Quackery Successful
Sir Edward Halse, who was physician to King George III., driving one day through the Strand, was stopped by the mob listening to the oratory of Dr. Rock, the famous quack, who, observing Sir Edward look out at the chariot-window, instantly took a number of boxes and phials, gave them to the physician’s footman, saying, “Give my compliments to Sir Edward—tell him these are all I have with me, but I will send him ten dozen more to-morrow.” Sir Edward, astonished at the message and effrontery of the man, actually took the boxes and phials into the carriage; on which the mob, with one consent, cried out, “See, see, all the doctors, even the King’s, buy their medicines of him!” In their young days, these gentlemen had been fellow-students; but Rock, not succeeding in regular practice, had metamorphosed himself into a quack. In the afternoon, he waited on Sir Edward, to beg his pardon for having played him such a trick; to which Sir Edward replied, “My old friend, how can a man of your understanding condescend to harangue the populace with such nonsense as you talked to day? Why, none but fools listen to you.”—“Ah! my good friend, that is the very thing. Do you give me the fools for my patients, and you shall have my free leave to keep the people of sense for your own.” Sir Edward Halse used to divert his friends with this story, adding, “I never felt so like a fool in my life as when I received the bottles and boxes from Rock.”