n age when
journals were non-existent and communications irregular and deficient,
but also a chance of beholding wonder-workings, as well as of being
cured of the ailments which local skill had treated in vain. Already
surrounded by a crowd of admirers waiting for the words of wisdom to
fall from his lips, he would start on that exordium which bore no
little resemblance to the patter of the modern quack, albeit
interlarded with many a Latin quotation and great display of mediaeval
learning. "Good people and worthy citizens of this town," he might
say, "behold in me the great master ... prince of necromancers,
astrologer, second mage, chiromancer, agromancer, pyromancer,
hydromancer. My learning is so profound that were all the works of
Plato and Aristotle lost to the world I could from memory restore them
with more elegance than before. The miracles of Christ were not so
great as those which I can perform wherever and as often as I will. Of
all alchemists I am the first, and my powers are such that I can
obtain all things that man desires. My shoe-buckles contain more
learning than the heads of Galen and Avicenna, and my beard has more
experience than all your high schools. I am monarch of all learning. I
can heal you of all diseases. By my secret arts I can procure you
wealth. I am the philosopher of philosophers. I can provide you with
spells to bind the most potent of the devils in hell. I can cast your
nativities and foretell all that shall befall you, since I have that
which can unlock the secrets of all things that have been, that are,
and that are to come."[14] Bringing forth strange-looking phials,
covered with cabalistic signs, a crystal globe and an astro-labe,
followed by an imposing scroll of parchment inscribed with mysterious
Hebraic-looking characters, the travelling student would probably
drive a roaring trade amongst the assembled townsmen in love-philtres,
cures for the ague and the plague, and amulets against them,
horoscopes, predictions of fate, and the rest of his stock-in-trade.

As evening approaches, our traveller strolls forth into the streets
and narrow lanes of the town, lined with overhanging gables that
almost meet overhead and shut out the light of the afternoon sun, so
that twilight seems already to have fallen. Observing that the
burghers, with their wives and children, the work of the day being
done, are all wending toward the western gate, he goes along with the
stream till, passing u