Enter HARRY and JAMES. before he will own himself to be a physician --and I'll give you my word, you'll never make Har. Were ever two fools sent on such a mes-him own himself one, unless you both take a sage as we are, in quest of a dumb doctor! James. Blame your own cursed memory, that made you forget his name. For my part, I'll travel through the world rather than return without him; that were as much as a limb or two were worth. Har. Was ever such a cursed misfortune, to lose the letter! I should not even know his name if I were to hear it. Dor. Can I find no invention to be revenged! -Heyday! who are these? good cudgel and thrash him into it; 'tis what we are all forced to do when we have any need of him. James. What a ridiculous whim is here! Dor. Very true; and in so great a man. James. And is he so very skilful a man? Dor. Skilful-why he does miracles. About half a year ago, a woman was given over by all her physicians, nay, she had been dead some time; when this great man came to her, as soon as he saw her, he poured out a little drop of something down her throat-he had no soon James. Hark ye, mistress, do you know where -where where doctor-What-d'ye-call-himer done it, than she got out of her bed, and walklives? Dor. Hey! what, has the fellow a mind to banter me? Har. Is there no physician hereabouts famous for curing dumbness? ed about the room as if there had been nothing the matter with her. Both. O, prodigious! Dor. 'Tis not above three weeks ago, that a child of twelve years old fell from the top of a house to the bottom, and broke its skull, its arms, and legs.-Our physician was no sooner drubbed into making him a visit, than, having Dor. I fancy you have no need of such a phy-rubbed the child all over with a certain ointsician, Mr Impertinence. Har. Don't mistake us, good woman, we don't mean to banter you: we are sent by our master, whose daughter has lost her speech, for a certain physician who lives hereabouts; we have lost our direction, and 'tis as much as our lives are worth to return without him. Dor. There is one Dr Lazy lives just by, but he has left off practising. You would not get him a mile to save the lives of a thousand patients. James. Direct us but to him; we'll bring him with us one way or other, I warrant you. Har. Ay, ay, we'll have him with us, though we carry him on our backs. Dor. Ha! Heaven has inspired me with one of the most admirable inventions to be revenged on my hangdog!—[Aside.]—I assure you, if you can get him with you, he'll do your young lady's business for her; he's reckoned one of the best physicians in the world, especially for dumb ness. Har. Pray tell us where he lives? Dor. You'll never be able to get him out of his own house; but if you watch hereabouts, you'll certainly meet with him, for he very often amuses himself here with cutting wood. Har. A physician cut wood! James. I suppose he amuses himself in searching after herbs, you mean? Dor. No; he's one of the most extraordinary men in the world: he goes drest like a common clown; for there is nothing he so much dreads as to be known for a physician. James. All your great men have some strange oddities about them. Dor. Why, he will suffer himself to be beat ment, it got upon its legs, and run away to play. Both. Oh most wonderful! Har. Hey! Gad, James, we'll drub him out of a pot of this ointment. James. But can he cure dumbness? Dor. Dumbness! Why the curate of our parish's wife was born dumb; and the doctor, with a sort of wash, washed her tongue, that he set it agoing so, that in less than a month's time she outtalked her husband. Har. This must be the very man we were sent after. Dor. Yonder is the very man I speak of. James. What! that he yonder? Dor. The very same.- -He has spied us, and taken up his bill. James. Come, Harry, don't let us lose one moment.-Mistress, your servant; we give you ten thousand thanks for this favour. Dor. Be sure you make good use of your sticks. James. He shan't want that. [Exeunt. Gre. Ay, like enoughJames. "Tis in your power, sir, to do us a very great favour-We come, sir, to implore your assistance in a certain affair. Gre. If it be in my power to give you any assistance, masters, I am very ready to do it. James. Sir, you are extremely obliging-But, dear sir, let me beg you be covered; the sun will hurt your complexion. Har. For Heaven's sake, sir, be covered. Gre. These should be footmen by their dress, but courtiers by their ceremony. [Aside. James. You must not think it strange, sir, that we come thus to seek after you; men of your capacity will be sought after by the whole world. Gre. Truly, gentlemen, though I say it, that should not say it, I have a pretty good hand at a faggot. James. O, dear sir! Gre. You may perhaps buy faggots cheaper otherwise; but if you find such in all this country, you shall have mine for nothing. To make but one word then with you, you shall have mine for ten shillings a hundred. James. Don't talk in that manner, I desire you. Gre. I could not sell them a penny cheaper, if 'twas to my father. James. Dear sir, we know you very welldon't jest with us in this manner. Gre. Faith, master, I am so much in earnest, that I can't bate one farthing. James. O pray, sir, leave this idle discourse.Can a person like you amuse yourself in this manner? Can a learned and famous physician like you, try to disguise himself to the world, and bury such fine talents in the woods? Gre. The fellow's a fool! James. Let me intreat you, sir, not to dissemble with us. James. You are no physician? Gre. No, I tell you. James. Well, if we must, we must. [Beat him. Gre. Oh, oh! gentlemen, gentlemen! what are you doing? I am-I am-whatever you please to have me. James. Why will you oblige us, sir, to this violence? Har. Why will you force us to this troublesome remedy? James. I assure you, sir, it gives me a great deal of pain. Gre. I assure you, sir, and so it does me. But, pray, gentlemen, what is the reason that you have a mind to make a physician of me? James. What! do you deny your being a physician again? Gre. And the devil take me if I am! Gre. May I be poxed if I am![They beat him.]-Oh, oh!- -Dear gentlemen! oh! for Heaven's sake! I am a physician, and an apothecary too, if you'll have me; I had rather be any thing than be knocked o' the head. James. Dear sir, I am rejoiced to see you come to your senses; I ask pardon ten thousand times for what you have forced us to. Gre. Perhaps I am deceived myself, and I am a physician, without knowing it. But, dear gentleman, are you certain I'm a physician? James. Yes, the greatest physician in the world. Gre. Indeed! Har. A physician that has cured all sorts of distempers. Gre. The devil I have! James. That has made a woman walk about the room after she was dead six hours. Har. That set a child upon its legs, immediately after it had broke them. James. That made the curate's wife, who was dumb, talk faster than her husband. Har. Look ye, sir, you shall have content; my master will give you whatever you will demand. Gre. Shall I have whatever I will demand? * James. You may depend upon it. Gre. I am a physician without doubt-I had forgot it; but I begin to recollect myself.-Well, and what is the distemper I am to cure? James. My young mistress, sir, has lost her tongue. Gre. The devil take me if I have found it!But, come, gentlemen, if I must go with you, I must have a physician's habit; for a physician can no more prescribe without a full wig, than without a fee. [Exeunt. SCENE I-SIR JASPER'S house. Enter SIR JASPER and JAMES. Sir Jas. WHERE is he? Where is he? ACT II. My daughter, doctor, is fallen into a very strange distemper. Gre. Sir, I am overjoyed to hear it; and I wish, with all my heart, you and your whole fa James. Only recruiting himself after his jour-mily had the same occasion for me as your ney. You need not be impatient, sir; for were daughter, to shew the great desire I have to serve my young lady dead, he'd bring her to life again. you. He makes no more of bringing a patient to life, than other physicians do of killing him. Sir Jas. 'Tis strange so great a man should have those unaccountable odd humours you mention [Beats him. Sir Jas. Done, in the devil's name! What's done? Gre. Why, now you are made a doctor of physic I am sure 'tis all the degrees I ever took. Sir Jas. What devil of a fellow have you brought here? James. I told you, sir, the doctor had strange whims with him. Sir Jas. Whims, quotha!-Egad, I shall bind his physicianship over to his good behaviour, if he has any more of these whims. Gre. Sir, I ask pardon for the liberty I have taken. Sir Jus. Oh! 'tis very well, 'tis very well for once. Gre. I am sorry for those blows Sir Jas. Nothing at all, nothing at all, sir. Gre. Which I was obliged to have the honour of laying on so thick upon you. Sir Jas. Let's talk no more of them, sir Sir Jas. Sir, I am obliged to you. Gre. I assure you, sir, I speak from the very bottom of my soul. Sir Jas. I do believe you, sir, from the very bottom of mine. Gre. What is your daughter's name? Sir Jas. My daughter's name is Charlotte. Gre. Are you sure she was christened Charlotte? Sir Jas. No, sir; she was christened Charlotta. Gre. Hum! I had rather she should have been christened Charlotte. Charlotte is a very good name for a patient; and, let me tell you, the name is often of as much service to the patient, as the physician is. Sir Jas. Sir, my daughter is here. Enter CHARLOTTE and Maid. Gre. Is that my patient? Upon my word she carries no distemper in her countenance-and I fancy a healthy young fellow would sit very well upon her. Sir Jas. You make her smile, doctor. Gre. So much the better; 'tis a very good sign when we can bring a patient to smile; it is a sign that the distemper begins to clarify, as we say. Well, child, what's the matter with you? What's your distemper? Char. Han, hi, hon, han. Gre. Han! hon! honin! ha ?—I don't understand a word she says. Han! hi! hon! What the devil of a language is this? Sir Jas. Why, that's her distemper, sir. She's. become dumb, and no one can assign the cause— ́ and this distemper, sir, has kept back her marriage. Gre. Kept back her marriage! Why so? Sir Jas. Because her lover refuses to have her, till she's cured. Gre. O lud! Was ever such a fool, that would not have his wife dumb?Would to Heaven my wife was dumb, I'd be far from desiring to cure her!—Does this distemper, this Han, hi, hon, oppress her very much? Sir Jus. Yes, sir. Sir Jas. Very great. Gre. That's just as I would have it. Give me your hand, child. Hum-ha-a very dumb pulse indeed. Sir Jas. You have guessed her distemper. Gre. Ay, sir, we great physicians know a distemper immediately: I know some of the college would call this the boree, or the coupee, or the sinkee, or twenty other distempers; but I give you my word, sir, your daughter is nothing more than dumb- -So I'd have you be very easy, for there is nothing else the matter with her-If she were not dumb, she would be as well as I am. ❤ Sir Jas. But I should be glad to know, doctor, from whence her dumbness proceeds? Gre. Nothing so easily accounted for.Her dumbness proceeds from her having lost her speech. Sir Jes. But whence, if you please, proceeds her having lost her speech? Gre. All our best authors will tell you, it is the impediment of the action of the tongue. Sir Jas. But if you please, dear sir, your sentiments upon that impediment? Gre. Aristotle has, upon that subject, said very fine things; very fine things. Sir Jas. I believe it, doctor. Gre. Ah! he was a great man; he was indeed Sir Jas. I am. Gre. That is caused, I say, by the acrimony of the humours engendered in the concavity of the diaphragm; thence it arrives, that these vapours, Propria quæ maribus tribuuntur, mascula, dicas, ut sunt divorum, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, virorum.-This, sir, is the cause of your daughter's being dumb. Jumes. O that I had but his tongue! Sir Jas. It is impossible to reason better, no doubt. But, dear sir, there is one thing-I always thought, till now, that the heart was on the left side, and the liver on the right. Gre. Ay, sir, so they were formerly; but we have changed all that. The college at present, sir, proceeds upon an entire new method. Sir Jas. I ask your pardon, sir. Gre. Oh, sir! there's no harmobliged to know so much as we do. Sir Jas. Very true; but, doctor, what would you have done with my daughter? -you're not cause Gre. What would I have done with her? why, Sir Jas. Why, this is punch, doctor? of your julaps, your gruels, your-your-this, and that, and t'other, which are only arts to keep a patient in hand a long time-I love to do a business all at once. a very great man—. -A man, who, upon that sub-than punch to make people talk? Never tell me ject, was a man that-But, to return to our reasoning I hold, that this impediment of the action of the tongue is caused by certain humours, which our great physicians call-Humours -Humours- Ah! you understand LatinSir Jas. Not in the least. Gre. What, not understand Latin? Sir Jas. Doctor, I ask pardon; you shall be obeyed. [Gives money. Gre. I'll return in the evening, and see what Gre. Cubricius arci thurum cathalimus, sin-effect it has had on her. But hold; there's anogulariter nom. Hæc musa; hic, hæc, hoc, geni- ther young lady, here, that I must apply some tivo hujus, hunc, hanc musæ. Bonus, bona, bo- little remedies to. num. Estne oratio Latinus? Etiam. Quia substantivo et adjectivum concordat in generi numerum et casus, sic dicunt, aiunt, prædicant, clamitant, et similibus. Sir Jas. Ah! why did I neglect my studies? Har. What a prodigious man is this! Gre. Besides, sir, certain spirits passing from the left side, which is the seat of the liver, to the right, which is the seat of the heart, we find the lungs, which we call in Latin, whiskerus, having communication with the brain, which we name in Greek, jacbootos, by means of a hollow vein, which we call in Hebrew, periwiggus, meet in the road with the said spirits, which fill the ventricles of the omotaplasmus; and because the said humours have-you comprehend me well, sir? and because the said humours have a certain malignity- -listen seriously, I beg you. Sir Jas. I do. Gre. Have a certain malignity that is caused— be attentive, if you please. Maid. Who, me? I was never better in my life, I thank you, sir. Gre. So much the worse, madam; so much the worse 'tis very dangerous to be very well; for when one is very well, one has nothing else to do but to take physic and bleed away. Sir Jas. Oh, strange! What, bleed when one has no distemper? Gre. It may be strange, perhaps, but 'tis very wholesome. Besides, madam, it is not your case, at present, to be very well: at least, you cannot possibly be well above three days longer; and it is always best to cure a distemper before you have it—or, as we say in Greek, distemprum bestum est curare ante habestum. What I shall prescribe you, at present, is, to take every six hours one of these bolusses. Maid. Ha, ha, ha! Why, doctor, these look exactly like lumps of loaf-sugar. Gre. Take one of these bolusses, I say, every six hours, washing it down with six spoonfuls of I don't know when a man is sick, better than he the best Holland's geneva. does himself? per. Sir Jas. Sure you are in jest, doctor! This Lean. Well, if I have any distemper, it is the wench does not shew any symptom of a distem-love of that young lady, your patient, from whom you just now came; and to whom, if you can convey me, I swear, dear doctor, I shall be effectually eured. Gre. Do take me for a pimp, sir? A physician for a pimp? Gre. Sir Jasper, let me tell you, it were not amiss if you yourself took a little lenitive physic; I shall prepare something for you. Sir Jus. Ha, ha, ha! No, no, doctor! I have escaped both doctors and distempers hitherto, and I ain resolved the distemper shall pay me the first visit. Gre. Say you so, sir? Why, then, if I can get no more patients here, I must even seek thein elsewhere; and so humbly beggo te domine domitii veniam groundi foras. [Exit GREGORY. you Lean. Dear sir, make no noise. Gre. Sir, I will make a noise; you are an impertinent fellow. Lean. Softly, good sir! Gre. I shall show you, sir, that I'm not such a sort of a person; and that you are an insolent, saucy- [LEANDER gives a purse.]—I'm not speaking to you, sir; but there are certam im Sir Jas. Well, this is a physician of vast capa-pertinent fellows in the world, that take people city, but of exceeding odd humours. for what they are not--which always puts me, sir, into such a passion, that SCENE II.-The street. LEANDER Solus. [Exeunt. Lean. I ask pardon, sir, for the liberty I have taken. Gre. O, dear sir; no offence, in the least.— Pray, sir, how am I to serve you? Lean. This distemper, sir, which you are sent for to cure, is feigned. The physicians have reasoned upon it, according to custom, and have derived it from the brain, from the bowels, from the liver, lungs, lights, and every part of the body: but the true cause of it is love; and is an invention of Charlotte's, to deliver her from a match she dislikes. Gre. Hum! Suppose you were to disguise yourself as an apothecary? Lean. I'm not very well known to her father; therefore, believe I may pass upon him securely. Gre. Go, then, disguise yourself immediately; I'll wait for you here-Ha! Methinks I see a patient. [Erit LEANDER. |