over-valued. There are some who have gained
themselves great reputation for physic by their birth, as the "seventh
son of a seventh son," and others by not being born at all, as the
unborn doctor, who I hear is lately gone the way of his patients, having
died worth five hundred pounds per annum, though he was not born to a
halfpenny.

My ingenious friend, Doctor Saffold, succeeded my old contemporary,
Doctor Lilly, in the studies both of physic and astrology, to which
he added that of poetry, as was to be seen both upon the sign where he
lived, and in the pills which he distributed. He was succeeded by Doctor
Case, who erased the verses of his predecessor out of the sign-post, and
substituted in their stead two of his own, which were as follow:--

"Within this place
Lives Doctor Case."

He is said to have got more by this distich than Mr. Dryden did by all
his works. There would be no end of enumerating the several imaginary
perfections and unaccountable artifices by which this tribe of men
ensnare the minds of the vulgar and gain crowds of admirers. I have seen
the whole front of a mountebank's stage from one end to the other,
faced with patents, certificates, medals, and great seals, by which the
several princes of Europe have testified their particular respect and
esteem for the doctor. Every great man with a sounding title has been
his patient. I believe I have seen twenty mountebanks that have given
physic to the Czar of Muscovy. The Great Duke of Tuscany escapes no
better. The Elector of Brandenburg was likewise a very good patient.

This great condescension of the doctor draws upon him much good-will
from his audience; and it is ten to one but if any of them be troubled
with an aching tooth, his ambition will prompt him to get it drawn by a
person who has had so many princes, kings, and emperors under his hands.

I must not leave this subject without observing that, as physicians are
apt to deal in poetry, apothecaries endeavour to recommend themselves
by oratory, and are therefore, without controversy, the most eloquent
persons in the whole British nation. I would not willingly discourage
any of the arts, especially that of which I am an humble professor; but
I must confess, for the good of my native country, I could wish there
might be a suspension of physic for some years, that our kingdom, which
has been so much exhausted by the wars, might have leave to recruit
itself.

As for myself, the