Volume 1

A letter from the facetious Dr. Andrew Tripe [i.e. W. Wagstaffe] at Bath, to his loving brother the profound Greshamite, shewing that the scribendi cacoethes is a distemper arising from a redundancy of biliose salts / [William Wagstaffe].

  • Wagstaffe, William, 1685-1725
Date:
1719
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter from the facetious Dr. Andrew Tripe [i.e. W. Wagstaffe] at Bath, to his loving brother the profound Greshamite, shewing that the scribendi cacoethes is a distemper arising from a redundancy of biliose salts / [William Wagstaffe]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    vlded wifely an Vniverfal Principle, whicfi may be as eafily believ’d as underftood. The 7 ravels of the Bilioje Salts through¬ out the various Territories of this little World of Man, are particularly delcribed by~You, and feem a very proper Subject for a Poem. For the Variety of the Story, the Multitude of Epifodes, and the many Conflicts and Encounters they are engaged in, as they’ll make it highly entertaining and delightful; fo the Probable is carried thro’ the Whole, with fuch Extravagant Succefs, that even a bare Tranjlation of it, by an Hand like Mr. Cottons's, would make the Wonders of the Bile, as remar¬ kable as the Wonders of the Peake. The Druids, the Pj/thagoreans, and all the Ancient Sages, inftill’d their Precepts into their Difciples by digefting them in¬ to Metre, and the Authors of Propria quk Maribtts, Qua Genus, f’c. whom all the Learned in our Nation muft have the greateft Veneration for, have fucceeded, we find, in later Times by this Stratagem. But notwithllanding 1 am of Opinion that the. Strength of your Arguments would be better enforc’d in Melody and Rhtme, yer, astheyftand iaProfe, they are , cogent and powerfull enough to convince fuch as are not entirely Unbelievers. For there