‘It might be thought strange was I to say nothing of Margate, that being the chief resort for bathers, and of growing repute. The town of Margate is in a very increasing state, and its principal ornaments consist of its late additions. The chief concern of the publick seems to render it as much a place for pleasure as utility, as, under colour of utility, persons can pursue pleasure without censure. A mother, for instance, might be highly blamed by her acquaintance for leaving her family for a month, and going to spend her husband’s money; but who can blame her when her health requires it? They are modelling it according to the taste of the times. They have, indeed, built one place of worship, but a playhouse nearly four times as large. Thus, when ill-health does not interrupt the company’s pursuit of amusement, they are likely soon to be accommodated to their minds. Such is the provision already made, that the consumptive cough of a delicate lady may be furnished with the relief of the fumes of a smoking hot assembly-room, and the embarrassed citizen may drown his anxiety in the amusements of the Card-table....
‘The libraries are decently furnished, and may serve as a kind of lounging Exchange, where persons overburdened with money and time may ease themselves with great facility. The most healthful amusement, and best suited to invalids, that is pursued at Margate, is that of the bowling-green, where, upon the top of a hill, and in full prospect of the sea, in a free open air, gentlemen may exercise their bodies, and unbend their minds; this, if pursued for the benefit of health and innocent recreation, with a serious friend, appears to have no more criminality in it than Peter’s going a fishing....
‘Having staid as long at Ramsgate as our affairs at home would, with prudence, admit; we went on board the same ship, and re-embarked for London. In order, I suppose, to take the better advantage, we sailed some leagues right out to sea; but, it being a dead calm, we hardly experienced any other motion than was occasioned by the tide and swell of the sea for that night. The cry of the sailors, Blow! Blow! reminded me of that pathetick exclamation of the ancient Church! The next day proved equally calm, so that we had little else to divert us but walk about the deck, and watch the rolling of the porpoises in the sea. We had an old sailor on board, whose patience being tired, declared he preferred being at sea in a storm to being becalmed on the ocean, which struck me with the propriety of the observation, when applied to Christian experience; for a storm, under Divine direction, is often made the means of hastening the Christian’s progress, while a dead calm is useless and unsafe.’
It took them two days to get to Margate, and another day to reach Gravesend. On their way they passed a vessel cast on shore, which ‘cut a dismal figure, such as they make, to an enlightened eye, who make shipwreck of faith, whom Christians see, as they pursue their course, run aground, and dash to pieces.’
By the time they came to Gravesend some of the passengers had had enough of the Hoy—so they hired a boat and four men to row them to London, but the wind getting up, the river became rough, and the boat being over-loaded, the boatmen begged them to get on board a fishing-smack, which they did, and arrived at Billingsgate safely. We can hardly imagine, in these days of steam, that a journey from Ramsgate to London would last from Monday morning to Wednesday night, but people did not hurry themselves too much in those days.
QUACKS OF THE CENTURY.
In all ages there have been pretenders to medical science, and it has been reserved to the present century to elevate the healing art into a real science, based on proper physiological facts, aided by the searching analyses of modern chemistry. The old alchemists had died out, yet they had some pretensions to learning, but the pharmacopœia at the commencement of the eighteenth century was in a deplorable condition. Surgery, for rough purposes, had existed since the earliest ages, because accidents would happen, then as now; and, moreover, there were wars, which necessitated the amputation of limbs, etc., but medicine, except in the knowledge of the virtue of herbs and simples, was in more than a primitive state. Anyone who chose, could dub himself Doctor, and, naturally, the privilege was largely taken advantage of.
The name of quack, or quacksalver, does not seem to have been much used before the seventeenth century, and its derivation has not been distinctly settled. In the ‘Antiquities of Egypt,’ etc., by William Osburn, junior, London, 1847, p. 94, he says: ‘The idea of a physician is frequently represented by a species of duck, the name of which is CHIN: the Egyptian word for physician was also CHINI.’ But neither Pierret, in his ‘Vocabulaire Hieroglyphique,’ nor Bunsen, in ‘Egypt’s Place in Universal History,’ endorse this statement. Still the Egyptian equivalent for cackling, or the noise of a goose, was Ka ka, and in Coptic Ouok, pronounced very much like quack.