William III. declined to have anything to do with a ceremony he regarded as an imposture. "It is a silly superstition," he said, when he heard that at the close of Lent his palace was besieged by a crowd of sick. "Give the poor creatures some money, and send them away." On one occasion only was he induced to lay his hand on a sufferer. "God give you better health," he said, "and more sense." The next to wear the crown was Queen Anne, and she revived the rite. In the _London Gazette_ of March 12th, 1712, appeared an official announcement that the queen intended to touch for the evil. In Lent of that year, Dr. Johnson, then a child, went up to London with his mother in the stage coach that he might have the benefit of the royal touch. He was then between two and three years of age. "His mother," writes Boswell, "yielding to the superstitious notion which, it is wonderful to think, prevailed so long in this country as to the virtue of regal touch (a notion to which a man of such inquiry and such judgment as Carte, the historian, could give credit), carried him to London, where he was actually touched by Queen Anne. Mrs. Johnson, indeed, as Mr. Hector informed me, acted by the advice of the celebrated Sir John Floyer, then a physician in Lichfield. Johnson used to talk of this very frankly, and Mrs. Piozzi has preserved his very picturesque description of the scene as it remained upon his fancy. Being asked if he could remember Queen Anne, 'He had,' he said, 'a confused but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds and a long black hood.' This touch, however, was without any effect." The malady remained with Dr. Johnson to his death. [Illustration: TOUCH-PIECE OF CHARLES II. (GOLD).] After the death of Queen Anne, no other English sovereign kept up the custom, although the service remained in the "Book of Common Prayer" as late as 1719. The latest instance we have found of the ceremony being performed was in October, 1745, when Charles Edward, at Holyrood House, touched a child. [Illustration: (GOLD). TOUCH-PIECES OF JAMES II. (SILVER).]