THE NARRATIVE OF DR. ROBERT NORRIS, CONCERNING The strange and deplorable Frenzy of Mr. JOHN DENNIS, an Officer of the Custom-house. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCXIII. THE NARRATIVE OF DR. ROBERT NORRIS'. IT is an acknowledged truth, that nothing is fo dear to an honeft man as his good name, nor ought he to neglect the juft vindication of his character, when it is injuriously attacked by any man. The person I have at present cause to complain of, is indeed in very melancholy circumstances, it having pleafed God to deprive him of his fenfes, which may extenuate the crime in him. But I fhould be wanting in my duty, not only to myself, but also to my fellow-creatures, to whom my talents may prove of benefit, fhould I fuffer my profeffion or honefty to be undeservedly aspersed. I have therefore refolved to give the public an account of all that has past between the unhappy gentleman and myself. On * Addison highly disapproved of this bitter fatire on Dennis, and Pope was not a little chagrined at this difapprobation; for the narrative was intended to court the favor of Addison, by defending his Cato in which feeming defence Addison was far from thinking our author fincere. On the 20th instant, while I was in my closet, pondering the case of one of my patients, I heard a knocking at my door, upon opening of which entered an old woman with tears in her eyes, and told me, that without my affiftance her mafter would be utterly ruined. I was forced to interrupt her forrow, by enquiring her master's name and place of abode. She told me, he was one Mr. Dennis, an officer of the custom-house, who was taken ill of a violent frenzy last April, and had continued in those melancholy circumstances with few or no intervals. Upon this I asked her fome questions relating to his humour and extravagancies, that I might the better know under what regimen to put him, when the cause of his diftemper was found out. Alas! fir, fays he, this day fortnight in the morning, a poor fimple child came to him from the printer's; the boy had no fooner entered the room, but he cried out, the devil was come. He often ftares ghaftfully, raves aloud, and mutters between his teeth the word Cator, or Cato, or fome fuch thing. Now, Doctor, this Cator is certainly a witch, and my poor master is under an evil tongue; for I have heard him fay Cator has bewitched the whole nation. It pitied my very heart to think, that a man of my master's understanding and great scholarship, who, as the child told me, had a book of his own in print, fhould talk fo outrageously. Upon this I went and laid out a groat for a horse-fhoe, which is at this time nailed on the threshold threshold of his door; but I don't find my mafter is at all the better for it; he perpetually starts and runs to the window when any one knocks, crying out, S'death! a messenger from the French King! I fhall die in the Baftile. Having faid this, the old woman presented me with a vial of his urine; upon examination of which I perceived the whole temperament of his body to be exceeding hot. I therefore instantly took my cane and my beaver, and repaired to the place where he dwelt. When I came to his lodgings near Charing-crofs, up three pair of stairs, (which I should not have pub. lifhed in this manner, but that this lunatic conceals the place of his refidence, on purpose to prevent the good offices of those charitable friends and physicians, who might attempt his cure), when I came into the room, I found this unfortunate gentleman seated on his bed, with Mr. Bernard Lintot, bookfeller, on the one fide of him, and a grave elderly gentleman on the other, who, as I have fince learned, calls himfelf a grammarian; the latitude of whofe countenance was not a little eclipsed by the fulness of his peruke. As I am a black lean man, of a pale vifage, and hang my cloaths on fomewhat flovenly, I no fooner went in, but he frowned upon me, and cried out with violence, "S'death, a Frenchman! I am betrayed to the tyrant! who could have thought the Queen would have delivered me up to France in this treaty, |