laboured, since I first kept the public stage, to do all the good I could, and have perfected many cures at my own lodgings, carefully avoiding the common method of mountebanks, to do their most eminent operations in sight of the people; but must be so just to my patients as to declare, they have testified under their hands their sense of my poor abilities, and the good I have done them, which I publish for the benefit of the world, and not out of any thoughts of private advantage.

I have cured fine Mrs. Spy of a great imperfection in her eyes, which made her eternally rolling them from one coxcomb to another in public places, in so languishing a manner, that it once lessened her own power, and her beholders' vanity. Twenty drops of my ink, placed in certain letters on which she attentively looked for half an hour, have restored her to the true use of her sight, which is, to guide, and not mislead us. Ever since she took the liquor, which I call Bickerstaff's circumspection-water, she looks right forward, and can bear being looked at for half a day without returning one glance. This water has a peculiar virtue in it, which makes it the only true cosmetic or beauty-wash in the world; the nature of it is such, that if you go to a glass with a design to admire your face, it immediately changes it into downright deformity. If you consult it only to look with a better countenance upon your friends, it immediately gives an alacrity to the visage, and new grace to the whole person. There is indeed a great deal owing to the constitution of the person to whom it is applied; it is in vain to give it when the patient is in the rage of the distemper; a bride in her first month, a lady soon after her husband's being knighted, or any person of either sex, who has lately obtained any new good fortune or preferment, must be prepared some time before they use it. It has an effect upon others, as well as the patient,

when it is taken in due form. Lady Petulant has by the use of it cured her husband of jealousy, and lady Gad her whole neighbourhood of detraction.

The fame of these things, added to my being an old fellow, makes me extremely acceptable to the fair sex. You would hardly believe me, when I tell you, there is not a man in town so much their delight as myself. They make no more of visiting me, than going to Madam Depingle's; there were two of them, namely, Damia and Clidamira, (I assure you women of distinction) who came to see me this morning in their way to prayers; and being in a very diverting humour (as innocence always makes people cheerful), they would needs have me, according to the distinction of pretty and very pretty fellows, inform them, if I thought either of them had a title to the very pretty, among those of their own sex; and if I did, which was the more deserving of the two?

To put them to the trial, "Look ye," said I, "I must not rashly give my judgment in matters of this importance; pray let me see you dance; I play upon the kit." They immediately fell back to the lower end of the room (you may be sure they curtsied low enough to me) and began. Never were two in the world so equally matched, and both scholars to my name-sake Isaac.* Never was man in so dangerous a condition as myself, when they began to expand their charms. "Oh! ladies, ladies," cried I, "not half that air, you will fire the house." smiled; for, by the bye, there is no carrying a metaphor too far, when a lady's charms are spoken of. Somebody, I think, has called a fine woman dancing, "a brandished torch of beauty." These rivals moved with such an agreeable freedom, that you would believe their gesture was the necessary

Both

* Mr. Isaac, a famous dancing-master at that time, was a Frenchman, and a Roman Catholic.

effect of the music, and not the product of skill and practice. Now Clidamira came on with a crowd of graces, and demanded my judgment with so sweet an air-and she had no sooner carried it, but Damia made her utterly forgot, by a gentle sinking, and a rigadoon step. The contest held a full half-hour; and, I protest, I saw no manner of difference in their perfections, until they came up together, and expected sentence. "Look ye, ladies," said I, "I see no difference in the least in your performance; but you, Clidamira, seem to be so well satisfied that I shall determine for you, that I must give it to Damia, who stands with so much diffidence and fear, after showing an equal merit to what she pretends to. Therefore, Clidamira, you are pretty; but, Damia, you are a very pretty lady: for," said I, "beauty loses its force, if not accompanied with modesty. She that has an humble opinion of herself, will have every body's applause, because she does not expect it; while the vain creature loses approbation through too great a sense of deserving it."

From my own Apartment, June 27.

Being of a very spare and hective constitution, I am forced to make frequent journeys of a mile or two for fresh air; and, indeed, by this last, which was no farther than the village of Chelsea, I am farther convinced of the necessity of travelling to know the world for, as it is usual with young voyagers, as soon as they land upon a shore, to begin their accounts of the nature of the people, their soil, their government, their inclinations, and their passions; so really I fancied I could give you an immediate description of this village, from the Five Fields where the robbers lie in wait, to the coffee-house where the Literati sit in council. A great ancestor of our's by the mother's side, Mr. Justice Overdo (whose history is written by Ben Jonson), met with more

enormities by walking incognito than he was capable of correcting; and found great mortifications in observing also persons of eminence, whom he before knew nothing of. Thus it fared with me, even in a place so near the town as this. When I came into the coffee-house, I had not time to salute the company, before my eyes were diverted by ten thousand gimcracks round the room, and on the cieling. When my first astonishment was over, there comes to me a sage of a thin and meagre countenance; which aspect made me doubt, whether reading or fretting had made it so philosophic: but I very soon perceived him to be of that sect which the antients call Gingivista; in our language, tooth-drawers. I immediately had a respect for the man; for these practical philosophers go upon a very rational hypothesis, not to cure, but to take away the part affected. My love of mankind made me very benevolent to Mr. Salter; for such is the name of this eminent barber and antiquary. Men are usually, but unjustly, distinguished rather by their fortunes than their talents; otherwise this personage would make a great figure in that class of men which I distinguish under the title of Odd Fellows. But it is the misfortune of persons of great genius to have their faculties dissipated by attention to too many things at once. Mr. Salter is an instance of this if he would wholly give himself up to the string, instead of playing twenty beginnings to tunes, he might, before he dies, play Roger de

*

* Mr. Salter was a noted barber, who began to make a collection of natural curiosities, which acquired him the name (probably first given him by Steele) of Don Saltero. He formerly kept a coffee-house at Chelsea, the curiosities of which were lately sold by auction. See Gent. Mag. vol. LXIX. p. 160.

+ There was no passing his house, if he was at home, without having one's ears grated with the sound of his fiddle, on which he scraped most execrably.

Caubly quite out. I heard him go through his whole round; and indeed I think he does play the

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Merry Christ Church Bells" pretty justly; but he confessed to me, he did that rather to shew he was orthodox, than that he valued himself upon the music itself. Or, if he did proceed in his anatomy, why might he not hope in time to cut off legs, as well as teeth? The particularity of this man put me into a deep thought, whence it should proceed, that of all the lower order, barbers should go further in hitting the ridiculous than any other set of men. Watermen brawl, cobblers sing: but why must a barber be for ever a politician, a musician, an anatomist, a poet, and a physician? The learned Vossius says, his barber used to comb his hair in iambics. And indeed, in all ages, one of this useful profession, this order of cosmetic philosophers, has been celebrated by the most eminent hands. You see the barber in Don Quixote is one of the principal characters in the history; which gave me satisfaction in the doubt, why Don Saltero writ his name with a Spanish termination: for he is descended in a right line, not from John Tradescant,* as he himself asserts, but from that memorable companion of the Knight of Mancha. And I hereby certify all the worthy citizens who travel to see his rarities, that his double-barrelled pistols, targets, coats of mail, his sclopeta and sword of Toledo, were left to his ancestor by the said Don Quixote, and by the said ancestor to all his progeny down to Don Saltero. Though I go thus far in favour of Don Saltero's great merit, I cannot allow a liberty he takes of imposing several names (without my licence) on the collections he has made, to the abuse of the good people of England; one of which is particularly calculated to deceive religious persons, to the great scandal of the well-disposed, and may

* Tradescant was the person who collected the curiosities which Elias Ashmole left to the University of Oxford.