[Illustration: DR. BOTHERUM, THE MOUNTEBANK.]
It seems probable that Rowlandson in his print of _Doctor Botherum_ may have had a certain Doctor Bossy in his eye, a German practitioner of considerable skill, who enjoyed a comfortable private practice, said to have been the last of the respectable charlatans who exhibited in the British metropolis. This benevolent empiric, as Angelo informs us, dispensed medicines and practised the healing art, publicly and gratuitously on a stage, his booth being erected weekly in the midst of Covent-Garden Market, where the mountebank, handsomely dressed and wearing a gold-laced cocked hat, arrived in his chariot with a liveried servant behind.
According to the old custom, the itinerant quack doctor, with his attendant gang, was as constant a visitor at every market-place as the pedlar with his pack.
_March 12, 1800._ _Humbugging, or Raising the Devil._ Published by R. Ackermann, 101 Strand.--A credulous personage, who, judging from his costume, is in a fair position in life, has called to consult a necromancer. The enchanter has a venerable beard, and a divining rod; according to usage, he has made a circle of skulls, toads, and other inviting objects, in the centre of which, through a stage trap, he is raising the 'very deil,' and has conjured up a pantomimic demon, horned, winged, and grotesquely arranged, holding in one hand a gore-stained dagger, and a goblet of suppositious blood in the other. The knees of the befooled spectator are trembling beneath him; his back is turned to a curtain which conceals a fair enchantress, who is assisting the invocation, and giving a practical turn to the delusion by removing a well-filled pocket-book from the coat-tail of the simple victim. In the background is the traditional whiskered cat, and the folio of cabalistic signs; a stuffed crocodile is suspended from the roof.
_March 12, 1800._ _Hocus Pocus, or Searching for the Philosopher's Stone._ Rowlandson del. and sculp. Published by R. Ackermann, 101 Strand.--Companion plate to 'Humbugging, or raising the Devil.' The artist introduces us to the laboratory of a so-called alchemist. A roguish Jew and his familiar are busily engaged in the transmutation of metals; the servant, with a pair of long-nozzled bellows, is engaged in kindling the furnace, in which is a crucible; various retorts, alembics, and other paraphernalia of the 'black arts,' are scattered about, as well as a formula for 'changing lead into gold;' although the alchemists at best could only contrive to accomplish the reverse transmutation. Suggestive prints are hung on the walls of this chamber of mystery, such as the portrait of the notorious 'Count Cagliostro, discoverer of the Philosopher's Stone,' and the figure of the spurious 'Bottle Conjurer.'