The next is equally characteristic:—
Most Excellent and Approved Dentifrices to scour and cleanse the Teeth, making them white as Ivory, preserves from the Toothach; so that, being constantly used, the parties using it are never troubled with the Toothach: It fastens the Teeth, sweetens the Breath, and preserves the Gums and Mouth from Cankers and Imposthumes. Made by Robert Turner, Gentleman; and the right are onely to be had at Thomas Rookes, Stationer, at the Holy Lamb at the east end of St. Paul’s Church, near the School, in sealed papers, at 12d. the paper.
The reader is desired to beware of counterfeits.
(Mercurius Politicus, Dec. 20, 1660.)
Other advertisements about this time profess to cure all diseases by means of an “antimonial cup.” Sir Kenelm Digby, the same learned knight who feasted his wife upon capons fattened upon serpents, in order to make her fair, advertises a book in which he professes to show a method of curing wounds by a powder of sympathy; and here is a notification of a remedy which shows still more clearly the superstitious character of the age:—
Small baggs to hang about Children’s necks, which are excellent both for the prevention and cure of the Rickets, and to ease children in breeding of Teeth, are prepared by Mr. Edmund Buckworth, and constantly to be had at Mr. Philip Clark’s, Keeper of the Library in the Fleet, and nowhere else, at 5 shillings a bagge.—The Intelligencer, Oct. 16, 1664.
It was left, however, to the reign of Anne for the mountebank to descend from his stage in the fair and the market-place, in order to erect it in the public newspapers. But we have yet to mention one, who might appear to some to be the greatest quack of all, and who about this time resorted to an advertisement in the newspapers to call his patients to his doors;—the royal charlatan, who touched for the evil, makes known that he is at home for the season to his people through the medium of the Public Intelligencer of 1664:—
Whitehall, May 14, 1664. His Sacred Majesty, having declared it to be his Royal will and purpose to continue the healing of his people for the Evil during the Month of May, and then to give over till Michaelmas next, I am commanded to give notice thereof, that the people may not come up to Town in the Interim and lose their labour.
No doubt there was much political significance in this pretended efficacy of the royal touch in scrofulous afflictions; at the same time, there is reason to believe that patients did sometimes speedily recover after undergoing the regal contact. Dr. Tyler Smith, who has written a very clever little book on the subject, boldly states his belief that the emotion felt by these poor stricken people who came within the influence of “that divinity which doth hedge a king,” acted upon them as a powerful mental tonic; in a vast number of cases, however, we might impute the tonic to the gold coin which the king always bestowed upon his patient. Be that as it may, the practice flourished down to the time of Anne, at whose death it stopped; the sovereigns of the line of Brunswick never pretending to possess this medicinal virtue, coming as they did to the throne by only a parliamentary title. The reaction from the straightlaced times of the Commonwealth, which set in immediately upon the Restoration, seems to have arrived at its height about the year 1664, and the advertisements at that period reflect very truly the love of pleasure and excitement which seized hold of the people, as if they were bent on making up for the time that had been lost during the Puritanic rule. They are mostly taken up, in fact, with inquiries after “lost lace-work;” announcements of lotteries in the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall, of jewels, tapestry, and lockets of “Mr. Cooper’s work,” of which the following is a fair specimen:—
Lost, on the 27th of July, about Boswell Yard or Drury Lane, a Ladyes Picture, set in gold, and three Keys, with divers other little things in a perfumed pocket. Whosoever shall give notice of or bring the said picture to Mr. Charles Coakine, Goldsmith, near Staples Inne, Holborn, shall have 4 times the value of the gold for his payns.—The News, August 4, 1664.