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قراءة كتاب Notes and Queries, Number 170, January 29, 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
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Notes and Queries, Number 170, January 29, 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
dealt but in old women's stuff;
Yet he caused the physician of Twick'nam to pack,
And the patient grew cheerful enough.
Next Hanmer, who fees ne'er descended to crave,
In gloves lily-white did advance;
To the Poet the gentlest of purges he gave,
And, for exercise, taught him to dance.
One Warburton, then, tho' allied to the Church,
Produced his alterative stores;
But his med'cines the case so oft left in the lurch
That Edwards[1] kick'd him out of doors.
Next Johnson arrived to the patient's relief,
And ten years he had him in hand;
But, tired of his task, 'tis the gen'ral belief,
He left him before he could stand.
Now Capel drew near, not a Quaker more prim,
And number'd each hair in his pate;
By styptics, call'd stops, he contracted each limb,
And crippled for ever his gait.
From Gopsal then strutted a formal old goose,
And he'd cure him by inches, he swore;
But when the poor Poet had taken one dose,
He vow'd he would swallow no more.
But Johnson, determined to save him or kill,
A second prescription display'd;
And, that none might find fault with his drop or his pill,
Fresh doctors he call'd to his aid.
First, Steevens came loaded with black-letter books,
Of fame more desirous than pelf;
Such reading, observers might read in his looks,
As no one e'er read but himself.
Then Warner, by Plautus and Glossary known,
And Hawkins, historian of sound[2];
Then Warton and Collins together came on,
For Greek and potatoes renown'd.
With songs on his pontificalibus pinn'd,
Next, Percy the Great did appear;
And Farmer, who twice in a pamphlet had sinn'd,
Brought up the empirical rear.
"The cooks the more num'rous the worse is the broth,"
Says a proverb I well can believe;
And yet to condemn them untried I am loth,
So at present shall laugh in my sleeve.
Rigdum Funnidos.
Falmouth.
One Edwards, an apothecary, who seems to have known [more] of the poet's case than some of the regular physicians who undertook to cure him.
Footnote 2:(return)
From the abilities and application of Sir J. Hawkins, the publick is now furnished with a compleat history of the science of musick.
[This ballad originally appeared in the Gentleman's Mag. for 1797, p. 912.; and at p. 1108. of the same volume will be found the following reply:
"Answer to Shakspeare's Bed-side; or, the Doctors Enumerated.
How could you assert, when the Poet was sick,
None hit off a method of cure;
When Montagu's pen, like a magical stick,
His health did for ever ensure?"]
FOLK LORE.
Cures for the Hooping Cough (Rubus fruticosus).—The following is said to prevail in the counties of Warwick, Worcester, and Stafford, as a remedy for this harrowing disorder in children: that if a child is put to walk beneath a common bramble (Rubus fruticosus), having rooted in the ground at both extremities (which may be very commonly met with where they grow luxuriantly), a certain number of times, a perfect cure would be the result.
Gryphea incurva.—In the course of conversation with an old man in the county of Warwick, relative to ancient customs, he related to me as a fact within his own knowledge, that the pretty round stone shell, as he termed it (picking one up at the same time), a specimen of the Gryphea incurva, or Devil's Thumb, as it is frequently called, which is found in considerable quantities in the gravel beds of that county, when prepared in a certain manner—calcined, I believe—is a certain specific for this complaint in its most obstinate form. Indeed, he related to me some very extraordinary cures which he had himself witnessed.
Donkey.—A certain number of hairs taken from the black cross on the shoulders of a donkey, and put into a small bag made of black silk, and worn round a child's neck afflicted with the complaint, is a never-failing remedy.
Minor Notes.
Epitaph in Tynemouth churchyard:
"Wha lies here?
Pate Watt, gin ye speer.
Poor Pate! is that thou?
Ay, by my soul, is't;
But I's dead now."
Epitaph composed by an old gardener at Ilderton, Northumberland, for his own tombstone:
"Under this stone lies Bobbity John,
Who, when alive, to the world was a wonder;
And would have been so yet, had not Death in a fit
Cut his soul and his body asunder."
Nostradamus on the Gold-diggings.—Nostradamus (physician to Henry II. of France) has the following among his prophecies (p. 33.):
"Las, qu'on verra grand peuple tourmenté
Et la loy sainte en totale ruine,
Par autres Loix toute la Christianité,
Quand d'or, d'argent trouve nouvelle mine."
Garencières translates thus:
"Alas! how a great people shall be tormented,
And the holy law in an utter ruin;
By other laws all christendom be troubled,
When new mines of gold and silver shall be found."
Whimsical Bequest.—Is the following cutting from the Ipswich Journal of January 8th, 1853, worth preserving in your pages?
Whimsical Bequest.—On Saturday last, the unmarried of whatever age and sex, numbering between 800 and 900 residents in the parish of St. Leonard's, Colchester, received their new year's gift in the shape of 'a penny roll,' bequeathed to them in days of yore, under the following singular circumstances:—Many years ago, a piece of waste land, called 'Knave's Acre,' in the parish of St. Leonard's, was used as a playground by the boys of this and the adjacent parish of St. Mary Magdalen;