The NARRATIVE of Dr ROBERT NORRIS, concerning the ftrange and deplorable fren zy of Mr JOHN DENNIS, an officer of the custom-houfe. IT Written in the year 1713. T is an acknowledged truth, that nothing is so dear to an honeft man as his good name, nor ought he to ne glect the juft vindication of his character, when it is inju• riously attacked by any man. The person I have at prefent caufe to complain of, is indeed in very melancholy circumstances, it having pleafed God to deprive him of his fenfes, which may extenuate the crime in him. But I fhould be wanting in my duty, not only to myself, but allo to my fellow-creatures, to whom my talents may prove of benefit, fhould I fuffer my profeffion or honesty to be undefervedly afperfed. I have therefore refolved to give the public an account of all that has paft between the unhappy gentleman and myself. On the 20th inftant, while I was in my clofet, pondering the case of one of my patients, I heard a knocking at my door, upon opening of which entered an old woman with tears in her eyes, and told me, that without my affiftance her mafter would be utterly ruined. I was forced to interrupt her forrow, enquiring her master's name and place of abode.me, he was one Mr Dennis, an officer of the custom-houfe, who was taken ill of a violent frenzy laft April, and had continued in those melancholy circumstances with few or no intervals. Upon this I asked her fome questions relating to his humour *The history of Mr Dennis is to be feen in Jacob's Lives of the Poets; or in Mr Pepe's Dunciad, among the notes upon which the curious reader may find fome extracts from his writings. The oecafion of this narrative fufficiently appears from the Doctor's own words. Hawkef and and extavagancies, that I might the better know under what regimen to put him, when the cause of his distemper was found out. Alas, Sir, fays he, this day fortnight in the morning, a poor fimple child came to him from the printer's; the boy had no fooner entered the room, but be cried out, the devil was come. He often ftares ghaftfully, raves aloud, and mutters between his teeth the word Cator, or Gato, or fome fuch thing. Now, Doctor, this Cator is certainly a witch, and my poor mafter is under an evil tongue; for I have heard him fay Cator has be witched the whole nation. It pitied my very heart to think, that a man of my master's understanding and great fcholarship, who, as the child told me, had a book of his own in print, thould talk fo outrageously. Upon this I went and laid out a groat for a horse-fhoe, which is at this time nailed on the threshold of his door; but I don't find my mafter is at all the better for it; he perpetually starts and runs to the window when any one knocks, crying out, S' death! a messenger from the French King! I fhall die in the Baftile. Having faid this, the old woman prefented me with a vial of his urine; upon examination of which I perceived the whole tenperament of his body to be exceeding hot. I therefore instantly took my cane and my beaver, and repaired to the place where he dwelt. When I came to his lodgings near Charing-cross, up three pair of stairs, (which I fhould not have published in this manner, but that this lunatic conceals the place of his refidence, on purpose to prevent the good offices of thofe charitable friends and phyficians, who might attempt his cure), when I came into the room, I found this unfortunate gentleman feated on his bed, with Mr. Bernard Lintot bookfeller on the one fide of him, and a grave elderly gentleman on the other, who, as I have fince learned, calls himself a grammarian; the latitude of whofe countenance was not a little eclipsed by the fulness of his peruke. As I am a black lean man, of a pale vif age, and hang my cloaths on fomewhat flovenly, I no fooner went in, but he frowned upon me, and cried out with violence, "S'death, a Frenchman! I am betrayed "to the tyrant! who could have thought the Queen "would have delivered me up to France in this treaty, and leaft of all that you, my friends, would have been in a confpiracy against me?"Sir, faid I, here is neither plot nor confpiracy, but for your advantage. The recovery of your fenfes requires my attendance, and your friends fent for me on no other account. I then took a particular furvey of his perfon, and the furniture and dif pofition of his apartment. His afpect was furious, his eyes were rather fiery than lively, which he rolled about in an uncommon inanner. He often opened his mouth, as if he would have uttered fome matter of importance, but the found feemed loft inwardly. His beard was grown, which they told me he would not suffer to be fhaved, believing the modern dramatic poets had corrupted all the barbers in the town to take the first opportunity of cutting his throat. His eye-brows were grey, long, and grown together, which he knit with indignation when any thing was fpoken, infomuch that he feemed not to have smoothed his forehead for many years. His flannel night-cap, which was exceedingly begrimed with fweat and dirt, hung upon his left ear; the flap of his breeches dangled between his legs, and the rolls of his stockings fell down to his ankles. I obferved his room was hung with old tapefry, which had several holes in it, caufed, as the old woman inform ed me, by his having cut out of it the heads of divers tyrants, the fierceness of whofe vifages had much provoked him. On all fides of his room were pinned a great many fheets of a tragedy called Cato, with notes on the margin with his own hand. The words abfurd, monftrous, execrable, were every where written in fuch large characters, that I could read them without my fpectacles. By the fire-fide lay three farthings worth of fmall coal in a fpectator, and behind the door huge heaps of papers of the fame title, which his nurfe informed me he had conveyed thither out of his fight, believing they were books of the black art; for her mafter never read in them, but he was either quite moped, or in raving fits. There was nothing neat in the whole room, except lome. books on his shelves, very well bound and gilded, whofe names I had never before heard of, nor I believe were any where elfe to be found; fuch as Gibraltar, a come. dy; Remarks on Prince Arthur; The grounds of criti cifm in poetry; An essay on public spirit. The only one I had any knowlege of was a Paradife Loft, interleaved. The whole floor was covered with manufcripts, as thick as a pastry-cook's fhop on a Christmas eve. On his table were fome ends of verfe and of candles; a gallipot of ink with a yellow pen in it, and a pot of half dead ale cover-ed with a Longinus. As I was cafting mine eyes round on all this odd furni-ture with fome earnestness and aftouifhment, and in a profound filence, I was on a fudden furprized to hear the -man fpeak in the following manner. "Beware, Doctor, that it fare not with you as with your predeceffor the famous Hippocrates, whom the "mistaken citizens of Abdera fent for in this very 64 manner to cure the philofopher Democritus; he re 66 turned full of admiration at the wisdom of that perfon, "whom he had fuppofed a lunatic. Behold, Doctor, it was thus Ariftotle himself, and all the great antients, fpent their days and nights, wrapt up in criticism, and befet all around with their own writings. As for me, "whom you fee in the fame manner, be affured I have "none other difeafe than a fwelling in my legs, whereof Ifay no more, fince your art may further fatisfy you." I began now to be in hopes, that his cafe had been mifreprefented, and that he was not fo far gone, but fome timely medicines might recover him. I therefore proceeded to the proper queries, which, with the aufwersmade to me, I fhall fet down in form of a dialogue, in the very words they were spoken, becaufe I would not omit the leaft circumftance in this narrative; and I call my confcience to witnefs, as if upon oath, that I shall tell the truth without addition or diminution. Dr. Pray, Sir, how did you contract this swelling? Denn. By a criticilir. Dr. A criticilin! that's a diftemper I never heard of. Denn. S'death, Sir, a diftemper! It is no diftemper, but a noble art. I have fat fourteen hours a day at it; and are you a doctor, and don't know there's a commu. nication between the legs and the brain? Dr. What made you fit fo many hours, Sir? Dr. Dr. Sir, I fpeak of your distemper; what gave you this tumour ? Denn. Cato, Cato, Cato*. Old Wom For God's fake, Doctor, name not this evil fpirit; it is the whole caufe of his maduefs: alas! poor mafter is juft falling into his fits. Mr. Lintot, Fits! Z- what fits! A man may well have fwelling in his legs, that fits writing fourteen hours in a day. He got this by the Remarks. Dr. The Remrks, what are those? Denn. S'death! have you never read my remarks? I will be damned, if this dog Lintot ever published my advertisements. Mr. Lintot. Z! I published advertisement upon advertisement; and if the book be not read, it is none of my fault, but his that made it. By G, as much has been done for the book, as could be done for any book in Christendom. Dr. We do not talk of books, Sir; I fear thofe are the feul that feed the delirium; mention them no more. You do very ill to promote this difcourfe. I defire a word in private with this other gentleman, who feems a grave and fenfible man: I fuppofe, Sr, you are his apothecary. Gent. Sir, I am his friend. Dr. I doubt it not. What regimen have you obferv. ed, fince he has been under your care! You remember, I fuppofe, the paffage of Celfus, which fays, if the pa tient on the third day have an interval, fufpend the me-dicaments at night? Let fumigations be used to corroborate the brain. I hope you have upon no account promoted fternutation by hellibore. Gent. Sir, no fuch matter, you utterly mistake. Dr. Mistake: am I not a phyfician? and fhall an apothecary difpute my noftrums? You may perhaps have filled up a prefcription or two of Ratcliff's, which chanc ed to fucceed, and with that very prescription, injudici oufly prefcribed to different conftitutions, have destroyed a multitude. Pharmacopola componat, medicus folus pre * Remarks upon Cato, published by Mr. D. in the year 1712. fcribat. |