Why did he stop?  To listen.  What to?  To a voice apparently speaking in the court on the other side of the wall, a voice a little weakened by age, but so powerful notwithstanding that it reached the passer-by in the street.  At the same time might be heard in the enclosure, from which the voice came, the hubbub of a crowd.

This voice said,—­

“Men and women of London, here I am!  I cordially wish you joy of being English.  You are a great people.  I say more:  you are a great populace.  Your fisticuffs are even better than your sword thrusts.  You have an appetite.  You are the nation which eats other nations—­a magnificent function!  This suction of the world makes England preeminent.  As politicians and philosophers, in the management of colonies, populations, and industry, and in the desire to do others any harm which may turn to your own good, you stand alone.  The hour will come when two boards will be put up on earth—­inscribed on one side, Men; on the other, Englishmen.  I mention this to your glory, I, who am neither English nor human, having the honour to be a bear.  Still more—­I am a doctor.  That follows.  Gentlemen, I teach.  What?  Two kinds of things—­things which I know, and things which I do not.  I sell my drugs and I sell my ideas.  Approach and listen.  Science invites you.  Open your ear; if it is small, it will hold but little truth; if large, a great deal of folly will find its way in.  Now, then, attention!  I teach the Pseudoxia Epidemica.  I have a comrade who will make you laugh, but I can make you think.  We live in the same box, laughter being of quite as old a family as thought.  When people asked Democritus, ‘How do you know?’ he answered, ‘I laugh.’  And if I am asked, ‘Why do you laugh?’ I shall answer, ‘I know.’  However, I am not laughing.  I am the rectifier of popular errors.  I take upon myself the task of cleaning your intellects.  They require it.  Heaven permits people to deceive themselves, and to be deceived.  It is useless to be absurdly modest.  I frankly avow that I believe in Providence, even where it is wrong.  Only when I see filth—­errors are filth—­I sweep them away.  How am I sure of what I know?  That concerns only myself.  Every one catches wisdom as he can.  Lactantius asked questions of, and received answers from, a bronze head of Virgil.  Sylvester II. conversed with birds.  Did the birds speak?  Did the Pope twitter?  That is a question.  The dead child of the Rabbi Elcazer talked to Saint Augustine.  Between ourselves, I doubt all these facts except the last.  The dead child might perhaps talk, because under its tongue it had a gold plate, on which were engraved divers constellations.  Thus he deceived people.  The fact explains itself.  You see my moderation.  I separate the true from the false.  See! here are other errors in which, no doubt, you partake, poor ignorant folks that you are, and from which I wish to free you.  Dioscorides believed that there was a god in the henbane; Chrysippus