Experimental Darts (The Famous Pathologist)

Or, the Earl of Rochester on the Covid Pandemic Scare.

 

 

 

Here is a passage from a curious pamphlet on the Earl of Rochester, recording an episode in which, being obliged to escape from London due to some scandal or other, Rochester returned disguised as a quack physician and plied his wares in the public square. 

According to Dr. Burnet's Life of Rochester, 

Being under an unlucky accident, which obliged him to keep out of the way, he disguised himself, so that his nearest friends could not have known him, and set up in Tower-street for an Italian mountebank, where he practised physic for some weeks not without success. 

Rochester himself (in a 1687 pamphlet recalling this episode, presented by his servant Alcock to Rochester's daughter Ann, see illustration) speaks in the character of "Alexander Bendo", defending his practice as mostly authentic, in spite of being authentically fraudulent. His characterization of the quack doctor plying "experimental drugs", of the corrupt politician, of the investor in debt, and of the mountebank manipulating public opinion, is now as relevant as ever. Now that the People, the eternal London rabble, willingly deceived as ever, and merrily jabbed with the cynic's "Experimentall Darts", comes back for more, "greedy to be wounded".

Here follow the title of the pamphlet, and the relevant passage, as recorded in Graham Greene's biography Lord Rochester's Monkey (Viking, 1974):

 

 

The Famous Pathologist

or the 

Noble Mountebank

represented

In a true Copy of an Originall 

Bill,

sett forth by Doctr. Alexandr. Bendo 

when he aim'd at Phisical Practise,

and shott his Experimental Darts,

at the Greedy to be Wounded.

To Henry Bayton Esqr.

and the Lady Ann his Wife

at Farely Castle 

upon

New Years Day. 1687.

Si Populus vult decipi

decipiantur.

Dr. Rabelais. 

 

 

"If I appear to anyone like a counterfeit, ev'n for the sake of that chiefly, ought I to be constru'd a true man, who is the counterfeit's example, his original, and that which he imploys his industry and pains to imitate and copy: is it therefore my fault, if the cheat by his wits and endeavours makes himself so like me, that consequently I cannot avoid resembling him? Consider, pray, the valiant and the coward, the wealthy merchant and the bankrupt, the politician and the fool; they are the same in many things, and differ in but one alone: the valiant man holds up his head, looks confidently round about him, wears a sword, courts a Lord's wife and owns it; so does the coward; one only point of honour, and that's courage (which, like false metal, one only trial can discover) makes the distinction. 

The bankrupt walks the Exchange, buys bargains, draws bills, and accepts them with the richest, whilst paper and credit are current coin: that which makes the difference is real cash, a great difference indeed, and yet but one, and that the last found out, and till then the least perceiv'd.

Now for the politician, he is a grave, deliberating, close, prying man: pray, are there not grave, deliberating, close, prying fools? If, then, the difference betwixt all these (though infinite in effect) be so nice in all appearance, will you expect it should be otherwise betwixt the false physician, astrologer, etc., and the true? The first calls himself learned doctor, sends forth his bills, gives physic and counsel, tells and foretells, the other is found to do just as much; 'tis only your experience must distinguish betwixt them: to which I willingly submit myself: I'll only say something to the honour of the mountebank, in case you discover me to be one.

Reflect a little what kind of creature 'tis: he is one then who is fain to supply some higher ability he pretends to, with craft: he draws great companies to him, by undertaking strange things which can never be effected. 

The politician (by his example, no doubt) finding how the people are taken with specious, miraculous impossibilities, plays the same gam, protests, declares, promises I know not what things, which he's sure can ne'er be brought about: the people believe, are deluded, and pleas'd. The expectation of a future good, which shall never befall them, draws their eyes off a present evil. Thus are they kept and establish'd in subjection, peace, and obedience, he in greatness, wealth and power: so you see the politician is, and must be a mountebank in state affairs, and the mountebank (no doubt if he thrives) is an arrant politician in physic."

 

(Qtd. in Graham Greene, Lord Rochester's Monkey 107, 111-13). 

 

History of the Insipids

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