The notorious quack doctor Joshua Ward (1685-1761), who was caricatured by Hogarth, allowed the Italian sculptor, Agostino Carlini, £100 a year, so that he should work on his statue for life. The impudent inventor of "Friar's Balsam" left this statue to the Society of Arts. This quack, who was nicknamed "Spot" Ward, from a birth-mark on his cheek, was the son of a London dry-salter. His skill was so extolled by General Churchill and Lord Chief Baron Reynolds, that he was called in to prescribe for George II. Despite his "remedies"--his famous "drop and pill" was a dangerous compound of antimony--the King recovered, and "Spot" Ward was solemnly voted the thanks of a credulous House of Parliament and allowed the privilege of driving his carriage through St James's Park. He tried to enter Parliament by fraud in 1717, and fled to St Germain, where he maintained himself by his "universal remedies." Pardoned in 1733, he had a wonderful career in London, and amassed a fortune. [Illustration: _Gércault._ ENTRANCE TO THE ADELPHI ARCHES.] One of the most interesting of the literary associations of the Adelphi is connected, in tradition, with Oliver Goldsmith, and, as a matter of fact, with Samuel Johnson, both of whom appeared before the Society of Arts. "The great room of the Society now mentioned," says Andrew Kippis, the Nonconformist divine and biographer, at the close of his memoir of Gilbert Cooper, in the _Biographia Britannica_,[32] "was for several years the place where many people chose to try, or to display, their oratorical abilities. Dr Goldsmith, I remember, made an attempt at a speech, but was obliged to sit down in confusion. I once heard Doctor Johnson speak there, upon a subject relating to Mechanics, with a propriety, perspicuity, and energy which excited general admiration." On the other hand, we have the testimony of Boswell that Johnson did not distinguish himself as a speaker in the Adelphi. "I remember that it was observed by Mr Flood, that Johnson, having been long used to sententious brevity and the short flights of conversation, might have failed in that continued and expanded kind of argument which is requisite in stating complicated matters in public speaking; and, as a proof of this, he mentioned the supposed speeches in Parliament, written by him for the magazine, none of which, in his opinion, were at all like real debates. The opinion of one who was himself so eminent an orator must be allowed to have great weight. It was confirmed by Sir William Scott [Baron Stowell, the great Admiralty lawyer], who mentioned that Johnson had told him that he had several times tried to speak in the Society of Arts and Manufactures, but 'had found he could not get on.' From Mr William Gerard Hamilton, I have heard that Johnson, when observing to him that it was prudent for a man who had not been accustomed to speak in public to begin his speech in as simple a manner as possible, acknowledged that he rose in that Society to