SIR WILLIAM READ OPERATING.
Whilst Britain's Sovereign Scales such WORTH has weigh'd,
And ANNE her self her smiling Favours paid:
That Sacred Hand does Your fair Chaplet twist,
Great READ her own Entitled OCULIST.
........
When the Great ANNE'S warm Smiles this Favourite raise,
'Tis not a Royal Grace she gives, but pays.
Swift[537] writes to Stella of Read's sumptuous way of living: 'Henley would fain engage me to go with Steele and Rowe &c. to an invitation at Sir William Read's. Surely you have heard of him. He has been a Mountebank, and is the Queen's Oculist; he makes admirable punch, and treats you in gold vessels. But I am engaged, and won't go.'
His rival, who was also the Queen's sworn oculist, was Roger Grant, who, report said, was originally a tinker, and afterwards an anabaptist preacher in Southwark.
Her Majesty sure was in a Surprise,
Or else was very short sighted;
When a Tinker was sworn to look after Eyes,
And the Mountebank Read was Knighted.
He also advertised largely, and published lists of his cures, with certificates from the mayor and aldermen of Durham, Northampton, Coventry, Hull, etc., touching the authenticity of his cures. How these were procured is fully explained in a little tract called 'A Full and True ACCOUNT of a Miraculous Cure of a Young Man in Newington, That was Born Blind, and was in Five Minutes brought to Perfect Sight, by Mr. Roger Grant, Oculist,' 1709. The case in question was advertised by Grant in the Daily Courant of July 30, 1709, and the little book ruthlessly exposes the fraudulent manner in which the certificate was obtained.
As has been said before, quackery was universal; nay, it had the sanction of being practised by royalty, for was not the Queen an arch quack when she touched for the 'evil'? She was the last of a long line of sovereigns, from Edward the Confessor, who exercised the supposed royal gift of healing; but this salutary efficacy was not confined to the royal touch alone, if we can believe a little story of Thoresby's[538]: 'Her Mother Mary Bailey of Deptford, after she had been twelve years blind by the Kings evil was miraculously cured by a handkerchief dipped in the blood of King Charles the First.'
Misson was present the last time James the Second touched, and has left us a graphic account of the ceremony: 'The King was seated in a Chair of State,[539] rais'd two or three Steps. The Reverend Father Peter, with his little Band and his sweeping Cloak, was standing at the King's Right Hand. After some Prayers, the diseased Person, or those that pretended to be so,[540] were made to pass between a narrow double Rail, which fac'd the King. Each Patient, Rich and Poor, Male and Female, fell upon their knees, one after another, at the King's Feet. The King putting forth his two Hands, touch'd their two Cheeks; the Jesuit, who held a Number of Gold Medals, each fasten'd to a narrow white Ribband, put the Ribband round the Patient's Neck at the same Time that the King touch'd him, and said something tantamount to what they say in France, The King touches thee; God cure thee. This was done in a Trice; and for fear the same Patient should crowd into the File again, to get another Medal,[541] he was taken by the Arm, and carry'd into a safe place. When the King was weary of repeating the same action, and touching the Cheek or Chin, Father Peter the Almoner, presented him with the End of the String which was round the Patient's Neck. The Virtue pass'd from the Hand to the String, from the String to the Cloaths, from the Cloaths to the Skin, and from the Skin to the Root of the Evil: After this Royal Touch, those that were really ill were put into the Hands of Physicians; and those that came only for the Medal, had no need of other Remedies.' This last sentence explains a great deal.
William III. did not touch, but gave away the money hitherto spent on the touch pieces, etc., in charity. But Anne, as a thoroughly legitimate English monarch, and a Stuart to boot, kept up the fiction of her curative powers. She tried it on Dr. Johnson, but it had no effect; and his recollections of the ceremony were very vague. 'He had,' he said, 'a confused but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds, and a long black hood.' But then the staunch old Jacobite used to declare that 'his mother had not carried him far enough; she should have taken him to Rome' (to the Pretender).
Anne touched the very first year of her reign, for Luttrell[542] says, 'The Service and Attendance belonging to the Ceremony of touching for the King's Evil went for Bath last Week, her Majesty desiring to touch there.' Illness sometimes prevented her: 'Her Majesty did not touch yesterday for the evil as design'd, having the gout in her hands.'[543]