frowns upon him, and all nature looks black about him, he has his light and support within him, that are able to cheer his mind, and bear him up in the midst of all those horrors which encompass him. He knows that his helper is at hand, and is always nearer to him than any thing else can be, which is capable of annoying or terrifying him. In the midst of calumny or contempt he attends to that Being who whispers better things within his soul, and whom he looks upon as his defender, his glory, and the lifterup of his head. In his deepest solitude and retirement he knows that he is in company with the greatest of beings; and perceives within himself such real sensations of his presence, as are more delightful than any thing that can be met with in the conversation of his creatures. Even in the hour of death he considers the pains of his dissolution to be nothing else but the breaking down of that partition which stands betwixt his soul and the sight of that Being who is always present with him, and is about to manifest itself to him in fulness of joy.

We

'If we would be thus happy, and thus sensible of our Maker's presence, from the secret effects of his mercy and goodness, we must keep such a watch over all our thoughts, that, in the language of the scripture, his soul may have pleasure in us. must take care not to grieve his Holy Spirit, and endeavour to make the meditations of our hearts always acceptable in his sight, that he may delight thus to reside and dwell in us. The light of nature could direct Seneca to this doctrine, in a very remarkable passage among his epistles: "Sacer in est in nobis spiritus bonorum malorumque custos, et observator, et quemadmodum nos illum tractamus, ita et ille nos."

"There is a Holy Spirit residing in us,

who watches and observes both good and evil men, and will treat us after the same manner that we treat him." But I shall conclude this discourse with those more emphatical words in divine revelation, "If a man love me he will keep my word; and my father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."

No 572. MONDAY, JULY, 26, 1714.

- Quod Medicorum est

Promittunt Medici

HOR. 1 Ep. ii. 115.

Physicians only boast the healing art.

I AM the more pleased with these my papers, since I find they have encouraged several men of learning and wit to become my correspondents: I yesterday received the following essay against quacks, which I shall here communicate to my readers for the good of the public, begging the writer's pardon for those additions and retrenchments which I have made in it.

'THE desire of life is so natural and strong a passion, that I have long since ceased to wonder at the great encouragement which the practice of physic finds among us. Well-constituted governments have always made the profession of a physician both honourable and advantageous. Homer's Machaon and Virgil's Iapis were men of renown, heroes in war, and made as least as much havoc among their enemies as among their friends. Those who have little

d By Addison. This assignment is rested on the authority of Mr.

Tickell

or no faith in the abilities of a quack will apply themselves to him, either because he is willing to sell health at a reasonable profit, or because the patient, like a drowning man, catches at every twig, and hopes for relief from the most ignorant, when the most able physicians give him none. Though impudence and many words are as necessary to these itinerary Galens, as a laced hat or a merry-andrew, yet they would turn very little to the advantage of the owner, if there were not some inward disposition in the sick man to favour the pretensions of the mountebank. Love of life in the one, and of money in the other, creates a good correspondence between them.

'There is scarce a city in Great Britain but has one of this tribe who takes it into his protection, and on the market-day harrangues the good people of the place with aphorisms and receipts. You may depend upon it he comes not there for his own private interest, but out of a particular affection to the town. I remember one of these public-spirited artists at Hammersmith, who told his audience that he had been born and bred there, and that, having a special regard for the place of his nativity, he was determined to make a present of five shillings to as many as would accept of it. The whole crowd stood agape, and ready to take the doctor at his word; when putting his hand into a long bag, as every one was expecting his crown-piece, he drew out an handful of little packets, each of which he informed the spectators was constantly sold at five shillings and sixpence, but that he would bate the odd five shillings to every inhabitant of that place: the whole assembly immediately closed with this generous offer, and took off all his physic, after the doctor

had made them vouch for one another, that there were no foreigners among them, but that they were all Hammersmith men.

'There is another branch of pretenders to this art, who, without either horse or pickle-herring, lie snug in a garret, and send down notice to the world of their extraordinary parts and abilities by printed bills and advertisements. These seem to have derived their custom from an eastern nation which Herodotus speaks of, among whom it was a law, that, whenever any cure was performed, both the method of the cure, and an account of the distemper, should be fixed in some public place; but, as customs will corrupt, these our moderns provide themselves of persons to attest the cure before they publish or make an experiment of the prescription. I have heard of a porter, who serves as a knight of the post under one of these operators, and, though he was never sick in his life, he has been cured of all the diseases in the Dispensary. These are the men whose sagacity has invented elixirs of all sorts, pills, and lozenges, and take it as an affront if you come to them before you are given over by every body else. Their medicines are infallible, and never fail of success, that is, of enriching the doctor, and setting the patient effectually at rest.

'I lately dropt into a public house at Westminster, where I found the room hung round with ornaments of this nature. There were elixirs, tinctures, the Anodyne Fotus, English pills, electuaries, and in short more remedies than I believe there are diseases. At the sight of so many inventions, I could not but imagine myself in a kind of arsenal or magazine, where store of arms was reposited against any sudden invasion. Should you be attacked by

the enemy sideways, here was an infallible piece of defensive armour to cure the pleurisy: should a distemper beat up your head-quarters, here you might purchase an impenetrable helmet, or, in the language of the artist, a cephalic tincture: if your main body be assaulted, here are various kinds of armour in case of various onsets. I began to congratulate the present age upon the happiness men might reasonably hope for in life, when death was thus in a manner defeated; and when pain itself would be of so short a duration, that it would but just serve to enhance the value of pleasure. While I was in these thoughts, I unluckily called to mind a story of an ingenious gentleman of the last age, who laying violently afflicted with the gout, a person came and offered his service to cure him by a method which he assured him was infallible; the servant who received the message carried it up to his master, who inquiring whether the person came on foot or in a chariot, and being informed that he was on foot; "Go," says he, "send the knave about his business; was his method as infallible as he pretends, he would long before now have been in his coach and six." In like manner I concluded, that, had all these advertisers arrived to that skill they pretend to, they would have had no need for so many years successively to publish to the world the place of their abode and the virtues of their medicines. One of these gentlemen indeed pretends to an effectual cure for leanness; what effects it may have had upon those who have tried it I cannot tell; but I am credibly informed that the call for it has been so great, that it has effectually cured the doctor himself of that distemper. Could each of them produce so good an instance of the success of his