ing, tortured with the
headache, and disgusted with every circumstance of his treatment, cursed
the hour in which the doctor had saddled them with such troublesome
companions.

Next morning by eight o'clock, these polite Hollanders returned the
visit, and, after breakfast, attended their English friends to the house
of a person that possessed a very curious cabinet of curiosities,
to which they had secured our company's admission. The owner of this
collection was a cheesemonger, who received them in a woollen nightcap,
with straps buttoned under his chin. As he understood no language but
his own, he told them, by the canal of one of their conductors, that he
did not make a practice of showing his curiosities; but understanding
that they were Englishmen, and recommended to his friends, he was
content to submit them to their perusal. So saying, he led them up a
dark stair, into a small room, decorated with a few paltry figures in
plaster of Paris, two or three miserable landscapes, the skins of an
otter, seal, and some fishes stuffed; and in one corner stood a glass
case, furnished with newts, frogs, lizards, and serpents, preserved in
spirits; a human foetus, a calf with two heads, and about two dozen of
butterflies pinned upon paper.

The virtuoso having exhibited these particulars, eyed the strangers with
a look soliciting admiration and applause; and as he could not perceive
any symptom of either in their gestures or countenances, withdrew a
curtain, and displayed a wainscot chest of drawers, in which, he
gave them to understand, was something that would agreeably amuse the
imagination. Our travellers, regaled with this notice, imagined that
they would be entertained with the sight of some curious medals, or
other productions of antiquity; but how were they disappointed, when
they saw nothing but a variety of shells, disposed in whimsical figures,
in each drawer! After he had detained them full two hours with a tedious
commentary upon the shape, size, and colour of each department, he, with
a supercilious simper, desired that the English gentlemen would frankly
and candidly declare, whether his cabinet, or that of Mynheer Sloane,
at London, was the most valuable. When this request was signified in
English to the company, the painter instantly exclaimed, "By the Lard!
they are not to be named of a day. And as for that matter, I would not
give one corner of Saltero's coffee-house at Chelsea for all the trash
he hath s