That to speak what they know is shocking, proceeds from ill Nature, and a Sterility of Brain; especially when the Subject will not admit of Raillery, and their Discourse has no Pretension to Satyr but what is in their Design to disoblige.  I should be very glad too if you would take Notice, that a daily Repetition of the same over-bearing Insolence is yet more insupportable, and a Confirmation of very extraordinary Dulness.  The sudden Publication of this, may have an Effect upon a notorious Offender of this Kind, whose Reformation would redound very much to the Satisfaction and Quiet of

 Your most humble Servant,

 F.B. [3]

[Footnote 1:  William Congreve upon Arabella Hunt.]

[Footnote 2:  Mrs. Tofts, see note on p. 85, vol, i. [Footnote 3 of No. 22.]

[Footnote 3:  Said to be the initials of Francis Beasniffe.]

* * * * *

No. 444.  Wednesday, July 30, 1712.  Steele.

  [’Parturiunt montes.’

  Hor. [1]]

It gives me much Despair in the Design of reforming the World by my Speculations, when I find there always arise, from one Generation to another, successive Cheats and Bubbles, as naturally as Beasts of Prey, and those which are to be their Food.  There is hardly a Man in the World, one would think, so ignorant, as not to know that the ordinary Quack Doctors, who publish their great Abilities in little brown Billets, distributed to all who pass by, are to a Man Impostors and Murderers; yet such is the Credulity of the Vulgar, and the Impudence of these Professors, that the Affair still goes on, and new Promises of what was never done before are made every Day.  What aggravates the Just is, that even this Promise has been made as long as the Memory of Man can trace it, and yet nothing performed, and yet still prevails.  As I was passing along to-day, a Paper given into my Hand by a Fellow without a Nose tells us as follows what good News is come to Town, to wit, that there is now a certain Cure for the French Disease, by a Gentleman just come from his Travels.

“In Russel-Court, over-against the Cannon-Ball, at the Surgeon’s Arms in Drury-Lane, is lately come from his Travels a Surgeon who has practised Surgery and Physick both by Sea and Land these twenty four Years.  He (by the Blessing) cures the Yellow Jaundice, Green Sickness, Scurvy, Dropsy, Surfeits, long Sea Voyages, Campains, and Womens Miscarriages, Lying-Inn, &c. as some People that has been lame these thirty Years can testifie; in short, he cureth all Diseases incident to Men, Women, or Children [2].”

If a Man could be so indolent as to look upon this Havock of the human Species which is made by Vice and Ignorance, it would be a good ridiculous Work to comment upon the Declaration of this accomplished Traveller.  There is something unaccountably taking among the Vulgar in those who come from a great Way off.  Ignorant People of Quality, as many there are of such, doat excessively this Way; many Instances of which every Man will suggest to himself without my Enumeration of them.  The Ignorants of lower Order, who cannot, like the upper Ones, be profuse of their Money to those recommended by coming from a Distance, are no less complaisant than the others, for they venture their Lives from the same Admiration.