CUKE BY Y E TOUCH. 413 



The real difficulty would consist, not in reestablishing a 

 faith in the efficacy of the royal imposition of hands, but in 

 discriminating between the properties and characteristics of 

 what might seem to uneducated people analogous or closely- 

 allied operations. A few words in explanation will make all 

 apparent. To begin with the frictional treatment of various 

 diseases, rheumatism and paralysis for example, this method 

 is of high antiquity and considerable present repute. Now, 

 if the practice of curing by royal touch were reestablished, 

 one may rest assured that certain disaffected subjects and 

 evil-disposed critics would be found endeavouring to prove 

 the identity of medendi ratio between the royal * smoothing 

 down ' and any ordinary friction. 



This, though a matter of high treason, would hardly, I 

 fear, in the present depraved state of public opinion, induce 

 the proper consequences of that crime hanging, drawing, 

 and quartering. Again, it was usual with British sovereigns 

 in times gone by to supplement the health-bestowing sliding 

 touch with the dotation of a coin or medal, usually of gold, 

 to be suspended from the neck by a ribbon. Now this circum- 

 stance would assuredly be cited by disaffected and heretical 

 people, having faith in relics and amulets, as evidence to 

 prove that the virtue of gold was all in all the sovereign 

 nothing. Such an opinion would of course (argue my autho- 

 rities) be both wicked and absurd. 



6 To dispute the matter of fact,' says Collier, in his Ec- 

 clesiastical History, ' is to go to the extreme of scepticism, to 

 deny our senses, and to be incredulous even to ridiculousness.' 

 ' King Edward the Confessor was the first,' says Collier, in 

 another place, 'who cured this distemper [king's evil], and 

 from him it has descended as an hereditary gift upon all his 



celebrated of these. Many notabilities of the day were treated by Great- 

 racks, among them Boyle and Cudworth. Considerable jealousy was mani- 

 fested against these private strokers. It was maintained by high-church- 

 and-king people, that ' stroking' was a special prerogative of his Majesty, 

 i.e. Charles II. 



