In the annals of dress however, the doctors of the olden time claim as much notice as the beaux. If my readers be sick of the latter, here are a few medical gentlemen, in full costume, ready to be consulted.
DOCTORS READY DRESSED.
“These, Sir,
Are Death’s Masters of the Ceremonies;
More strangely-clad officials never yet
Usher’d the way to Death’s cold festival.”
Old Play.
Of all the doctors on the learned rota, there may have been more famous, but none more deserving, than Freake. He was regardless of nothing but dress; and he had a capital appreciation of fun, and a strong predilection for matters of fantasy.
Dr. Freake of St. Bartholomew’s, and his cousin the Justice, were not only given to dreaming, but to publish their dreams. They deemed their visions not only important to themselves and the public generally, but to the sovereigns of Europe especially. The dreams were wildly unintelligible, and the interpretations unintelligibly wild. But the Justice had active common-sense about him when he was awake. He was a careful dresser, which is more than can be said for the Doctor, and he presented the Bodleian Library with a collection of medals. Their tricksy spirits added the word freak to the vocabulary of the English language.