Note 145 — ACT II. SCENE I.

doctors a’ the name. “He alludes to Dr. W. Butler, a very celebrated physician of Elizabeth’s days. The oddity of his manners, the singularity of his practice, and the extraordinary cures which he performed, raised many strange opinions of him. ‘He never’ (says Dr. Wittie) ‘kept any apprentices for his business, nor any maid but a fool, and yet his reputation thirty-five years after his death was still so great, that many empiricks got credit among the vulgar by claiming relation to him, as having served him, and learned much from him.’ He died at an advanced age in 1618.”—Gifford.