Doctor Hughball, a physician of renown, undertakes both cases, and in addition that of Joyless, whom “some few yellow spots” about the temples proclaim to be “jealous-mad.” This doctor, like others of the “cure-all” tribe whom we have recently encountered, has had great experience of mental disease. He has cured
“A country gentleman, that fell mad
For spending of his land before he sold it.”[135:2]
A lady who fell mad with “tedious and painful study” to find “a way to love her husband,” and “horn-mad citizens, he cures them by the
dozens”![136:1] Brought face to face with the melancholiac in one of his “fits,” Hughball sets about humouring him, “applauding” his “noble disposition,” and “adoring” his “spirit of travel.” He tells his patient that he has been all over the world, even in the Antipodes, meeting his praise of Mandeville, Drake, and other worthies with vivid and imaginative descriptions of the unknown lands on the other side of the world. Everything, it appears, goes by contraries:
“There the deer
Pursue the hounds, and (which you may think strange),
I ha’ seen one sheep worry a dozen foxes,
By moonshine, in a morning before day,
They hunt, trail scents with oxen and plough with dogs.”[136:2]