How some Quacks undertook to cure Mrs. Bull of her ulcer.*There is nothing so impossible in Nature but mountebanks will undertake; nothing so incredible but they will affirm: Mrs. Bull's condition was looked upon as desperate by all the men of art; but there were those that bragged they had an infallible ointment and plaister, which being applied to the sore, would cure it in a few days; at the same time they would give her a pill that would purge off all her bad humours, sweeten her blood, and rectify her disturbed imagination. In spite of all applications the patient grew worse every day; she stunk so, nobody durst come within a stone's throw of her, except those quacks who attended her close, and apprehended no danger. If one asked them how Mrs. Bull did?
Better and better, said they; the parts heal, and her constitution mends: if she submits to our government she will be abroad in a little time. Nay, it is reported that they wrote to her friends in the country that she should dance a jig next October in Westminster Hall, and that her illness had been chiefly owing to bad physicians.
At last, one of them was sent for in great haste, his patient grew worse and worse: when he came, he affirmed that it was a gross mistake, and that she was never in a fairer way. Bring hither the salve, says he, and give her a plentiful draught of my cordial. As he was applying his ointments, and administering the cordial, the patient gave up the ghost, to the great confusion of the quack, and the great joy of Bull and his friends. The quack flung away out of the house in great disorder, and swore there was foul play, for he was sure his medicines were infallible. Mrs. Bull having died without any signs of repentance or devotion, the clergy would hardly allow her a Christian burial. The relations had once resolved to sue John for the murder, but considering better of it, and that such a trial would rip up old sores, and discover things not so much to the reputation of the deceased, they dropped their design. She left no will, only there was found in her strong box the following words written on a scrip of paper--"My curse on John Bull, and all my posterity, if ever they come to any composition with the Lord Strutt."She left him three daughters, whose names were Polemia, Discordia, and Usuria.*** Endeavours and hopes of some people to hinder the dissolution of that Parliament.
** War, faction, and usury.
