5. That over all the gates of the additional buildings, there be figures placed in the same manner as over the entrance of the edifice already erected;[51] provided, they represent such distractions only as are proper for those additional buildings; as, of an envious man gnawing his own flesh, a gamester pulling himself by the ears, and knocking his head against a marble pillar, a covetous man warming himself over a heap of gold, a coward flying from his own shadow, and the like.
Having laid down this general scheme of my design, I do hereby invite all persons who are willing to encourage so public-spirited a project, to bring in their contributions as soon as possible, and to apprehend forthwith any politician whom they shall catch raving in a coffee-house, or any freethinker whom they shall find publishing his deliriums, or any other person who shall give the like manifest signs of a crazed imagination; and I do at the same time give this public notice to all the madmen about this great city, that they may return to their senses with all imaginable expedition, lest if they should come into my hands, I should put them into a regimen which they would not like; for if I find any one of them persist in his frantic behaviour, I will make him in a month's time as famous as ever Oliver's porter[52] was.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iii. 4, &c.; Orat. pro Dom. 33, &c.
[46] Mr. Dobson quotes from Burton's "Anatomie of Melancholy" (1628), p. 18: "I will evince it, that most men are mad, that they had as much need to go a pilgrimage to the Anticyræ (as in Strabo's time they did) as in our dayes they run to Compostella, our Lady of Sichim, or Lauretta, to seeke for helpe; that it is likely to be as prosperous a voyage as that of Guiana, and there is much more need of Hellebor than of Tobacco."
[47] Hellebore was much used by the ancients as a cure for madness and melancholy.
[48] The best Hungary water (a popular scent) was made of spirits of wine, rosemary in bloom, lavender flowers, and oil of rosemary.
[49] Dealing in ideas instead of realities.
[51] The statues by C. G. Cibber.