zure of his wares (by Drs.
Arbuthnot, Bale, and Levit), the physicians may be said to have
discontinued to exercise their privileges of inspection.

In his elaborate poem Garth cruelly caricatures the apothecaries of his
day:--

"Long has he been of that amphibious fry,
Bold to prescribe, and busy to apply;
His shop the gazing vulgar's eyes employs,
With foreign trinkets and domestic toys.
Here mummies lay, most reverently stale,
And there the tortoise hung her coat of mail;
Not far from some huge shark's devouring head
The flying-fish their finny pinions spread.
Aloft in rows large poppy-heads were strung,
And near, a scaly alligator hung.
In this place drugs in musty heaps decay'd,
In that dried bladders and false teeth were laid.

"An inner room receives the num'rous shoals
Of such as pay to be reputed fools;
Globes stand by globes, volumes on volumes lie,
And planetary schemes amuse the eye.
The sage in velvet chair here lolls at ease,
To promise future health for present fees;
Then, as from tripod, solemn shams reveals,
And what the stars know nothing of foretells.
Our manufactures now they merely sell,
And their true value treacherously tell;
Nay, they discover, too, their spite is such,
That health, than crowns more valued, cost not much;
Whilst we must steer our conduct by these rules,
To cheat as tradesmen, or to starve as fools."

Before finally leaving Blackfriars, let us gather up a few reminiscences
of the King's and Queen's printers who here first worked their inky
presses.

Queen Anne, by patent in 1713, constituted Benjamin Tooke, of Fleet
Street, and John Barber (afterwards Alderman Barber), Queen's printers
for thirty years. This Barber, a high Tory and suspected Jacobite, was
Swift's printer and warm friend. A remarkable story is told of Barber's
dexterity in his profession. Being threatened with a prosecution by the
House of Lords, for an offensive paragraph in a pamphlet which he had
printed, and being warned of his danger by Lord Bolingbroke, he called
in all the copies from the publishers, cancelled the leaf which
contained the obnoxious passage, and returned them to the booksellers
with a new paragraph supplied by Lord Bolingbroke; so that when the
pamphlet was produced before the House, and the passage referred to, it
was found unexceptionable. He added greatly to his wealth by th