, whose distress and silence
under it call'd out the louder for a friendly lift: the wife of the parson of
the parish was touch'd with pity; and having often lamented an inconvenience, to
which her husband's flock had for many years been exposed, inasmuch, as there
was no such thing as a midwife, of any kind or degree to be got at, let the case
have been never so urgent, within less than six or seven long miles riding;
which said seven long miles in dark nights and dismal roads, the country
thereabouts being nothing but a deep clay, was almost equal to fourteen; and
that in effect was sometimes next to having no midwife at all; it came into her
head, that it would be doing as seasonable a kindness to the whole parish, as to
the poor creature herself, to get her a little instructed in some of the plain
principles of the business, in order to set her up in it. As no woman
thereabouts was better qualified to execute the plan she had formed than
herself, the Gentlewoman very charitably undertook it; and having great
influence over the female part of the parish, she found no difficulty in
effecting it to the utmost of her wishes. In truth, the parson join'd his
interest with his wife's in the whole affair; and in order to do things as they
should be, and give the poor soul as good a title by law to practise, as his
wife had given by institution, -- he chearfully paid the fees for the ordinary's
licence himself, amounting, in the whole, to the sum of eighteen shillings and
fourpence; so that, betwixt them both, the good woman was fully invested in the
real and corporal possession of her office, together with all its rights,
members, and appurtenances whatsoever.
    These last words, you must know, were not according to the old form in which
such licences, faculties, and powers usually ran, which in like cases had
heretofore been granted to the sisterhood. But it was according to a neat
Formula of Didius his own devising, who having a particular turn for taking to
pieces, and new framing over again, all kind of instruments in that way, not
only hit upon this dainty amendment, but coax'd many of the old licensed matrons
in the neighbourhood, to open their faculties afresh, in order to have this
whim-wham of his inserted.
    I own I never could envy Didius in these kinds of fancies of his: - But
every man to his own taste. - Did
