Country labourers went in numbers to these meetings, to stand jests which, aimed at them, were an amusement even to themselves, and to buy some drug which would do them good: they are to be seen there still. At the present day they continue to collect before the vendors of cures for the toothache and other troubles. Certificates abound round the booth; it seems as though all the illustrious people in the world must have been benefited by the discovery; the man now addresses himself to the rest of humanity. He talks, gesticulates, gets excited, leans over with a grave tone and a deep voice. The peasants press around, gaping with inquisitive eye, uncertain if they ought to laugh or to be afraid, and in the end get confident. The large hand fumbles in the new coat, the purse is drawn forth with an awkward air, the piece of money is held out and the medicine received, while the shining eye and undecided physiognomy say plainly that the cunning and the habitual practical sense are here at fault; that these good souls, clever and invincible in their own domain when it is a question of a sheep or a cow, are the victims of every one in an unknown land, the land of medical lore. The vendor bestirs himself, and now, as formerly, triumphs over indecision by means of direct appeals. In England the incomparable Goose Fair at {194} Nottingham should be chosen as the place to see these spectacles, which shine there in all their infinite variety, with quacks as racy as those of pristine days, scenes reminding one of Rubens’ great “Kermesse” at the Louvre, and at every turn and before every shop living confutations of St. Evremond and others’ ideas of the temper of the English, ever lost in their thoughts, as if merry England were no more.[245] Greater still was, in the Middle Ages, the popularity of those wayfarers, numerous too at the Goose Fair, who came not to cure, but to amuse, and who, if they did not offer remedies for diseases, at least brought forgetfulness of troubles; the minstrels, tumblers, jugglers, and singers. Minstrels and _jongleurs_, under different names, exercised the same profession, that is, they chanted songs and romances to the accompaniment of their instruments, as is still done in the East, in Persia for instance, where poems are not told but chanted, in various keys according to the subject. At a time when books were rare, and the theatre, properly so called, did not exist, poetry and music travelled with the minstrels and gleemen along the roads; such guests were always welcome. They were to be found at every feast, wherever there were rejoicings; it was expected from them, as from wine or beer, that care would be lulled to sleep, and merriment would replace it. They had many ways to fulfil the expectation, some dignified, some not. Of the first sort was the singing and reciting, either in French or English, of the loves and deeds of ancient heroes.