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594 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
and credit in reputation, devised to make one of his
children Sir John Lacke-latine or Master Peter-anoake:
and having made him learne to write in some
neighbour towne not far off, at last procured him to be
a country Notary or petty-fogging dark. This fellow
having gotten some pelfe and become great; began to
disdaine their ancient customes and put the pompe and
statelines of our higher regions into their heads. It
fortuned that a chiefe gossip of his had a goate dishorned,
whom he so importunately solicited to sue the
trespasser and demand law and right at the justices
hands that dwelt thereabouts; and so never ceasing to
sow sedition and breed suites amongst his neighbours,
lie never left till he had confounded and marred all.
After this corruption or intrusion of law (they say)
there ensued presently another mischiefe of worse consequence
by means of a quacke-salver or empirike
physitian that dwelt amongst them who would needes
be married to one of their daughters, and so endenizon
-and settle himself amongst them.
This gallant began first to teach and instruct them
in the names of agwes, rheumes, and impostumes;
then the situation of the heart, of the liver and other
intrailes: a science untill then never known or heard
of among them. And in stead of garlike, wherewith
they had learned to expell and were wont to cure all
diseases of what qualitie and how dangerous soever
they were, he induced and inured them, were it but for
a cough or cold, to take strange compositions and
potions: and thus beganne to trafficke not only their
health but also their deaths. They sweare that even
from that time they apparently perceived that the
evening sereine or night-calme bred the head-ache
and blasted them; that to drinke being hot or in a
sweat empaired their healths; that autumne windes
were more unwholesome and dangerous than those of
the spring-time: and that since his slibber-sawces,
potions, and physicke came first in use, they find
themselves molested and distempered with legions of
unaccustomed maladies and unknowne diseases, and