"I, Anthony Nicholson, of Cambridge, Bookseller, have been affected sore with pains all over my body, for three-and-twenty years last past, have had advice and best directions of all the doctors there; have been at the bath in Somersetshire, and been at above one hundred pounds expense to procure ease, or a cure of these pains; and have found all the means I could be advised or directed to ineffectual for either, till, by the advice of Dr Benjamin Whichcot and Dean Rust, I applyed myself to Mr Greatrake's for help upon Saturday was sevenight, being the latter end of March, and who then stroked me; upon which I was very much worse, and enforced to keep my bed for five or six days; but then being stroked twice since, by the blessing of God upon Mr Greatrake's endeavours, I am perfectly eas'd of all pains, and very healthy and strong, insomuch as I intend (God willing) to return home towards Cambridge to-morrow morning, though I was so weak as to be necessitated to be brought up in men's arms, on Saturday last about 11 of the clock, to Mr Greatrake's. Attested by me this tenth day of April, 1666. I had also an hard swelling in my left arm, whereby I was disabled from using it; which being taken out by the said Mr Greatrake's, I am perfectly freed of all pain, and the use thereof greatly restored. "ANTHONY NICHOLSON. "In the presence of Andrew Marvell, Jas. Fairclough, Tho. Alured, Tho. Pooley, W. Popple." There were worse features of life in Charles the Second's London than the popularity of Valentine Greatrakes; but his triumph was of short duration. His professions were made the butts of ridicule, to which his presence of mind and volubility were unable to respond with effect. It was asserted by his enemies that his system was only a cloak under which he offended the delicacy of virtuous women, and roused the passions of the unchaste. His tone of conversation was represented as compounded of the blasphemy of the religious enthusiast and the blasphemy of the profligate. His boast that he never received a fee for his remedial services was met by flat contradiction, and a statement that he received presents to the amount of £100 at a time from a single individual. This last accusation was never clearly disposed of; but it is probable that the reward he sought (if he looked for any) was restoration, through Court influence, to the commission of magistrates for his county, and the lost clerkship of the peace. The tide of slander was anyhow too strong for him, and he retired to his native country a less honoured though perhaps a not less honest man than he left it. Of his sincerity at the outset of his career as a healer there can be little doubt.