m a helping
hand, if they dissuade her with bitterness; for there is a fantastical
generosity in the sex, to approve creatures of the least merit
imaginable, when they see the imperfections of their admirers are become
the marks of derision for their sakes; and there is nothing so frequent,
as that he who was contemptible to a woman in her own judgment, has won
her by being too violently opposed by others.

Grecian Coffee-house, July 27.

In the several capacities I bear, of astrologer, civilian, and
physician, I have with great application studied the public emolument:
to this end serve all my lucubrations, speculations, and whatever other
labours I undertake, whether nocturnal or diurnal. On this motive am I
induced to publish a never-failing medicine for the spleen: my
experience in this distemper came from a very remarkable cure on my ever
worthy friend Tom Spindle,[454] who, through excessive gaiety, had
exhausted that natural stock of wit and spirits he had long been blessed
with: he was sunk and flattened to the lowest degree imaginable, sitting
whole hours over the "Book of Martyrs," and "Pilgrim's Progress"; his
other contemplations never rising higher than the colour of his urine,
or regularity of his pulse. In this condition I found him, accompanied
by the learned Dr. Drachm, and a good old nurse. Drachm had prescribed
magazines of herbs, and mines of steel. I soon discovered the malady,
and descanted on the nature of it, till I convinced both the patient and
his nurse, that the spleen is not to be cured by medicine, but by
poetry. Apollo, the author of physic, shone with diffusive rays the best
of poets as well as of physicians; and it is in this double capacity
that I have made my way, and have found, sweet, easy, flowering numbers,
are oft superior to our noblest medicines. When the spirits are low, and
nature sunk, the muse, with sprightly and harmonious notes, gives an
unexpected turn with a grain of poetry, which I prepare without the use
of mercury. I have done wonders in this kind; for the spleen is like the
tarantula,[455] the effects of whose malignant poison are to be
prevented by no other remedy but the charms of music: for you are to
understand, that as some noxious animals carry antidotes for their own
poisons; so there is something equally unaccountable in poetry: for
though it is sometimes a disease, it is to be cured only by itself. Now
I knowing Tom Spindle's constitution, and that he is