Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/324

318 THESE were all the words that passed among us at this time; nor was there need for more; it being necessary we should make use of force in tht cure of my patient.

I privately whispered the old woman to go to Mr. Verdier's in Long-Acre, with orders to come immediately with cupping glasses: in the mean time, by the assistance of Mr. Lintot, we locked his friend into a closet, who, it is plain from his last speech, was likewise touched in his intellects; after which we bound our lunatick hand and foot down to the bedstead, where he continued in violent ravings, notwithstanding the most tender expressions we could use to persuade him to submit to the operation, till the servant of Verdier arrived. He had no sooner clapped half a dozen cupping-glasses on his head, and behind his ears, but the gentleman abovementioned bursting open the closet, ran furiously upon us, cut Mr. Dennis's bandages, and let drive at us with a vast folio, which sorely bruised the shin of Mr. Lintot; Mr. John Dennis also, starting up with the cupping-glasses on his head, seized another folio, and with the same dangerously wounded me in the scull, just above my right temple. The truth of this fact Mr. Verdier's servant is ready to attest upon oath, who, taking an exact survey of the volumes, found that, which wounded my head, to be Gruterus's Lampas Critica: and that, which broke Mr. Lintot's shin, was Scaliger's Poetices. After this, Mr. John Dennis, strengthened at once by rage and madness, snatched up a peruke-block that stood by the bedside, and wielded it round in so furious a manner, that he broke three of the cupping-glasses from the crown of his head, so that