QUACK-LAND.
IT was boasted the other day, that the great mass of the people of England " detest schemers and quacks " ; that "they in- stinctively see through jobbery and selfishness." Is it not pass- ing strange, that a people doubly guarded by sentiment and reason—too sharpsighted to be blinded by quackery, and with too strong an antipathy ever to be reconciled to it—should be so frequently gulled?
The truth is, that in no country on the face of the globe has quackery flourished so extensively and so long as in England. England has been for ages the peculiar heritage of quacks. The mass of the people have been quacked medically—by Dr. LAMBE in the time of the first Sruertrs; by Dr. Rocs. in the days of llonaara; by Sr. JOHN LONG and the Hygeists in our own. Even the " re- gular " physicians have been tainted with quackery; and ABEREE-. THY'S biscuit and blue pills have been run upon with as much dis- crimination as the pills of Old PARE or the Widow ANDERSON, or the anti-bilious pills of COCKLE, or the ointment of HOLLOWAY. The mass of the people of England have been quacked religiously— in the days of Catholicism, by Crusaders and Maids of Kent; immediately before and during the Commonwealth, by Brown- ites, Muggletonians, Anabaptists, and Shakers ; in the age of good Queen ANNE, by French prophets ; and in our own by Irvingites, Rowites, White Quakers, Bishop- of- Jerusalemites, and Exeter-Hallites, of all shapes, sizes, colours, and descriptions. The mass of the.'people of England have been quacked politically—in former days, by the kingcraft of the First JAMES, by the Fifth Monarchy men, by Txrus OATES and his Plot, by SACHEVERELL and Sr. Jona and in later times by Spenceans, Socialists ;Burdettites,
Repealers, Currency-doctors, Niger Model-Farmers, and believers in Uknueater and PALMERSTON. The John Bull of the olden time believed in LILLY and PARTRIDGE; and as for his modern repre- sentative, he took in MOORE'S astrological predictions till lately ; and still, though ashamed to confess it, thinks there is something in RAPHAEL. Nay, John Bull is quacked in his very amusements : he had faith in the Bottle-Conjuror ; he visited the Cock Lane Ghost ; when he hears a playwright and a theatrical manager puffing each other, he believes both ; and when little-go lotteries are got up to dispose of unsaleable pictures or carry off a print- seller's rubbishy stock on hand, he is persuaded that he is pa- tronizing the fine arts. The mass of Englishmen are quacked in their cradle with American soothing-syrup ; and after their death, by burial societies and patent vehicles economically combining coach and hearse in one. At all periods of our nation's history, among men, women, and children of every rank, in serious pursuits and matters of amusement, in public life and domestic affairs, do we find THE Quack lord of the ascendant with the mass of the people of England.
So far from "detesting schemes and quacks," John Bull appears to be attracted to them by a necessity as irresistible as that which draws the moth to the candle. Let any two rivals, a quack and a true man, start as candidates for John Bull's favour, and it is the long odds in favour of the quack. Let a rational plan of action and a hazy speculation be proposed to John at the same time, and he instinctively sets to work to quack himself. Nay, the wisest and best measures will scarcely go down with John unless a spice of quackery be mixed up to give them a relish. He will give, and that liberally, to pious and charitable purposes ; but he must first be bribed by stimulating speeches, or must have at the least a fancy-fair into the bargain for his money. It is still problematical whether it was a rational earnest determination to have more to say in the management of his own affairs, that made him insist upon the passing of the Reform Bill, or merely a liking for the banners, processions and hustings-orations. It cannot be denied that John exclaims loudly and bitterly against quacks on all occasions : but it may be remarked, that at the very moment he is denouncing quackery in the abstract, he is cherishing the quack in the individual. Instead of his abuse of quacks being a proof that be can "instinctively see through jobbery," it is a proof that he has often suffered through it, and been laughed at for his folly, till he has become aware of his incapacity to detect it under a new form before he is bit again ; that he lives under con- stant apprehension, and suspects jobbing everywhere though he can see it nowhere. Ye sat for his picture when BEN JONSON painted his Master Justice Overdo ; who, setting out in disguise to detect the iniquities of Bartholomew Fair, patronizes the pickpocket and gets himself clapped into the stocks.
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