex. This was soon done by the help of a sword and a pair of breeches. I have reason to believe, that her first design was to turn man-midwife, having herself had some experience in those affairs: but thinking this too narrow a foundation for her future fortune, she at length bought her a gold button coat, and set up for a physician. Thus we see the same fatal miscarriage in her youth made Mrs. Young a doctor, that formerly made one of the same sex a Pope.
"The doctor succeeded very well in his business at first, but very often met with accidents that disquieted him. As he wanted that deep magisterial voice which gives authority to a prescription, and is absolutely necessary for the right pronouncing of those words, 'Take these pills,' he unfortunately got the nickname of the Squeaking Doctor. If this circumstance alarmed the doctor, there was another that gave him no small disquiet, and very much diminished his gains. In short, he found himself run down as a superficial prating quack in all families that had at the head of them a cautious father or a jealous husband. These would often complain among one another, that they did not like such a smock-faced physician; though in truth had they known how justly he deserved that name, they would rather have favoured his practice than have apprehended anything from it.
"Such were the motives that determined Mrs. Young to change her condition, and take in marriage a virtuous young woman, who lived with her in good reputation, and made her the father of a very pretty girl. But this part of her happiness was soon after destroyed by a distemper which was too hard for our physician, and carried off his first wife. The doctor had not been a widow long before he married his second lady, with whom also he lived in very good understanding. It so happened that the doctor was with child at the same time that his lady was; but the little ones coming both together, they passed for twins. The doctor having entirely established the reputation of his manhood, especially by the birth of the boy of whom he had been lately delivered, and who very much resembles him, grew into good business, and was particularly famous for the cure of venereal distempers; but would have had much more practice among his own sex, had not some of them been so unreasonable as to demand certain proofs of their cure, which the doctor was not able to give them. The florid blooming look, which gave the doctor some uneasiness at first, instead of betraying his person, only recommended his physic. Upon this occasion I cannot forbear mentioning what I thought a very agreeable surprise in one of Molière's plays, where a young woman applies herself to a sick person in the habit of a quack, and speaks to her patient, who was something scandalised at the youth of his physician, to the following purpose: 'I began to practise in the reign of Francis I., and am now in the hundred-and-fiftieth year of my age; but, by the virtue of my medicaments, have maintained myself in the same beauty and freshness I had at fifteen.' For this reason Hippocrates lays it down as a rule, that a student in physic should have a sound constitution and a healthy look, which indeed seem as necessary qualifications for a physician as a good life and virtuous behaviour for a divine. But to return to our subject. About two years ago the doctor was very much afflicted with the vapours, which grew upon him to such a degree, that about six weeks since they made an end of him. His death discovered the disguise he had acted under, and brought him back again to his former sex. 'Tis said, that at his burial the pall was held up by six women of some fashion. The doctor left behind him a widow and two fatherless children, if they may be called so, besides the little boy before mentioned; in relation to whom we may say of the doctor, as the good old ballad about the 'Children in the Wood' says of the unnatural uncle, that he was father and mother both in one. These are all the circumstances that I could learn of Dr. Young's life, which might have given occasion to many obscene fictions: but as I know those would never have gained a place in your paper, I have not troubled you with any impertinence of that nature; having stuck to the truth very scrupulously, as I always do when I subscribe myself,
"Sir,
"Your, &c.
"I shall add, as a postscript to this letter, that I am informed, the famous Saltero,[109] who sells coffee in his museum at Chelsea, has by him a curiosity which helped the doctor to carry on his imposture, and will give great satisfaction to the curious inquirer."