[189] September 16, 1736. "On Thursday Mrs. Mapp's plate of ten guineas was run for at Epsom. A mare, called Mrs. Mapp, won the first heat, when Mrs. Mapp gave the rider a guinea, and swore, if he won the plate she would give him a hundred."
September 23, 1736. "Mrs. Mapp continues making extraordinary cures: she has now set up an equipage, and on Sunday waited on her Majesty."
October 19, 1736, London Daily Post. "Mrs. Mapp being present at the acting of The Wife's Relief, concurred in the universal applause of a crowded audience. This play was advertised by the desire of Mrs. Mapp, the famous bone-setter from Epsom."
October 21, 1736. "On Saturday evening there was such a concourse of people at the Theatre Royal in Lincoln's-Inn Fields to see the famous Mrs. Mapp, that several ladies and gentlemen were obliged to return for want of room. The confusion at going out was so great, that several ladies and gentlemen had their pockets picked, and many of the former lost their fans, etc. Yesterday she was elegantly entertained by Doctor Ward, at his house in Pall Mall."
"On Saturday, and yesterday, Mrs. Mapp performed several operations at the Grecian Coffeehouse, particularly one upon a niece of Sir Hans Sloane,[190] to his great satisfaction, and her credit. The patient had her shoulder-bone out for about nine years."
December 22, 1737. "Died last week, at her lodgings near Seven Dials, the much talked of Mrs. Mapp, the bone-setter, so miserably poor, that the parish was obliged to bury her."
[190] I have heard it suggested that this harlequin figure, received as Mrs. Mapp, was really intended for Sir Hans Sloane.
[191] He was originally in partnership with his brother, a drysalter in Thames Street. By a fire which broke out in an adjoining house, their joint property was destroyed, and Mr. Ward escaped by clambering over the tops of several houses in his shirt.
In the year 1717 he was returned member for Marlborough, but by a vote of the House of Commons declared not duly elected. It is imagined that he was in some manner connected with his brother John Ward (immortalized by Mr Pope) in the South Sea Bubble, for he left England rather abruptly; and during his residence abroad, is supposed to have turned Roman Catholic.
It was during his exile that he acquired such a knowledge of medicine and chemistry as was afterwards the means of raising him to a state of affluence. About the year 1733 he began to practise physic, and combated for some time the united efforts of argument, jealousy, and ridicule, by each of which he was opposed. By some lucky cures, and particularly one on a relation of Sir Joseph Jekyl, Master of the Rolls, he triumphed over his enemies; was, by a vote of the House of Commons, exempted from being visited by the censors of the college, and called in to the assistance of George the Second, whose hand he cured; and in lieu of a pecuniary compensation, was, at his own request, permitted to ride in his gaudy and heavy equipage through St. James's Park, an honour seldom granted to any but persons of rank. Besides this, the King gave a commission to his nephew, the late General Gansel.