The Coffee-house was almost absorbed by the Museum. "When I came into the Coffee-house," says Steele, "I had not time to salute the company, before my eyes were diverted by ten thousand gimcracks round the room, and on the ceiling. When my first astonishment was over, comes to me a sage of thin and meagre countenance, which aspect made me doubt whether reading or fretting had made it so philosophic; but I very soon perceived him to be of that sort which the ancients call 'gingivistee,' in our language 'tooth-drawers,' I immediately had a respect for the man; for these practical philosophers go upon a very practical hypothesis, not to cure, but to take away the part affected. My love of mankind made me very benevolent to Mr. Salter, for such is the name of this eminent barber and antiquary." The Don was famous for his punch and his skill on the fiddle; he also drew teeth, and wrote verses; he described his museum in several stanzas, one of which is-- "Monsters of all sorts are seen: Strange things in nature as they grew so; Some relicks of the Sheba Queen, And fragments of the fam'd Bob Crusoe." Steele then plunges into a deep thought why barbers should go further in hitting the ridiculous than any other set of men; and maintains that Don Saltero is descended in a right line, not from John Tradescant, as he himself asserts, but from the memorable companion of the Knight of Mancha. Steele then certifies that all the worthy citizens who travel to see the Don's rarities, his double-barrelled pistols, targets, coats of mail, his sclopeta, and sword of Toledo, were left to his ancestor by the said Don Quixote, and by his ancestor to all his progeny down to Saltero. Though Steele thus goes far in favour of Don Saltero's great merit, he objects to his imposing several names (without his licence) on the collection he has made, to the abuse of the good people of England; one of which is particularly calculated to deceive religious persons, to the great scandal of the well-disposed, and may introduce heterodox opinions. [Among the curiosities presented by Admiral Munden was a coffin, containing the body or relics of a Spanish saint, who had wrought miracles.] "He shows you a straw hat, which," says Steele, "I know to be made by Madge Peskad, within three miles of Bedford; and tells you 'It is Pontius Pilate's wife's chambermaid's sister's hat.' To my knowledge of this very hat, it may be added that the covering of straw was never used among the Jews, since it was demanded of them to make bricks without it. Therefore, this is nothing but, under the specious pretence of learning and antiquities, to impose upon the world. There are other things which I cannot tolerate among his rarities, as, the china figure of the lady in the glass-case; the Italian engine, for the imprisonment of those who go abroad with it; both of which I hereby order to be taken down, or else he may expect to have his