34 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
‘‘ Ladies are requested to come early, in order to be agreeably accommodated
with seats, as the Lecture will be$n exactly at Seven o’clock.
“ N.B.-Dr. G. has not the least intention of lecturing any more for several
years in Edinburgh than the above four nights; and if the Chapel is not
pretty full the two first nights, he will not repeat the lecture as proposed the
two last nights, viz. on Wednesday and Thursday ; and as the shilling paid for
admission can only defray the various expenses, Dr. G. hopes that the inhabitants
of Edinburgh will esteem these lectures as very great and important favours
conferred upon them.
“ December, 1 7 8 3.
“All Dr. G.’s books and pamphlets are to be had at the Doctor’s house, and
at Mr. Brown’s, bookseller, Bridge Street.”
While his Temple of Health was in its glory, it cannot be doubted that
such an exhibition, lauded as it was on all hands in the most extravagant terms,
must have produced a great deal of money in such a city as London, where
every species of quackery is sure to meet with support and ehcouragement ; but
Doctor Graham, instead of realising a fortune, deeply involved himself by the
great expense he was put to in maintaining the establishment in proper splendour.
In his own expenditure he was very moderate ; for he not only abstained
from wine, spirits, and all strong liquors, but even from animal food-and,
consistently with this mode of life, he recommended the same practice to others ;
and whilst confined in the Jail of Edinburgh, for his attack on the civic authorities,
he preached-Sunday, August 17, 1783-a discourse upon Isaiah, XI.
6, “All flesh is grass;” in which he strongly inculcates the propriety of
abstinence from animal food. In this odd production, of which two editions
were afterwards published, he says, “ I bless God ! my friends ! that he has given
me grace and resolution to abstain totally from flesh and blood-from all liquors
but cold water and balsamic milk-and from all inordinate sensual indulgences.
Thrice happy ! supremely blessed is the man who, through life, abstains from
these things ; who, like me, washes his body and limbs every night and morning
with pure cold water-who breathes continually, summer and winter, day and
night, the free open cool air-and who, with unfeigned and active benevolence
towards every thing that hath life, fears and worships God in sincerity and in
truth.”
In addition to the peculiarities pointed out by the Doctor in his discourse,
he dissented in many other respects from the ordinary usages of mankind. He
wore no woollen clothes ; he slept on a hair-mattress, without feather-bed or
blankets, with all the windows open ; he said, and perhaps with some degree of
truth, that most of our diseases are owing to too much heat :-and he carried
his cool regimen to such an extent, that he was in terms with the tacksman of
the King‘s Park, for liberty to build a house upon the top of Arthur’s Seat, in
order to try how far he could bear the utmost degree of cold that the climate
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 35
of Edinburgh affords ; but, though the tacksman was willing, the noble proprietor
would not listen to the project.
Amongst other eccentric plans recommended to his patients was that of earthbathing,-
which was neither more nor less than burying them alive up to the
neck in the earth, in which position they were to remain for ten or twelve hours.
He tried this extraordinary remedy upon himself and one of his daughters, and
actually induced his brother-in-law to follow their example. Other persons were
also found simple enough to submit to this new species of temporary sepulture.
In 1787, this singular being appeared in a new character, as a special delegate
from Heaven to announce the Millennium. He not only styled himself
“ The Servant of the Lord, 0. W. L.” i.e. “ Oh, Wonderful Love,” but attempted
to begin a new chronology-dating his bills such a day of the first month of
the New Jerusalem Church ; but before the coming of the second month the
prophet was, by order of the Magistrates, put under restraint, not indeed in
prison, but in his own house, from whence he, some months afterwards, removed
to the north of England. His religious frenzy appears to have lasted some
time; and we learn from the following extract, copied from the Whitehawen
Packet, that a year afterwards his mind still wandered :-
“ JVHITEHAVEN-Tuesday morning’ Dr. James Graham was sent off to
Edinburgh in the custody of two constables. This unfortunate man had, for
some days past, discovered such marks of insanity as made it advisable to secure
him.‘-August 22, 1788.“
His death took place somewhat suddenly, in his house, opposite to the
Archers’ Hall, upon the 23d June 1794-it was occasioned by the bursting of a
bloodvessel. He was buried in the Greyfriars’ churchyard, Edinburgh. His
widow survived him about seven years, and died at Ardwick, near Manchester,
in the year 1801.
His circumstances during the latter period of his existence were far from
affluent. To one of his publications, however, he was indebted for an annuity
of fifty pounds for life j for it happened that a gentleman in Geneva, who had
perused it, found his health so much improved by following the advice of its
author, that, out of gratitude, he presented him with a bond for the yearly
payment of that sum.
With all his eccentricities, he had a benevolent and charitable disposition,
and his conduct towards his parents was exemplary. Even when in his “ hi&
and palmy state,” he paid them every attention. Whilst in Edinburgh, he took
’ Whether he ever got entirely quit of his religious fancies, is uncertain ; and in a very complete and
curious collection of tracts, advertisements, etc., by, or relative to, Dr. Graham, occurring in the late Mr.
John Stevenson’a sale catalogue for 1825, there is a “manuscript written expressly for Dr. Graham,
regarding his religiow concerns, by Benjamin Dockray, a Quaker at Newtoun, near Carlisle, in 1790,”
which would seem to indicate that hia mind, on that head, waa not at that date entirely settled.
