MESMERISM. 673 



man of probity who had practised for thirty years/' or, in common 

 language, a highly respectable practitioner of great experience, 

 that, in the course of about a month, he had delivered her of 

 nearly twenty rabbits. George the First, not thinking it impossible, 

 sent his house surgeon, Mr. Ahlers, to inquire into the fact ; and 

 the royal house surgeon returned to London, (< convinced that he 

 had obtained ocular and tangible proof of the truth," and pro- 

 mised to procure the woman a pension. The wise king then 

 sent his sergeant-surgeon, Mr. St. Andre : and the sergeant- 

 surgeon returned to town also a firm believer. They both re- 

 turned with rabbits as proofs^! and the rabbits had the high 

 honour of being dissected before the king. An elaborate Report 

 of their production and dissection was published by the sergeant- 

 surgeon ; and Whiston (of the faculty of theology indeed) 

 showed, in a pamphlet (for a furious controversy arose between 

 the believers and the unbelievers), that the miracle was the 

 exact fulfilment of a prophecy in Esdras. An eminent physician, 

 Sir Richard Manningham, backed by Caroline, then Princess 

 of Wales, detected the cheat, and, on a threat of a dangerous 

 operation and imprisonment, Mary Tofts confessed the whole. 

 Ann Moore of Tutbury, of extreme piety, and with a Bible 

 always on her bed before her, pretended in 1808, sqq. to have 

 taken nothing into her mouth for six years but the inside of 

 some black currants once ; and for the last four years and a 

 half, nothing. There was no peculiar state of the nervous sys- 

 tem to account for the circumstance. She was watched for 

 sixteen days and nights in September, 1808 : and members of 

 the faculty of theology and medical practitioners testified to 

 the truth of her statement : though Dr. Henderson showed, 

 from many circumstances, to all rational people, that it was an 

 absurd imposture. The Rev. Legh Richmond, in 1813, earnestly 

 solicited her to undergo another watching. She consented ; and, 

 having caught a bad cold and thinking herself dying, she with 

 great solemnity said, " In the face of Almighty God, and on my 

 dying bed, I declare that I have used no deception," &c. Yet 

 evidence of guilt and falsehood was at last obtained, attempts 

 at concealment were useless, and she publicly expressed her 

 contrition for her long continued imposture. J 



1 See an interesting work by my friend Mr. Hunter; Sketches of Imposture, 

 Deception, and Credulity, Family Library. London, 1737. 



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