All swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures—
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers."
In Nicholls's Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 495, 505, many curious particulars relating to this ceremony are to be found.
As the custom has now for some time been discontinued, and the credulity of those who believed in its efficacy, laughed at, I hope it will not be long ere that disgusting custom of allowing persons (of whom women in general form by far the greater number) afflicted with the king's evil, and different other disorders, to come on the scaffold immediately after the execution of a criminal, for the purpose of touching the part affected, with the hand of the but just dead malefactor, will be put a stop to; it being the very height of absurdity to imagine that it can be productive of any good effect; but on the contrary, tending to divest the minds of the surrounding multitude of that awe with which the ignominious spectacle should impress them.
Σ.Γ. [Greek: S.G.]
In the trifling paper I sent you respecting "Cats," which you deemed worthy of insertion in No. 398, you have it "by some merchants from the Island of Cyprus, who came hither for fur," it should be tin—Fur being an article of importation.