‘WHEREAS _Joanna Stevens_ (sic) of the City of _Westminster_, spinster, hath acquired the knowledge of medicines, and the skill of preparing them, which by a dissolving power seem capable of removing the cause of the painful distemper of the stone, and may be improved, and more successfully applied when the same shall be discovered to persons learned in the science of physick; now, for encouraging the said _Joanna Stephens_ to make discovery thereof, and for providing her a recompence in case the said medicines shall be submitted to the examination of proper judges, and by them be found worthy of the reward hereby provided; may it please your Majesty, that it be enacted, etc. ‘£5,000 granted out of the supplies for the discovery of Mrs. Stephens’s medicines. Treasury to issue the said sum on a proper certificate.’ A committee of twenty scientists investigated her medicines, and reported favourably on them. They were trifold. A powder, a draught, and a pill--and what think you they were made of? The powder was made of egg-shells and snails, both burnt; the draught was made of Alicante soap, swine’s cresses burnt, and honey. This was made into a ball, which was afterwards sliced and dissolved in a broth composed of green camomile, or camomile flowers, sweet fennel, parsley, and burdock leaves, boiled in water and sweetened with honey; whilst the pill was compounded of snails, wild carrot seeds, burdock seeds, ashen keys, hips and haws, all burnt to blackness, and then mixed with Alicante soap! These were the famous remedies for which a grateful nation paid such a large sum!!! CAGLIOSTRO IN LONDON. Carlyle, in a very diffuse essay on this adventurer, thus introduces him: ‘The Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, Pupil of the sage Althotas, Foster-child of the Scherif of Mecca, probable Son of the last King of Trebisond; named also Acharat, and unfortunate child of Nature; by profession healer of diseases, abolisher of wrinkles, friend of the poor and impotent, grand-master of the Egyptian Mason Lodge of High Science, Spirit Summoner, Gold Cook, Grand Cophta, Prophet, Priest, and thaumaturgic moralist and swindler; really a Liar of the first magnitude, thorough-paced in all provinces of Lying, what one may call the King of Liars. ‘Mendez Pinto, Baron Munchaüsen, and others are celebrated in this art, and not without some colour of justice; yet must it in candour remain doubtful whether any of these comparatively were much more than liars from the teeth onwards: a perfect character of the species in question, who lied not in word only, but continually in thought, word, and act; and, so to speak, lived wholly in an element of lying, and from birth to death did nothing but lie--was still a desideratum. Of which desideratum Count Alessandro offers, we say, if not the fulfilment, perhaps as near an approach to it as the limited human faculties permit.’