“You need not go so far back as the Druids,” said Mr. Seymour; “does not the housewife place the poker across the grate to draw up the fire, without ever suspecting that the custom originated from the superstitious belief that, by thus forming a cross with the bars, the fire was protected from the malignant influence of witches?--But let us proceed; for what has yonder stage been erected?”
“That is the hoistings, sir,” exclaimed Ned Hopkins, “from which Giles Gingerly, the celebrated American merry-andrew, will exhibit his buffoonery, and vend his nostrums.”
“Hoistings! why, Ned, you pronounce the word as though your mouth were filled with hot pudding,” said the major.
“I ask your pardon, sir,” replied Ned; “but my father would never suffer me to pronounce it in any other manner; for he always maintained that hustings was a corruption for hoistings, it being a stage upon which the actor is hoisted or elevated above the surrounding crowd.”
“I believe he is right,” muttered the vicar.
“Papa,” said Tom, “pray tell me what is a merry-andrew.”
“Ask the vicar,” replied his father.
“The mountebank, who united the professions of joculator and physician, was of ancient date, and during the two last centuries has figured away with considerable success. He usually appears on a temporary stage, and prefaces the vending of his nostrums with a pompous harangue; and, the better to attract the notice of the gaping spectators, he displays some of the performances practised by the jugglers, while his inseparable companion, the bourdour, exhibits numerous tricks, and puts the populace in good humour by wit and raillery. The medical fraternity, known in England by the name of Merry-andrews, and who are the companions of the mountebank, derived their foundation from Dr. Andrew Boorde, who lived in the reigns of Henry VIII. Edward VI. and Queen Mary, and was constantly in the habit of frequenting fairs and markets, at which he harangued the populace: his speeches were extremely humorous, and occasioned considerable mirth; but, notwithstanding the infallibility of his nostrums, like Paracelsus, he died with a bottle of his elixir in his pocket. His successors in the same line naturally endeavoured to emulate the humour of their master, and hence this whole class of vagabond tinkers of flesh and bone acquired the generic appellation of ‘Merry-andrews’.”
“And pray what are nostrums?” asked Louisa.
“‘Nostrum,’ my dear, signifies our own, and is applied to any medicine which is prepared by a secret process, and sold for the private advantage of an individual; but, since secrecy is never used on such occasions except as a cloak for imposture, the word very generally conveys an expression of ridicule or contempt.”