“My mother, when she was with child of me, Consulted heav’n what gender I should be. Female, cried Mars; Apollo said, a Male; Neither, quoth Juno; both your judgments fail. My birth did prove the Goddess in the right; Nor boy, nor girl, but an Hermaphrodite. Again she ask’d them what my fate would be. One said a sword, another said a tree; Water a third, and they were right all three. For from a tree I fell upon my sword, Feet caught in boughs, head dangling in a ford. Man, Woman, Neither, I at last was found, Just as the Gods foretold, hang’d, stabb’d, and drown’d.” A few numbers before that in which the coffee-house wit told the female student just precisely what he thought of her, the editor received a letter from another of these gentry at one of the coffee-houses. On behalf of all his brother Smarts, Mr Harry Didapper took it upon himself to offer a little friendly advice to the paper. He informed the editor that _The Student_ was read with keen interest by them all, but that at times it indulged in boring and pompous articles which, however they pleased the editor himself, or the cultivated taste of his wig-maker, hosier and wine merchant, left them angry and disappointed. The Smarts wished to have no more abstract speculations and religious introspections. They wanted more brightness and humanity about the paper. Consequently in the next issue the editor published the following lamentation:-- “A RECEIPT FOR THE GOUT. “Oh Gout! the plague of rich and great! Thou cramping padlock of the feet! Oh Gout! thou puzzling knotty point! You nick man’s frame in every joint; You, like inquisitors of Spain, Rack, burn, and torture limbs to pain. First, miner-like, you work below, And sap man’s fortress by the toe.... And what is worse, the wounded part Finds small relief from doctor’s art. Great Wilmot’s skill confounded stands When patient roars ... my toe! my hands!... ’Tis said that bees, when raging found, Are charm’d to peace by tinkling sound; Shrill lullabies in nurse’s strain Asswage the froward bantling’s pain, When cutting teeth, or ill-plac’d pin, Molest the tender baby’s skin, So when Gout-humours throb and ache, The present soft prescription take. In elbow-chair majectick sit In full high twinge, yet scorn to fret; Divert the pain with generous wine; Read news from Flanders and the Rhine; Hold up the toe like Pope of Rome; Forbear to scold, and swear, and fume; Let double flannel guard the part, To mitigate the dreadful smart; Wrap round the joint this harmless verse; And let dame Patience be your nurse.” Would any doctor in these times prescribe wine as a remedy against gout? Whether the advice was sound or not, the Smarts appeared to have been appeased, for there came no further complaints as to the stodginess of the fare served up to them.