would not be amiss if we paid the Spectator the same compliment that is often made in our public prints to Sir William Reed, Dr. Grant, Mr. Moor, the apothecary, and other eminent physicians, where it is usual for the patients to publish the cures which have been made upon them, and the several distempers under which they laboured. The proposal took; and the lady where we visited having the last two volumes in large paper interleaved for her own private use, ordered them to be brought down, and laid in the window, whither every one in the company retired, and wrote down a particular advertisement in the style and phrase of the like ingenious compositions which we frequently meet with at the end of our newspapers. When we had finished our work, we read them with a great deal of mirth at the fire-side, and agreed, nemine contradicente, to get them transcribed, and sent to the Spectator. The gentleman who made the proposal entered the following advertisement before the title-page, after which the rest succeeded in order. 666 "Remedium efficax et universum; or, An effectual remedy adapted to all capacities; showing how any person may cure himself of ill-nature, pride, party-spleen, or any other distemper incident to the human system, with an easy way to know when the infection is upon him. The panacea is as innocent as bread, agreeable to the taste, and requires no confinement. It has not its equal in the universe, as abundance of the nobility and gentry throughout the kingdom have experienced. "N.B. No family ought to be without it.' "Over the two Spectators on Jealousy, being the two first in the "I, William Crazy, aged threescore and seven, having been for several years afflicted with uneasy doubts, fears, and vapours, occasioned by the youth and beauty of Mary my wife, aged twenty-five, do hereby, for the benefit of the public, give notice, that I have found great relief from the two following doses, having taken them two mornings together with a dish of chocolate. Witness my hand, &c.' 666 "For the benefit of the Poor. "In charity to such as are troubled with the disease of levee-hunting, and are forced to seek their bread every morning at the chamber-doors of great men, I, A. B., do testify, that for many years past I laboured under this fashionable distemper, but was cured of it by a remedy which I bought of Mrs. Baldwin, contained in a half sheet of paper, marked No. 193, where any one may be provided with the same remedy at the price of a single penny.' "An infallible cure for "Hypochondriac Melancholy," No. 173. 184. 191. 203. 209. 221. 233. 235. 239. 245. 247, 251. "Probatum est. CHARLES EASY.' "I, Christopher Query, having been troubled with a certain distemper in my tongue, which showed itself in impertinent and superfluous interrogatories, have not asked one unnecessary question since my perusal of the prescription marked No. 228.' "The "Britannic Beautifier," being an Essay on Modesty, No. 231, which gives such a delightful blushing colour to the cheeks of those that are white or pale, that it is not to be distinguished from a natural fine complexion, nor perceived to be artificial by the nearest friend is nothing of paint, or in the least hurtful. It renders the face delightfully handsome; is not subject to be rubbed off, and cannot be paralleled by either wash, powder, cosmetic, &c. It is certainly the best beautifier in the world. "MARTHA GLOWORM.' "I, Samuel Self, of the parish of St. James, having a constitution which naturally abounds with acids, made use of a paper of directions marked No. 177, recommending a healthful exercise called Good-nature, and have found it a most excellent sweetener of the blood.' 66 6 Whereas I, Elizabeth Rainbow, was troubled with that distemper in my head, which about a year ago was pretty epidemical among the ladies, and discovered itself in the colour of their hoods, having made use of the doctor's cephalic tincture, which he exhibited to the public in one of his last year's papers, I recovered in a very few days.' "I, George Gloom, having for a long time been troubled with the spleen, and being advised by my friends to put myself into a course of Steele, did for that end make use of remedies conveyed to me several mornings in short letters from the hands of the invisible doctor. They were marked at the bottom, Nathaniel Henroost, Alice Thread-needle, Rebecca Nettletop, Tom Loveless, Mary Meanwell, Thomas Smoky, Anthony Freeman, Tom Meggot, Rustic Sprightly, &c., which have had so good an effect upon me, that I now find myself cheerful, lightsome and easy; and therefore do recommend them to all such as labour under the same distemper." Not having room to insert all the advertisements which were sent me, I have only picked out some few from the third volume, reserving the fourth for another opportunity. ADDISON. LETTER OF THE AMBASSADOR OF BANTAM. (No. 557). "THERE is nothing," says Plato, "so delightful, as the hearing or the speaking of truth." For this reason, there is no conversation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive. "The dialect of conversation," says Archbishop Tillotson, "is now-a-days so swelled with vanity and compliment, and so surfeited (as I may say) of expressions of kindness and respect, that if a man that lived an age or two ago should return into the world again, he would really want a dictionary to help him to understand his own language, and to know the true intrinsic value of the phrase in fashion; and would hardly, at first, believe at what a low rate the highest strains and expressions of kindness imaginable do com monly pass in current payment; and when he should come to understand it, it would be a great while before he could bring himself with a good countenance, and a good conscience, to converse with men upon equal terms and in their own way." I have by me a letter which I look upon as a great curiosity, and which may serve as an exemplification to the foregoing passage, cited out of this most excellent prelate. It is said to have been written in King Charles the Second's reign by the ambassador of Bantam, a little after his arrival in England. "The people, where I now am, have tongues further from their hearts than from London to Bantam, and thou knowest the inhabitants of one of these places do not know what is done in the other. They call thee and thy subjects barbarians, because we speak what we mean; and account themselves a civilised people, because they speak one thing and mean another: truth they call barbarity, and falsehood politeness. Upon my first landing, one who was sent from the king of this place to meet me, told me, that he was extremely sorry for the storm I had met with just before my arrival.' I was troubled to hear him grieve and afflict himself upon my account; but in less than a quarter of an hour he smiled and was as merry as if nothing had happened. Another who came with him told me by my interpreter, he should be glad to do me any service that lay in his power.' Upon which I desired him to carry one of my portmanteaus for me; but, instead of serving me according to his promise, he laughed, and bid another do it. I lodged, the first week, at the house of one who desired me to think myself at home, and to consider his house as my own.' Accordingly, I the next morning began to knock down one of the walls of it, in order to let in the fresh air, and had packed up some of the householdgoods, of which I intended to have made thee a present; but the false varlet no sooner saw me falling to work, but he sent word to desire me to give over, for that he would have no such doings in his house. I had not been long in this nation, before I was told by one, for whom I had asked a certain favour from the chief of the king's servants, whom they here call the lord-treasurer, that I had eternally obliged him. I was so surprised at his gratitude, that I could not forbear saying, What service is there which one man can do for another, that can oblige him to all eternity! However, I only asked him, for my reward, that he would lend me his eldest daughter during my stay in this country; but I quickly found that he was as treacherous as the rest of his countrymen. 66 At my first going to court, one of the great men almost put me out of countenance, by asking ten thousand pardons of me for only treading by accident upon my toe. They call this kind of lie a compliment; for when they are civil to a great man, they tell him untruths, for which thou wouldest order any of thy officers of state to receive a hundred blows upon his foot. I do not know how I shall negotiate anything with this people, since there is so little credit to be given to them. When I go to see the king's scribe, I am generally told that he is not at home, though perhaps I saw him go into his house almost the very moment before. Thou wouldest fancy that the whole nation are physicians, for the first question they always ask me, is, how I do I have this question put to me above a hundred times a day. Nay, they are not only thus inquisitive after my health, but wish it in a more solemn manner, with a full glass in their hands, every time I sit with them at table, though at the same time they would persuade me to drink their liquors in such quantities as I have found by experience will make me sick. They often pretend to pray for thy health also in the same manner; but I have more reason to expect it from the goodness of thy constitution, than the sincerity of their wishes. May thy slave escape in safety from this double-tongued race of men, and live to lay himself once more at thy feet in the royal city of Bantam!" ADDISON. VOL. II. I |