of human nature, and with the exception of those pestiferous practitioners whose advertisements are as noxious as their prescriptions, and who find the fittest possible media for publication, quacks are no longer in existence except as purveyors of patent medicines, pills, ointment, and plasters; and so if there is no cure there is also no kill. Formerly the quack prescribed and compounded, and then he was indeed dangerous, and we cannot better prove this than by means of a remark in the Gentleman's Magazine of July 1734 about Joshua Ward, an advertisement in reference to whom is to be found in the historical part of this book. The paragraph in the old magazine runs: "There was an extraordinary advertisement in the newspapers this month concerning the great cures in all distempers performed with one medicine, a pill or drop, by Joshua Ward, Esq., lately arrived from Paris, where he had done the like cures. 'Twas said our physicians, particularly Sir Hans Sloane, had found out his secret, but 'twas judged so violent a prescription, that it would be deemed malepractice to apply it as a dose to old and young and in all cases." And again, in the Obituary in the same periodical for 1736, there is an advertisement bearing on this so-called remedy rather unfavourably. It runs thus :

Vesey Hart, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn. About 15 Months ago he took the celebrated Pill, which had at first such violent effects as to throw him into Convulsions and deprive him of his Sight. On recovery he fell into Consumption.

Joshua Ward was rather a celebrity about that time, even among quacks, as the following lines from the Gentleman's Magazine of July 1734 will show. The heading is—

UNIV. SPEC. ON WARD's Drops.

Egregious Ward, you boast with success sure,

That your one drop can all distempers cure:

When it in S -n cures ambition's pain
Or ends the Megrims of Sir James' brain,

Of wounded conscience when it heals the smart,
And on reflexion glads the statesman's heart;
When it to women palls old M-ar-'s gust,
And cools 'fore death the fever of his lust;
When Fd it can give of wit a taste,
Make Harriot pious or lorima chaste;
Make scribbling B-dg- deviate into sense,
Or give to Pope more wit and excellence;
Then will I think that your ONE DROP will save
Ten thousand dying patients from the grave.

In the Daily Advertiser of June 10, 1736, there is a puff advertisement for Ward, which runs :—

We hear that by the Queen's appointment, Joshua Ward, Esq; and eight or ten persons, who in extraordinary Cases have receiv'd great benefit by taking his remedies, attended at the Court at Kensington on monday night last, and his patients were examin'd before her Majesty by three eminent surgeons, several persons of quality being present, when her Majesty was graciously pleas'd to order money to be distributed amongst the patients, and congratulated Mr Ward on his great success.

In the Grub Street Journal of June 24 of the same year is an article on the paragraph, in which it is stated that only seven persons attended at the palace, and that these were proved to be impostors who were in collusion with Ward. The Journal is very strong against the quack, and the article concludes with the following lines, which are in fact a summary of what has been said in the criticism upon Ward's fresh attempt to gull the public:

Seven wonderful Cures.

One felt his sharp rheumatic pains no more:

A Second saw much better than before:

Three cur'd of stone, a dire disease much sadder,

Who still, 'tis thought, have each a stone in bladder :

A Sixth brought gravel bottled up and cork'd,

Which Drop and Pill, he say'd, by urine work'd;
But Questions, ask'd the Patient, all unravell'd;
Much more than whom the Doctor then was gravell'd.

The last a little Woman but great glutton,

Who at one meal eat two raw legs of mutton:

Nor wonder, since within her stomach lay
A Wolf, that gap'd for victuals night and day:
But when he smelt the Pill, he strait for shelter
Run slap into her belly helter skelter.

There is no necessity to take trouble for the purpose of discovering the origin of quacks. It is evident that they "came natural" as soon as ever there was a chance for them, and it is but right to suppose that before quackery became a question of money-making, it had an existence, the outcome of a love people have innately for prescribing and administering to each other, relics of which may still be seen in out-of-the-way parts of the country. Some people imagine that quackery and the belief, still current in various parts of Great Britain, that a seventh son, particularly if the son of a seventh son, possesses medical powers, had originally something to do with each other. That quackery in general was caused by this quaint conceit is not to be supposed, yet the belief in the seventh-son doctrine is well worthy of note. The vulgar mind seems from the earliest ages to have been impressed by the number seven, and there are various ways of accounting for this. Chambers, in his "Book of Days," says that it is easy to see in what way the Mosaic narrative gave sanctity to this number in connection with the days of the week, and led to usages which influence the social life of all the countries of Europe. "But a sort of mystical goodness or power has attached itself to the number in many other ways. Seven wise men, seven champions of Christendom, seven sleepers, seven-league boots, seven ages of man, seven hills, seven senses, seven planets, seven metals, seven sisters, seven stars, seven wonders of the world-all have had their day of favour; albeit that the number has been awkwardly interfered with by modern discoveries concerning metals, planets, stars, and wonders of the world. Added to the above list is the group of seven sons, especially in relation to the youngest or seventh of the seven; and more especi

ally still if this person happen to be the seventh son of a seventh son. It is now perhaps impossible to discover in what country, or at what time, the notion originated, but a notion there certainly is, chiefly in provincial districts, that a seventh son has something peculiar about him. For the most part, the imputed peculiarity is a healing power, a faculty of curing diseases by the touch, or by some other means. The instances of this belief are numerous enough. There is a rare pamphlet called 'The Quack Doctor's Speech,' published in the time of Charles II. The reckless Earl of Rochester delivered this speech on one occasion, when dressed in character, and mounted on a stage as a charlatan. The speech, amid much that suited that licentious age, but would be frowned down by modern society, contained an enumeration of the doctor's wonderful qualities, among which was that of being a 'seventh son of a seventh son,' and therefore clever as a curer of bodily ills. The matter is only mentioned as affording a sort of proof of the existence of a sort of popular belief. In Cornwall, the peasants and the miners entertain this notion; they believe that a seventh son can cure the king's evil by the touch. The mode of proceeding usually is to stroke the part affected thrice gently, to blow upon it thrice, to repeat a form of words, and to give a perforated coin, or some other object, to be worn as an amulet. At Bristol, about forty years ago, there was a man who was always called 'doctor' simply because he was the seventh son of a seventh son. The family of the Joneses of Muddfi, in Wales, is said to have presented seven sons to each of many successive generations, of whom the seventh son always became a doctor -apparently from a conviction that he had an inherited qualification to start with. In Ireland, the seventh son of a seventh son is believed to possess prophetical as well as healing power. A few years ago a Dublin shopkeeper finding his errand-boy to be generally very dilatory in his duties, inquired into the cause, and found that the boy,

being the seventh son of a seventh son, his services were often in requisition among the poorer neighbours, in a way that brought in a good many pieces of silver. Early in the present century there was a man in Hampshire, the seventh son of a seventh son, who was consulted by the villagers as a doctor, and who carried about with him a collection of crutches and sticks, purporting to have once belonged to persons whom he had cured of lameness. Cases are not wanting, also, in which the seventh daughter is placed upon a similar pinnacle of greatness. In Scotland the spaewife or fortune-teller frequently announces herself as the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, to enhance her claims to prophetic power. Even so late as 1851, an inscription was seen on a window in Plymouth, denoting that a certain doctress was the third seventh daughter !—which the world was probably intended to interpret as the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. . . France, as well as our own country, has a belief in the seventh-son mystery. The Journal de Loiret, a French provincial newspaper, in 1854 stated that, in Orleans, if a family has seven sons and no daughter, the seventh is called a Marcou, is branded with a fleur-de-lis, and is believed to possess the power of curing the king's evil. The Marcou breathes on the part affected, or else the patient touches the Marcou's fleur-de-lis. In the year above named there was a famous Marcou in Orleans named Foulon; he was a cooper by trade, and was known as 'le beau Marcou.' Simple peasants used to come to visit him from many leagues in all directions, particularly in Passion-week, when his ministrations were believed to be most efficacious. On the night of Good Friday, from midnight to sunrise, the chance of cure was supposed to be especially good, and on this account four or five hundred persons would assemble. Great disturbances hence arose; and as there was evidence, to all except the silly dupes themselves, that Foulon made use of their superstition to enrich himself, the police