Letter 1944

Wotton is thinking of inviting ‘Dr Thorp’ to Bedford. He complains that ‘Apothecary’s and Quacks’ are disrupting medical ‘practise of the countrey’. Wotton was a child prodigy, having received his BA from Oxford at the age of nine. He mastered several languages and fields of inquiry and became a member of the Royal Society in 1687 as well as being ordained in 1689. He published many works on history, theology, culture, and politics and contributed to the Philosophical Transactions (David Stoker, Wotton, William (16661727), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2007 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30005, accessed 14 June 2011]).