Mountebank. Now any antic fool; but once restrained to the quack-doctor who at fairs and such places of resort, having mounted on a bank or bench, from thence proclaimed the virtue of his drugs; being described by Whitlock (Zootomia, p. 436) as ‘a fellow above the vulgar more by three planks and two empty hogsheads than by any true skill.’ See the quotation from Jackson, s. v. ‘Authentic.’
Such is the weakness and easy credulity of men, that a mountebank or cunning woman is preferred before an able physician.—Whitlock, Zootomia, p. 437.
Giving no cause of complaint to any but such as are unwilling to be healed of their shameful and dangerous diseases, who love ignorant and flattering mountebanks more than the most learned and faithful physicians of souls.—Gauden, Hieraspistes, p. 427.
Above the reach of antidotes, the power
Of the famed Pontic mountebank to cure.
Oldham, Third Satire upon the Jesuits.
Muse. There is a very curious use of ‘Muse’ in our earlier literature, according to which the female sex of this inspirer of song falls quite out of sight. This recurs too often and too deliberately to be explained away as the accidental inaccuracy of some single writer.
Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds
Intends our Muse to vaunt his heavenly verse.
Marlowe, Dr. Faustus, 5, 6.