[317a] This proclamation therefore must have been published and affixed in some open place at Lynn.
[317b] See the Athenæum No, 4, p. 360.
[319] See the Athenæum for April and May 1809.
[320] Athenæum as before.
[324] Would not the case have been the same with their descendants of the present generation, had our three last monarchs thought proper to continue the practice, or the present sovereign chose to revive it?—How strikingly was the easy faith of the nation exemplified in the implicit credit it gave to a late premier’s possessing extraordinary and plenary ability to heal all the national or political maladies of Britain, of Europe, and of the world? And had he pretended to a power to cure the scrofula, or any other bodily complaint, with his touch, would it not have been readily believed by all his numerous admirers, and by the greatest part of our countrymen? And would not numerous witnesses have soon appeared, ready to attest the reality and completeness of his cures?—Circumstances seem evidently to favour these conclusions: nor will the story of the Dumb Doctor, still fresh in every body’s memory, (not to mention other cases) allow of our making here an exception in favour of the inhabitants of Lynn.
For the sake of those readers who live at a distance from Lynn, the affair here last alluded to may require some explanation. Be it known therefore, that the empirical Adventurer, called the Dumb Doctor, made his appearance at Lynn about four and twenty years ago; and for a good while after spent most of his time between this town and Wisbeach. It was given out that he had been deaf and dumb from his birth, and that he was a native of New England, or some part of North America, where he had, somehow, (miraculously, or at least in some very extraordinary and wonderful manner no doubt) acquired very deep knowledge and skill in the healing art; and after having performed great and astonishing cures in his own country, had actually crossed the wide Atlantic out of pure kindness and compassion to the sick and infirm folk of this kingdom, most of whose complaints he might be expected capable of removing.—The tale very generally took with our good townsmen, and numbers of ailing people, gentle and simple, well-bred and ill-bred, from all quarters, flocked to the impostor for relief. Not a few of them also declared that they had actually derived great benefit from his prescriptions.—Thus he went on very prosperously, till an old acquaintance of his unluckily came to town, blew him up, and blasted all his hopes. He then suddenly decamped, and was never since seen or heard of in these parts.—It seems he had belonged so a company of strolling players, from which honourable fraternity he had been on some occasion expelled: upon which he took up the medical profession, pretending to be deaf and dumb, and a native of North America, as was before stated.—This may serve to shew that with all our skepticism and infidelity, and our large stock of fancied light and discernment, learning and refinement, we are by no means so far removed from the easy faith and blind credulity of our ancestors, or become such complete proofs against the wiles of imposture, or the specious arts of daring deceivers, as might be supposed, from our confident, loud, and boisterous boastings.
[328] Sullivan’s Lectures on the Feudal System, and Laws of England, p. 180.
[329a] Blackstone ii. 51, and iv. 411.
[329b] See Caste 1. 423.
[330] Sullivan’s Lectures, No. xvii, xviii, and xxviii.