perhaps account for the large amount of democracy which has exhibited itself during the present century. There is certainly something rather ludicrous in the fact that the practice of touching for the evil ceased with the death of Anne; not because the people had become more enlightened, but because the sovereigns who followed her were supposed to have lost the medicinal virtue through being kings merely by Act of Parliament, and not by Divine right.
The reaction which set in from the strait-laced rule of the Puritans at the time of the Restoration, must have reached its height about 1664, if we may judge by the advertisements then constantly inserted, which reflect the love of pleasure and folly exhibited by all classes, as if they were anxious to make up for previous restrictions. In fact, the chief inquiries are after lacework, or valuables lost at masquerade or water party, announcements of lotteries at Whitehall, of jewels and tapestry, and other things to be sold. The following is a fair specimen of the advertisements of the time, and appears in the News of August 4, 1664:—
LOST on the 27th July, about Boswell Yard or Drury Lane, a Ladyes picture set in gold, and three Keys, with divers other little things in a perfumed pocket. Whosoever shall give notice of or bring the said picture to Mr Charles Coakine, Goldsmith, near Staples Inne, Holborn, shall have 4 times the value of the gold for his payns.
There are also about this time all sorts of quack and nostrum advertisements, an “antimonial cup,” by means of which every kind of disease was to be cured, being apparently very popular. Sir Kenelm Digby, a learned knight, who is said to have feasted his wife with capons fattened upon serpents for the purpose of making her fair, advertises a book in which is shown a method of curing the severest wounds by a sympathetic powder. But even the knight’s efforts pall before the following, which will go far to show the superstitious leaven which still hung about the populace:—