gers's oils, which was December 11. Just seven days earlier this year it seized me again very violently. Upon using the oils, the pain ceased in a day, but the swelling rose as high as ever. In nine days I buckled on my shoe, and walked out. I mean my ordinary shoe. In a fortnight I am perfectly well, and that not without greatest joy and amazement. I laugh at them that fancy either a repelling, or a returning of the humour; it kills it perfectly as fast as it comes, as much as an antidote does poison; and it is as specific a remedy as any in the whole compass of the art of Physic; the greatest discovery ever made in the art in our own country. During that week of operation, I wrote a second Letter to you, wherein I shall give the world the true history and cure of the Gout. We have received accounts daily of the success of the oils, from all parts of the kingdom, and not one failure. The Gout is really a poison, and this is the proper antidote for it.-I am, honoured and dear Sir, with heartiest wishes of your health, your most obedient servant, WM. STUKELEY." "GOOD SIR HANS, Grimsthorp, July 4, 1735. "I am now attending the Dutchess of Ancaster in an hysteric colic. Mrs. Newton, housekeeper there, has been troubled with an inflammation in one of her eyes for a twelvemonth last past *. Every thing has been done for her that can be thought of, and without any effect. I fancy an external application may be serviceable. If you would be pleased to send her a small phial of your eye-water, I hope it would do her good. I am sure it would be kindly taken by the family here. "They have printed a very elegant Edition of my book of the Gout in Ireland, with some addition. I doubt not but you have seen it. Our oils continue to meet with great success in Gout, Rheumatism, and Sciatica, all the kingdom over. WM. STUKELEY." "HONOURED AND GOOD SIR, Stamford, Feb. 3, 1738-9. "After my hearty thanks for your kind assistance to me, I thought it necessary to acquaint you with my present state, and ask your further advice. The Erysipelous Fever still continues, and is never quite off. It had a bad symptom, an asthma in the night, which is for the most part gone off, upon a critical discharge of humour on my late weakened feet. I cannot call it gouty, because it has not the pain and manner of the gout, rather of a dropsical swelling; and in a inorning my head is a good deal out of order, the distemper seeming still to lie upon the nerves. My appetite is pretty good; and I sleep pretty well.I chiefly want your opinion whether or no I should take the bark * Sir Hans Sloane was frequently consulted on disorders of the Eyes, a subject in which he was particularly well skilled. See his advice on the case of the young Marquis of Lindsey, p. 789; and I have now before me the following letter of advice from him for a daughter of Dr. Z. Grey in 1748 : "I would have you every morning and evening let Miss's eyes be washed with cold spring water, or collyrium; and when they bleed have leeches applied to her temples, to draw from thence four or six ounces of blood, and to use the vintment whenever they grow worse. HANS SLOANE." for for the fever. I have no great thirst, or febrile symptoms more than mentioned. I most heartily pray for the continuance of your health; and, with my service to the gentlemen on Thursday at your house, remain, honoured and good Sir, Your most obliged, &c. WM. STUKELEY." LETTERS to Dr. STUKELEY, from Mr. BANKS, Mr. WASSE, Dr. PoсOCKE, B. WILLIS, Orator HENLEY, Dr. STEPHEN HALES, Dr. HARTLEY, &c. &c. "DEAR DOCTOR, Whaddon Hall, near Fenny Stratford, Bucks, August 9, 1720. "Meeting the other day with a ballad containing some history of a famous person of both your names, I here inclose it, to divert you. I see in some part of the copy he is called Stutley, which I conceive to be a corruption or vulgar pronunciation of Stukley; for our town in sight of this place that bears your name is by the common people always called Stutley, and so I think are the two Stewkleys in Huntingdonshire. I hope your heat of stock-jobbing is a little abated, and that you have got enough in traffic to buy our Stewkley, and so are at leisure to come down and see it. If you see Mr. Becket, remind him of his promise to give me some account of Dr. Roger Gifford, M. D. Precentor of St. David's, and President of the College of Physicians, who died 1596. I wish I could tell where he was buried. The Register of Christ Church, London, is burnt, and so I cannot be informed whether buried at Christ Church from thence. "I am now all alone, my wife and family being gone to the Bath for a month or six weeks, and have only with me three servants, otherwise a clear house, fit for the reception of a Recluse, or Antiquary Friend, especially yourself, who would be very welcome to your most humble servant, B. WILLIS." Revesby, June 6, 1:22. "DEAR DOCTOR, "Good cousin Gale has been so kind as to give me two Letters of how the world goes, &c. to this place, barren of intelligence. I have not confidence to ask him for more, since I can make no return; but beg you will of the tenders of my best solicitude; and wish he was here with you. I would shew you a sight of eight Religious Houses, very great ones, in twelve miles riding, in the nearest road from my house to Lincoln, all within 200 paces of the road; Revesby Abbey, Tatteshall College, Kirkshead, Stickswould, Axholme, Bardney, Stanfield, and Barlings, Abbeys; which shew you what fine folks we have been formerly. And pray tell us when we may hope to see you, being we are for going soon to some Spas to play. And pray a little news, since I dare ask Mr. Gale for no more, unless of his own good will. I think you told me you had a sketch of all the drawings, &c. in East, West, and Wildmore Fens, on North side of Boston: I wish I had one. Son and daughter are your servants, and hope to see you in your circuit. I am, dear Doctor, your most faithful servant, Jos, BANKS." Aynho, Oct. 23, 1722. "SIR, "I have been twice at Oxford, in order to hunt out for you, as I promised, a Catalogue of the Manuscripts in St. Mark's Library; but they have turned your whole Library upside down, in order to make a new Catalogue, so that I cannot as yet meet with it. They place the Books, not according to their matter, as they stood formerly, but according to their bulk, which will be very inconvenient. Thomasin's Account, ut in 1650, 4to, or a Manuscript which my friend Mr. Gale will help you to, Number 6015, 217 of his Library, will supply the want of what I intended to procure. I know not whether the business will permit you to look upon the stones I send you all of them were dug up in Fritwel Pits, within half a mile of us, and one may collect vast numbers of all sorts, except the largest, which, I think, is very surprising. I have now finished my Notes upon Lactantius: but I am not ready for the press yet, by reason of the necessity I am under of correcting a text for my composer's use, and marking the insertions, which, though an ungrateful, is yet a necessary piece of work. I hope, some time in this winter, I shall have opportunity to wait upon you, and make the due acknowledgments for the favour of those MSS. you so generously allowed me the use of. - The largest stone was the very heart or centre of a rock, four yards from the surface of the quarry which faces the North, and not near any gully or cavity. "I am, Sir, your obliged and most humble servant, J. WASSET." "DEAR SIR, March 22, 1725-6. "I thank you, in behalf of my country, for the care you took in adorning the little fabric we call Arthur's Oven. Though the thing was much in my own circumstances, not worth your noticing, yet I could not but observe with pleasure what you was capable of doing if you had got subject to work on. "Pardon my curiosity to know what you are doing in your constant application towards promoting of Learning; and when you have leisure I wish you would acquaint me on what footing your Antiquarian Society is. I rejoice to hear that the Earls of Hartford and Pembroke give so much countenance to it. Their good example, I hope, will make Learning fashionable. amongst great men as well as others. When this kind of Society was first erected in France under the late King, Learning was not so common as it came to be afterwards; for, so soon as it was warmed by the sun-beams of Royal favour, all the Statesmen in that country became Antiquaries, and scarce any body was thought capable of public employment who had not a tolerable. Great-grandfather of the Right Honourable President of the Royal Society. He was elected F.S.A. 1724.-His son “Josephi Banks, jun. Esq." was elected six years earlier. Of whom see the "Literary Anecdotes," vol. 1. pp. 263, 706 share share of Learning. That King found his advantage in this; for, amongst other things, the learned men whom he encouraged strove, by all their art and eloquence, to make him the vir immortalis which he aspired to be thought; and though they could not altogether hide his imperfections, yet they dressed him up as such a Lover of Learning, and Encourager of Arts and Sciences, that I believe the learned part of posterity will not be over-active to pry into his blemishes. May your Society prosper; and may all men of power, as well as of sense, enter into right notions about it! May they consider, that though a respect for Roman Antiquities be in itself of little or no value, yet, as it invites to Learning, and as this necessarily carries along with it a perfect knowledge of those Worthies amongst the Greeks and Romans who were famed for love of their country, of glory, and of liberty, to let them conclude that those who have the greatest knowledge of Antiquity have, cæteris paribus, the best title to be esteemed Patriots. This theme is so tempting, that I find myself insensibly led to say more of it than is necessary to you. I am, with the utmost sincerity, dear Sir, "Your most faithful humble servant, JOHN CLERK." To Dr. HARLEY, in Alnwick, Northumberland. "HONOURED Sir, London, July 1, 1725. "There are few Counties in England but their Antiquities have been taken notice of, and explained by some or other; and it is great pity that ours (which has so many Remains of Roman and British) should not have that justice done it, through the want of leisure of those who are curious that way. We might have expected it from Bp. Nicolson and Dr. Todd, who were making Collections on that head; but as their talents lay in different kinds of Antiquities, the one in British, the other in the Roman; so, I believe, it will be allowed that there is none more fit for pursuing that design than Dr. Stukeley, in whom the knowledge of both is so happily united, and who has devoted a great deal of time to those curious and entertaining studies. It will be needless for me to say any more of him, for you have seen his performances, and are better able to judge of them than I am; but what I should have mentioned first, and will, I hope, add weight to my request, is, that Dr. Mead (whose favours I always think of with gratitude and pleasure) expects an exact account from him of the Roman towns there. I beg, therefore, you will please to go with him thither, and ask the favour of some of our friends to go with you, and do him all the service you can. I would have you be entertaining him with your thoughts of the antient and present state of those places. His conversation will be agreeable, I hope, to you. He will, I doubt not, be ravished with the sight of Bremenium and Habitaneum, and Alnwick Castle, the antient seat of his great friend the Lord Percy's ancestors, the Mound at Elsdon, and all other our Antiquities. I thought it needless to write to Mr. Cay, as not knowing HARLEY, DERHAM, AND HALES, TO STUKELEY. 799 "HONOURED Sir, knowing whether he can be at leisure; but, having some business with Mr. Horsley, have hinted it to him, and have wrote about it to Mr. N. Punshon. I have little news since my last. I am pretty well, blessed be God; though I had got a dizziness yesterday, for which the Doctor ordered me to bleed, and entirely cured me. My duty and service where due. I am, dear Sir, your ever dutiful and affectionate son, J. H[ARLEY.]" Upminster, Feb. 22, 1725-6. "I lately met, casually, the Account of Stonehenge that I long since promised you, and could not with strict searching find; which is, an information of one Stainer, an ingenious and experienced Statuary on Bow-bridge, near London, who visited Stonehenge; and the better to inform himself of the nature of the stone, he bought at Salisbury a new strong hammer to break off a piece, which he intended to have polished, weighed, &c. But, instead of breaking the stone, he broke his hammer, and lost his cost and labour; but found, however, the stones to be harder than porphyry. He measured the largest of the stones, and found it 22 feet out of the earth. He hath had the curiosity to try the weight of several sorts of stones, and finds Portland stone to be 16 solid feet to the ton; white marble 12 feet; and black marble 10 feet to the ton. And, forasmuch as the Stonehenge stone is much harder than any of these, yea than porphyry, he concludes, that eight solid feet of these stones would make a ton, and that the weight of the great stone above ground is 50 or 60 ton. But, according to the measure I myself took some years ago of that stone (if I mistake not therein) it is above 80 ton; what a vast weight therefore is the whole stone, which probably is as much under ground as above it. And I hope you, who have been curious and inquisitive in the matter, will inform us whence these stones were brought, and by what carriage and mechanism, which, with all success and felicity, is heartily wished you by your most humble and affectionate servant, WM. DERHAM." Teddington, May 15, 1726. "DEAR SIR, "When I saw you last, you told me you should have in a few days the Modern Names of those Towns on the Picts Wall which are mentioned on the Cup which was found at Littlecott, near Hungerford. I have now a draft of it; but believe you have since seen the Cup, which I hear was sent to Lord Hartford. I shall be obliged to you, if you will let me know where it is, and whether it may be seen; and if you have the Modern Names I beg of you to send me them, in the order they are upon the Cup. I am your humble servant, "DEAR DOCTOR, STEPH. HALES." "When I look upon the date of your obliging Letter, I am ashamed not to have answered it sooner. I heartily thank you for thinking a poor old friend worth your attention, especially when you have (as I perceive by your Letter) so many delightful objects about you to engage it much better. The few friends I |