Charles Patin, a wise man of olden time,
lodged with a friend studying medicine, at
Basle, and asked him one day into how many
parts medicine were divided. "Into four
parts?" said his friend, " physiology, pathology,
semeiotics, and therapeutics." " Into
five parts, said Charles Patin," for you must
add quackery, in which whoever is not
thoroughly versed is unworthy to bear the
title of physician."

What might be said then, and might
very likely be said now, with some show of
truth concerning medicine, was and is quite
as true of philology, metaphysics, oratory,
statesmanship, theology, or any other branch
of study.

Men parade titles that mean little, but
sound large; I introduce no modern illustrations,
but used they not of old to write
themselves in their books archi-historiographers,
king's counsellors and so forth? Did they
not write themselves down members of
societies having sometimes, especially in Italy,
fantastical and affected names, Seraphics,
Olympics, Boobies, Idlers, Somnolents, Rawmen,
change their names to put more weight into
their literary persons. A Doctor Sansmalice
signed himself Doctor Akakia; John became
Jovian; Peter became Pomponius. Julius
Cæsar Scaliger, one of the vainest of all
learned men, claimed to be descended from a
princely house, and his son Joseph so highly
glorified the family in a short biographic
notice, that their antagonist Scioppius—the
grammatical cur he was called for uncivilness—
professed to have counted up four hundred and
ninety-nine lies in a work of about fifteen pages.
As for Scioppius, he wrote himself Roman
Patrician, Counsellor of the Emperor, the
King of Spain, the Arch-Duke of Austria, the
Count Palatine, and Count of Clara-Valla,
Such writers were habitually styled most
excellent and most admirable, though
Charles the Fifth himself, addressed formally
as Emperor, was no more than most noble
and most excellent.

A mathematician in those times travelling
in Poland expressed his annoyance at
continual allusions to his Excellence, but was
told, with some pity for his ignorance, that he
need not concern himself, because the Poles
assumed the Excellence of everybody.
Whatever titles a man could lay hold of he claimed.
A village schoolmaster, claiming due honour,
in this spirit played the crier to himself, and
cried, "I am the rector, the sub-rector, and the
choir! I am the three altogether, and am
therefore all in all." Of all men who betitled
themselves and each other, the old lawyers
were the most accomplished quacks. One was
Invincible Monarch of the Empire of
Letters, another, Azo by name, was Source
of the Laws, Vessel of Election, Trumpet of
Truth, and God of Lawyers. Baldus was
entitled, Divine Monarch Utriusque Juris,
ignorant of nothing, &c. There were very
many more who took or received titles as
extravagant.

These titles often border on profanity,
and if it were not wholesome discipline to be
reminded now and then of the depths sounded
by human vanity and folly, I should shrink
certainly from adding to this list the
frontispiece of a book, not by a lawyer, in which
the author is depicted at the foot of the cross
with the question issuing from his mouth,
"Master, lovest thou me? " The reply of the
Master from the cross being written in
another label, " Yes, most illustrious, most
excellent and very learned Lord Segerus, Poet
Laureate of his Imperial Majesty and very
worthy Rector of the University of Wittenberg;
yes, I love you."

Earnestness has sometimes the force of
quackery. Alain de L'Ile preached so
profoundly upon incomprehensible matters
that the ignorant came out in swarms to hear
him. Therefore, one day, instead of delivering
a sermon that he had promised on a sacred
mystery, when he saw the gaping crowd about
him, he came down again out of his pulpit,
saying only, " You have seen Alain. And so
now you may go home content." I am
reminded by this anecdote of Barthius a rather
bilious philosopher who was annoyed by the
impertinence of curious intruders. One day
an English traveller looked in to see him;
the offended sage received him in grim
silence; they sat down opposite to one another,
and not a word was said until Barthius turned
suddenly his back upon his visitor, and said,
"Well, sir, you have seen me pretty well in
front, now look at me behind."

I have wandered into the domains of people
who got more attention than they wished,
instead of abiding by the learned men who
wished for all the notice they could get. One
way of attracting notice was the use of
title-pages, calculated to arrest attention. The
foppery common on title-pages in old times—
never, of course, now—was obvious enough
in certain respects. It was but a common-place
of the period to cull a lexicon The
Pearl of Pearls, to produce Flowers of everything
after the Latin Florus, and Nights of
everything after the Attic Nights of Aulus
Gellius. There were Theological Nights,
Christian Nights, Agreeable Nights, Solitary
Nights, African Nights, and so forth.

The races of the Flowers and the
Nights are not indeed even to this day
extinct. Pliny long ago ridiculed the titles of
Greek books,—Rags of Honey, Horns of
Plenty, Muses' Meadows, in which everything
a man could wish for, " down to
chickens' milk," was said to be contained.
The wise men of the Revival published in
place of Horns of Plenty, Treasures and
Treasuries, and they put up Steps to
Parnassus, over which many a schoolboy has
since tumbled. A set of maps was called after
the man who took the world upon his shoulders
—Atlas; and that name being short and