This he finds to be good husbandry and a kind of
necessary thrift, for they that have but a little ought to make as much
of it as they can. His prologue, which is commonly none of his own, is
always better than his play, like a piece of cloth that's fine in the
beginning and coarse afterwards; though it has but one topic, and that's
the same that is used by malefactors, when they are to be tried, to
except against as many of the jury as they can.
A MOUNTEBANK
Is an epidemic physician, a doctor-errant, that keeps himself up by
being, like a top, in motion, for if he should settle he would fall to
nothing immediately. He is a pedlar of medicines, a petty chapman of
cures, and tinker empirical to the body of man. He strolls about to
markets and fairs, where he mounts on the top of his shop, that is his
bank, and publishes his medicines as universal as himself; for
everything is for all diseases, as himself is of all places--that is to
say, of none. His business is to show tricks and impudence. As for the
cure of diseases, it concerns those that have them, not him, further
than to get their money. His pudding is his setter that lodges the
rabble for him, and then slips him, who opens with a deep mouth, and has
an ill day if he does not run down some. He baits his patient's body
with his medicines, as a rat-catcher does a room, and either poisons the
disease or him. As soon as he has got all the money and spent all the
credit the rabble could spare him, he then removes to fresh quarters
where he is less known and better trusted.
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