Ben Jonson gives a description of the itinerant doctor in Queen Elizabeth’s time, who travelled the country, usually accompanied by a jester or zany, as he was called, who carried the box or chest containing his remedies. We see the professor with his copper rings, shining chain, better than gold but not quite so valuable, his yellow jewel, his dirty feather-embroidered suit, grave look, and starched beard.[45] Hush! he begins:—
“Most noble gentlemen and my worthy patrons!—I have nothing to sell, little or nothing to sell, though I protest, I and my six servants are not able to make of my precious balsam so fast as it is fetched away from my lodging by the worthy men of the town. O health! health! the blessing of the rich, the riches of the poor, who can buy thee at too dear a rate? And since there is no enjoying the world without thee, for when a humid flux or catarrh, by the mutability of air, falls from your head into an arm or shoulder, take you a rose noble or an angel of gold and apply to the place affected; see what good effect it can work. No, no; to this blessed unguent, this rare extraction, that hath only power to dispose all malignant humours that proceed either of hot, cold, moist, or windy causes; to fortify the most indigest and crude stomach—aye, were it one that through extreme weakness vomited blood, applying only a warm napkin to the place after the unction and fricace; for the vertigoe in the head, putting out a drop into your nostrils, likewise behind the ears, a most sovereign and approved remedy; the mal caduco, cramps, convulsions, paralysies, epilepsies, tremor cordia, retind nerves, ill vapours of the spleen, and stoppings of the liver, or stops a dysentery, immediately cureth poison of the small guts, and cures melancholia, being taken and applied according to my printed recipe (shows his bill and vial, and the zany sings a song). It will cost you eight crowns, and has cured all the kings in Christendom. Many have attempted to make this oil, wasting thousands of crowns in the ingredients (for there go to it sixty several simples, besides some quantity of human fat for conglutination, which we buy of the anatomists); but when these practitioners come to the last decoction, blow, blow! puff, puff! it flies in fumes, poor wretches.
“Gentlemen, honourable gentlemen, I will undertake by virtue of chemical art, out of the honourable hat that covers your head, to extract the four elements—that is to say, the fire, air, water, and earth, and return you your felt without burn or stain. You all know, honourable gentlemen, I never valued this ampulla or vial at less than eight crowns, but for this time I am content to be deprived of it for six; six crowns, then, is the price in courtesy. I know you cannot offer me less; take it or leave it, howsoever, both it and I are at your service (zany sings another song).
“Well, I am in a humour at this time to make a present of the small quantity my coffer contains to the rich in courtesy, and to the poor for God’s sake; wherefore now mark, I asked you six crowns, and six crowns at other times you have paid me: you shall not give me six crowns, nor five, nor four, nor three, nor two, nor one, nor half a one, nor a shilling; sixpence it will cost you or £60. Expect no lower price, for I will not bate a jot; and this I take away as a pledge of your love, to carry something from amongst you to show I am not condemned.”
CHAPTER VII.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
That picturesque period when the astrologer formed part of the entourage of almost every European court, and was petted by emperors and kings, is graphically described by Sir Walter Scott in Quentin Durward in the following words:—
“Louis XI. of France had retired to the castle of Plessis, where he received an ambassador from the Duke of Burgundy, with whom his relations were somewhat strained. Attached to the court of the king, we are told, and lodged in magnificent apartments, was the celebrated astrologer, poet, and philosopher, Galeotti Martius, author of the famous treatise De Vulgo Incognitis. He had long flourished at the court of the King of Hungary, from whom, it is said, he was in some measure decoyed by Louis, who grudged the Hungarian monarch the counsels of a sage accounted so skilful in reading the decrees of Heaven. Martius was none of those ascetic, withered, pale professors of mystic learning of those days, who bleared their eyes over the midnight furnace, and macerated their bodies by outmatching the polar bear. He was trained in arms, and renowned as a wrestler. His apartment was splendidly furnished, and on a large oaken table lay a variety of mathematical and astrological instruments, all of the most rich materials and curious workmanship. His astrolabe of silver was the gift of the Emperor of Germany, and his Jacob’s staff of ebony, jointed with gold, was a mark of esteem from the reigning Pope. In person the astrologer was a tall, bulky, yet stately man. His features, though rather overgrown, were dignified and noble, and a Santon might have envied the dark and downward sweep of his long descending beard. His dress was a chamber robe of the richest Genoa velvet, with ample sleeves clasped with frogs of gold, and lined with sables. It was fastened round his middle by a broad belt of virgin parchment, round which were represented in crimson characters the signs of the zodiac.
“Such was the astrologer of Louis XI., who was consulted in matters of state policy and intrigue, and exercised a considerable influence over that weak monarch.
“The costly nature of such a courtier is well illustrated in an interview which the king has with his astrologer, and leaves on his table a purse of gold as a reward for some special service. But the contents did not by any means satisfy the man of science.