I cured Aureng-Zebe, the old mogul, of an epilepsia fanatica, with which he was afflicted to that degree, that patents were dispatch’d, and persons named to go ambassadors extraordinary to William Pen, George Whitehead, William Mede; the Philadelphians, Cameronians, Jesuits, and Jacobian Whiskerites, for a communication of diseases and remedies; but by my cephalick snuff and tincture, I made him as clear headed a rake as ever got drunk with classics at the university, or expounded Horace in Will’s coffee-house; and messengers were sent thro’ all his empire to get him Dutry, Bung, Satyrion, Cantharides, Whores, and Schyraz wine; and if he has since fallen down to his Alcoran and the flat effects of ninety seven years of age, blame his damn’d courtiers and not me, that instead of nicking the nice operation of the medicine, let in books and priests, to debauch his understanding.
I cured the Mahometan predestinarian Sultan of the great East India island Borneo, of want of blood, by counselling him to follow his inclinations and bathe in it, that he might restore himself by spight and percolation; but vexations from his Divan, the neighbour emperor of China, a saucy young jackanapes, and a sorrel hair’d female gave him such jolts, that quite spoil’d the continuance of the noblest cure in the world.
Peter Alexowitz, present czar of Muscovy, fell ill of a Calenture in London, occasion’d by putting too great a quantity of gun-powder into his usquebaugh, and pepper into his brandy; all the topping doctors of the town were sent for, and apply’d their Cortex and Opium to no purpose. What should I do in this pinch, but order’d a hole to be made in the Thames for him, as they do for the ducks in St. James’s-Park, it being then an excessive frost, sous’d him over head and ears morning and night, and by this noble experiment not only recovered him, but likewise gave a hint to the setting up of a cold-bath near Sir John Oldcastle’s which has done such miracles since.
I cured a noble peer, aged sixty seven, of a perpetual priapism, so that now his pimping valets, and footmen, his bawds, spirit of Clary, and a maidenhead of fourteen can hardly raise him, who before was scarce to be trusted with his own family; nay, his own wife: and now he’s as continent and virtuous a statesman as ever lin’d his inward letchery with outward gravity.
A noble peeress, that lives not full a hundred miles from St. James’s square, in the sixty sixth year of her age, was seiz’d with a furor uterinus; by plying her ladyship with a few drops of my Antepyretical Essence, extracted from a certain vegetable gathered under the artic pole, and known to no body but myself, I perfectly allay’d this preternatural ferment; and now she lies at quiet, tho’ both her hands are unty’d as a new swaddled babe, and handles no rascals but Pam, and his gay fellows of the cards.
Honoraria Frail, eldest daughter to my old lady Frail of Red-Lyon-Square, by too prodigally distributing les dernieres feveurs to her mother’s sandy pated coachman and pages, had so strangely dilated the gates du citadel d’amour, that one might have marched a regiment of dragoons thro’ them. Her mother, who was in the greatest perplexities imaginable upon the score of this disaster, sent to consult me: With half a dozen drops of my Aqua Styptica, Hymenealis, I so contracted all the avenues of the aforesaid citadel, that the Yorkshire knight that marry’d her, spent above a hundred small-shot against the walls, and bombarded the fortress a full fortnight before he cou’d enter it; and now they are the happiest couple within the bills of mortality.
I renewed the youth from the girdle downwards of madam de Maintenon, so that she afforded all the delights imaginable, to her old grand lover in imagination, and to the younger bigots and herself in reality: while her face still remain’d as great an object of mortification as her beads, death’s-head, and discipline; and this noble cure still remains to be view’d by all the world.
Harry Higden of the Temple, counsellor, was so miserably troubled with the long vacation disease, or the defectus crumenæ, that the sage benchers of the house threatned to padlock his chamber door for non-payment of rent. He asked my advice in this exigence: I, who knew the full strength of his furniture, which consisted of a rug, two blankets, a joint-stool, and a tin-candlestick, that served him for a piss-pot when revers’d, counselled him to take his door off the hinges, and lock it up in his study. He followed my advice, and by that means escaped the abovemention’d ostracism of the padlock.
Margaret Cheatly, bawd, match-maker, and mid-wife of Bloomsbury, by immoderate drinking of strong-waters, had got a nose so termagantly rubicund, that she out-blazed the comet: my cosmetic Florentine-unguent, absolutely reform’d this inflammation, and now she looks as soberly as a dissenting minister’s goggle-ey’d convenience.
Jerry Scandal, whale and ghost printer in White-Friers, had plagued the town above ten years with apparitions, murders, catechisms, and the like stuff; by showing him the phiz of terrible Robin in my green magic-glass, I so effectually frighted him, that he has since demolish’d all his letters, dismissed his hawkers, flung up his business, and instead of news, cries flounders and red-herrings about the streets.