N 225. must become the rule of society, and he that is most obliging must be most diverting. This way of talking I am fallen into from the reflection that I am, wherever I go, entertained with some absurdity, mistake, weakness, or ill-luck of some man or other, whom not only I, but the person who makes me those relations, has a value for. It would therefore be a great benefit to the world, if it could be brought to pass, that no story should be a taking one, but what was to the advantage of the person of whom it is related. By this means, he that is now a wit in conversation, would be considered as a spreader of false news is in business. But above all, to make a familiar fit for a bosom friend, it is absolutely necessary that we should always be inclined rather to hide, than rally each others infirmities. To suffer for a fault is a sort of atonement; and no body is concerned for the offence for which he has made reparation. P. S. I have received the following letter, which rallies me for being witty sooner than I designed; but I have now altered my resolution, and intend to be facetious until the day in October heretofore mentioned, instead of beginning from that day. "MR. BICKERSTAFF, By your own reckoning, you about a month before the time much to the satisfaction of you Sept. 6, 1710. came yesterday looked yourself, Your most obliged, humble servant, PLAIN ENGLISH." St. James's Coffee-house, September 15. Advices from Madrid of the eighth say, the duke of Anjou, with his court, and all the councils, were preparing to leave-that place in a day or two, in order to remove to Valladolid. They add, that the palace was already unfurnished. N° 226. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1710. Juvenis quondam, nunc femina, Cæneus, Rursus & in veterem fato revoluta figuram. VIRG. Æn. VI. 448. Cæneus, a woman once, and once a man; DRYDEN. From my own Apartment, September 18. It is one of the designs of this paper to transmit to posterity an account of every thing that is monstrous in my own times. For this reason, I shall here publish to the world the life of a person who was neither man nor woman; as written by one of my ingenious correspondents, who seems to have imitated Plutarch in that multifarious erudition, and those occasional dissertations, which he has wrought into the body of his history. The life I am putting out is that of Margery, alias John Young, commonly known by the name of Doctor Young; who, as the town very well knows, was a woman that practised physic in a man's cloaths, and, after having had two wives and several children, died about a month since. "SIR, "I here make bold to trouble you with a short account of the famous Doctor Young's life, which you may call, if you please, a second part of the farce of the Sham Doctor. This perhaps will not seem so strange to you, who. if I am not mistaken, have somewhere mentioned with honour your sister Kirleus, as a practitioner both in physic and astrology: but, in the common opinion of mankind, a she-quack is altogether as strange and astonishing a creature, as the Centaur that practised physic in the days of Achilles, or as king Phys in the Rehearsal. Asculapius, the great founder of your art, was particularly famous for his beard, as we may conclude from the behaviour of a tyrant, who is branded by heathen historians as guilty both of sacrilege and blasphemy; having robbed the statue of Esculapius of a thick bushy golden beard, and then alledged for his excuse, That it was a shame the son should have a beard, when his father Apollo had none. This latter instance indeed seems something to favour a female professor, since, as I have been told, the antient statues of Apollo are generally made with the head and face of a woman: nay, I have been credibly informed by those who have seen them both, that the famous Apollo in the Belvidera did very much resemble Doctor Young. Let that be as it will, the Doctor was a kind of Amazon in physic, that made as great devastations and laughters as any of our chief heroes in the art, and was as fatal to the English in these our days, as the famous joan d'Arc was in those of our forefathers. "I do not find any thing remarkable in the life which I am about to write until the year 165; at which time the Doctor, being about twenty-three years old, was brought to-bed of a bastard-child. The scandal of such a misfortune gave so great an uneasiness to pretty Mrs. Peggy, for that was the name by which the Doctor was then called, that she left her family, and followed her lover to London, with a fixed resolution some way or other to recover her lost reputation: but instead of changing her life, which one would have expected from so good a disposition of mind, she took it in her head. to change her sex. This was soon done by the help of a sword and a pair of breeches. I have reason to believe, that her first design was to turn manmidwife, having herself had some experience in those affairs: but thinking this too narrow a foundation for her future fortune, she at length bought her a gold-buttoned coat, and set up for a physician. Thus we see the same fatal miscarriage in her youth made Mrs. Young a Doctor, that formerly made one of the same sex a Pope. "The Doctor succeeded very well in his business at first; but very often met with accidents that disquieted him. As he wanted that deep magisterial voice which gives authority to a prescription, and is absolutely necessary for the right pronouncing of these words, Take these pills,' he unfortunately got the nick-name of the Squeaking Doctor. If this circumstance alarmed the Doctor, there was another which gave him no small disquiet, and very much diminished his gains. In short, he found himself run down as a superficial prating quack, in all families that had at the head of them a cautious father, or a jealous husband. These would often complain among one another, that they did not like such a smock-faced physician; though in truth, had they known how justly he deserved that name, they would rather have favoured his practice, than have apprehended any thing from it. "Such were the motives that determined Mrs. Young to change her condition, and take in marriage a virtuous young woman, who lived with her in good reputation, and made her the father of a very pretty girl. But this part of her happiness was soon after destroyed, by a distemper which was too hard for our physician, and carried off his first wife. The Doctor had not been a widow long before he married his second lady, with whom also he lived in very good understanding. It so happened, that the Doctor was with child at the same time that his lady was; but the little ones coming both together, they passed for twins. The Doctor having entirely established the reputation of his manhood, especially by the birth of the boy of whom he had been lately delivered, and who very much resembles him, grew into good business, and was particularly famous for the cure of venereal distempers; but would have had much more practice among his own sex, had not some of them been so unreasonable as to demand certain proofs of their cure, which the Doctor was not able to give them. The florid blooming look, which gave the Doctor some uneasiness at first, instead of betraying his person, only recommended his physic. Upon this occasion I cannot forbear mentioning what I thought a very agreeable surprize; in one of Moliere's plays, where a young woman applies herself to a sick person in the habit of a quack, and speaks to her patient, who was something scandalized at the youth of his physician, to the following purpose.I began to practise in the reign of Francis the First, and am now in the hundred and fiftieth year of my age: but, by the virtue of my medicaments, have maintained myself in the same beauty and freshness I had at fifteen. For this reason Hippocrates lays it down as a rule, that a student in physic should have a sound constitution, and a healthy look; which indeed seem as necessary qualifications for a physician, as a good life and virtuous behaviour for a divine. But to return to our subject. About two years ago the Doctor was very much afflicted with the vapours, which grew upon him to such a degree, that about six weeks since they made an end of him. His death |