424 CUKE BY Y E TOUCH. 



Wonderful though the examples of royal cure already 

 cited, it was reserved for the line of Stuart sovereigns to dis- 

 play the divine gift in all its full-blown excellence. I have 

 already discussed the question whether the coin or medal 

 bequeathed had any efficacy. I think we must admit that it 

 counted for something. The British Solomon, as he has been 

 not unaptly called, devoted the whole energy of his great 

 mind to solve some long-outstanding doubts relative to this 

 metallic question. As I understand the case, his majesty 

 came to the conclusion that a metallic gift was useful ' as an 

 adjuvant,' to express oneself homoeopathically ; * but to this 

 monarch's investigations we owe the discovery of the truth 

 that siller s as gude as gowd (how very Scotch !). Accordingly, 

 silver was often used in the ensuing reign. Charles the 

 martyr, poor king ! had not always gold ; so the discovery to 

 him was of great practical importance : greater, however, the 

 discovery already noted of this monarch's ability to cure by 

 simple benediction. Charles II. reverted to the gold; but 

 when Doctor Johnson presented himself to be operated upon 

 by Queen Anne, he only received a shabby bit of silver.! 



In pursuing our sketch, we now come to the troubled 

 reign of Charles I., when all that had hitherto been seen in 

 the cure of diseases by royal influence was fairly eclipsed. 

 The very successes of the royal martyr are, however, by some 

 adverse critics deemed unfavourable to the general preten- 

 sions of royal cure by manipulation. It is advanced that the 

 evidence proves too much; that the cases belong to the 

 general category of saintly miracles. In the beginning of 

 this narrative I had occasion to quote the particulars of a 

 cure, effected by the martyred king, that can only be called 

 miraculous. Others, by the hundred, if not by the thousand, 



* Homoeopathic practitioners frequently promote the action of a ten- 

 billionth part of a grain of powdered flint by half an ounce of castor-oil, 

 administered as an adjuvant. 



f Now held as a relic by the Duke of Devonshire. 



