The works of Mr. Thomas Brown, serious and comical : in prose and verse, with his remains in four volumes compleat; vol. IIBrown, Thomas
General
The works of Mr. Thomas Brown, serious and comical : in prose and verse, with his remains in four volumes compleat; vol. II
Brown, Thomas
English wit and humor -- Early works to 1800; Erotic literature -- Early works to 1800; Latin literature -- Translations into English
If any woman be unwilling to speak to me, they may have the
conveniency of speaking to my wife, who is expert in all feminine
distempers. She has an excellent cosmetick water to carry off
freckles, sun-burn, or pimples; and a curious red pomatum to plump
and colour the lips. She can make red hair as white as a lilly; she
shapes the eyebrows to a miracle; makes low foreheads as high as
you please, has a never failing remedy for offensive breaths, a
famous essence to correct the ill scent of the arm-pits, a rich
water that makes the hair curl, a most delicate paste to smooth and
whiten the hands; also,
_A rare secret that takes away all warts,_
_From the face, hands, fingers, and privy-parts._
Those who are not able to come to me, let them send their urine,
especially that made after midnight, and on sight of it, I will
tell them what their distemper is, and whether curable or no. Nay,
let a man be in never so perfect health of body, his constitution
never so vigorous and athletical, if he shews me his water, I can
as infallibly predict what distemper will first attack him, though
perhaps it will be thirty or forty years hence, as an astronomer,
by the rules of his science, can foretel solar or lunar eclipses
the year before they happen. I have predicted miraculous things by
the pulse, far above any philosopher: by it, I not only discover
the circumstances of the body; but if the party be a woman, I can
foretel how many husbands and children she shall have; if a
tradesman whether his wife will fortify his forehead with horns;
and so of the rest. This is not all, but I will engage to tell any
serious persons what their business is on every radical figure,
before they speak one word; what has already happen’d to them from
their very infancy down to the individual hour of their consulting
me, what their present circumstances are, what will happen to them
hereafter; in what part of the body they have moles; what colour
and magnitude they are of; and lastly, how profited, that is,
whether they calminate equinoctially or horizontally upon the
_Mesogastrium_; from which place alone, and no other, as the
profound _Trismegistus_ has observ’d before me, in his elaborate
treatise _de erroribus Styli Gregoriani_, all solid conjectures are
to be formed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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