I once received an advertisement of one who had studied thirty years by candle-light for the good of his countrymen. He might have studied twice as long by daylight, and never have been taken notice of: but lucubrations cannot be overvalued. There are some who have gained themselves great reputation for physic by their birth, as the seventh son of a seventh son; and others by not being born at all, as the Unborn Doctor,[151] who, I hear, is lately gone the way of his patients, having died worth five hundred pounds per annum, though he was not born to a halfpenny.
My ingenious friend Dr. Saffold[152] succeeded my old contemporary Dr. Lilly[153] in the studies both of physic and astrology, to which he added that of poetry, as was to be seen both upon the sign where he lived, and in the bills which he distributed. He was succeeded by Dr. Case,[154] who erased the verses of his predecessor out of the sign-post, and substituted in their stead two of his own, which were as follows:
Within this place
Lives Doctor Case.
He is said to have got more by this distich than Mr. Dryden did by all his works. There would be no end of enumerating the several imaginary perfections and unaccountable artifices by which this tribe of men ensnare the minds of the vulgar, and gain crowds of admirers. I have seen the whole front of a mountebank's stage from one end to the other faced with patents, certificates, medals, and great seals, by which the several princes of Europe have testified their particular respect and esteem for the doctor. Every great man with a sounding title has been his patient. I believe I have seen twenty mountebanks that have given physic to the Czar of Muscovy. The great Duke of Tuscany escapes no better. The Elector of Brandenburg was likewise a very good patient.
This great condescension of the doctor draws upon him much good-will from his audience; and it is ten to one, but if any of them be troubled with an aching tooth, his ambition will prompt him to get it drawn by a person who has had so many princes, kings, and emperors under his hands.
I must not leave this subject without observing, that as physicians are apt to deal in poetry, apothecaries endeavour to recommend themselves by oratory, and are therefore without controversy the most eloquent persons in the whole British nation. I would not willingly discourage any of the arts, especially that of which I am a humble professor; but I must confess, for the good of my native country, I could wish there might be a suspension of physic for some years, that our kingdom, which has been so much exhausted by the wars, might have leave to recruit itself.
As for myself, the only physic which has brought me safe to almost the age of man, and which I prescribe to all my friends, is abstinence. This is certainly the best physic for prevention, and very often the most effectual against a present distemper. In short, my recipe is, Take nothing.
Were the body politic to be physicked like particular persons, I should venture to prescribe to it after the same manner. I remember when our whole island was shaken with an earthquake some years ago, there was an impudent mountebank who sold pills which (as he told the country people) were very good against an earthquake. It may perhaps be thought as absurd to prescribe a diet for the allaying popular commotions, and national ferments. But I am verily persuaded, that if in such a case a whole people were to enter into a course of abstinence, and eat nothing but water-gruel for a fortnight, it would abate the rage and animosity of parties, and not a little contribute to the cure of a distracted nation. Such a fast would have a natural tendency to the procuring of those ends for which a fast is usually proclaimed. If any man has a mind to enter on such a voluntary abstinence, it might not be improper to give him the caution of Pythagoras in particular:[155]
Abstine a fabis.
"Abstain from beans."
That is, say the interpreters, meddle not with elections, beans having been made use of by the voters among the Athenians in the choice of magistrates.