FOOTNOTES:
[37] Davies's Garrick, vol. ii., p. 445.
[38] See also Hannah More's description of the funeral in the Appendix.
[39] It was written in 1773, soon after Garrick had left Southampton Street, Strand, for the Adelphi.
[40] Haunted London, p. 99.
The celebrated Quack, Dr Graham—His Temple of Health in the Adelphi—Satirised by Colman and Bannister—"Vestina, the Rosy Goddess of Health"—Emma Lyon, Lady Hamilton—Osborn's Hotel—The King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands—Their Death in the Adelphi—Isaac D'Israeli—The Earl of Beaconsfield—Thomas Hill, the Original of Paul Pry—Thomas Hood and Charles Dickens—David Copperfield and Pickwick—Ivy Lane—The Fox-under-the-Hill—The Adelphi "Dark Arches."
The Adelphi has had its share of quacks, the most impudent of them all being Dr Graham, a Scotchman, who flourished here from the summer of 1780 until the May following, when he migrated to Pall Mall. He occupied the middle house in Adelphi Terrace, and in this place Emma Lyon—afterwards Lady Hamilton—posed as the Goddess of Health. James Graham was then approaching the end of his extraordinary career, for, born in the Cowgate, Edinburgh, on June 23, 1745, he died in 1794. Although he studied medicine in the University of Edinburgh, it is not certain that he took his degree, for, so late as 1783, he is described as "the person calling himself Dr Graham." He passed his earlier life in Pontrefact, being married there in 1770. Subsequently, he travelled in America, as an oculist and aurist. Returning to England in 1774, he practised at Bristol and Bath, and, a year later, established himself in Pall Mall, nearly opposite St James's Palace. At Bath, in 1777, he met Catherine Macaulay, who, a few months later, married his younger brother, William. Through his treatment of her, he declared, he made his first real start in life. Be this as it may, he gained the ear of the public about this time, although he was denounced as a quack by the medical profession. After a visit to the continent, during which he received many testimonials from people in the first rank of society, he came to the Adelphi in 1779. His house and apparatus, it was stated, cost him £10,000. The entrance hall was adorned with crutches which had been discarded by his "patients," and, in the rooms above, were large, gaudily-decorated electrical machines, glass globes, marble statues, and figures of dragons; the windows were of stained glass, and the air was laden with the perfume of incense. The door was guarded by huge footmen. One apartment was devoted to Apollo, and contained "a magnificent temple, sacred to health." He lectured at enormous prices and obtained fabulous sums for his quack remedies. For a night in the "celestial bed," which ensured a beautiful progeny, his fee was £100; his "elixir of life" brought him a fee of one thousand pounds, but his "earth-bath" was only a modest guinea, while a magneto-electric bed could be slept in for £50 a night.