! The few that would give out themselves to be Court and town-stallions, and, each-where, Ladies who are known most innocent, for Those will I beg, to make me eunuchs of: My meat shall all come in, in Indian shells, The tongues of carps, 'dormice, and camels' Boiled in the spirit of sol, and dissolved Apicius' diet, 'gainst the epilepsy:2 And I will eat these broths with spoons of Headed with diamond and carbuncle.3 Knots, godwits, lampreys: I myself will have politicians of those days. I subjoin a few of the See Massinger, vol. iii. p. 55. A more elaborate characters as a specimen : "Quoth spruce Mr. James of the Isle of Wight. Philip Gawdy stroaked the old stubble of his face. Then modest Sir John Hollis. Sir Robert Cotton, well read in old stories. "The account of it may be seen in Walton's Angler, 5 The beards of barbels served, &c.] This too is from Lampridius: Barbas sane mullorum tantas jubebat exhiberi, ut pro nasturtiis, apiastris, et facelaribus et fænogræco exhiberet plenis fabatariis et discis. Mullus, which Jonson and others translate "barbel," is a sur-mullet. See my notes on Juv. Sat. iv. There's gold, 1 The tongues of carps,] These have been 3 Spoons of amber, Calvered, &c.] This method of dressing fish required (Lilly says) must be sedentary, of great reading, sound judgment; which no man can accomplish except he wholly retire, use prayers, and accompany himself with angelical consorts,' p. 87. This hypocritical cant is often repeated in the course of his work, and the reason of it is sufficiently evident; for weak and worthy men were betrayed by it into a false confidence in their impostures. But I need not dwell longer on this, for the whole conversation of Subtle with Mammon is a most correct and beautiful epitome of all that has been advanced on the subject. "Then had I come, preventing Sheba's To see the comliest of the sons of men.' queen, Solomon. This is certainly not the latest instance:-but the matter is of little import. 2 Ulen Spiegel!] i.e., Owl Glass! the hero of a German jest-book, which seems to have been very popular, as it was translated into French and English at a very early period. Menage appears to consider him as a real personage. He was, he says, 'un Alleman, du pais de Saxe, qui vivoit vers 1480, nommé Till Ulespiegle, celebre en ces petites tromperies ingenieuses. Sa vie aiant été composé en Alleman, on a appellé de son nom dans l'Allemagne Ulespiegle un fourbe ingenieux. Ce mot a passé ensuite en France dans la même signification." Notwithstanding this precise account, we may be pretty sure that no such person ever existed. All nations have had their low cheats for the amuse Sur. Who is, Indeed, sir, somewhat costive of belief Toward your stone; would not be gulled. Sub. Well, son, All that I can convince him in, is this, We have a medicine of the triple soul, Sub. Look well to the register.3 Face. [within] Yes, sir. O' the bolt's-head yet? Face. [within.] Which? on D, sir? What's the complexion ? ment of the vulgar. There is the " English Rogue," the "Spanish Rogue," and this dullest of all possible rogues, the "German Rogue." His name, however elegantly translated by our ancestors into Howleglass, was familiarly used by them for a witty knave, a trickster, &c. This has escaped the recollection of the accurate and learned Jamieson. He gives two instances of its use: "Now Holyglass, returning hame, To play the sophist, thought no shame.' Legend of St. Andrew. "Speaking of the council he called them Holliglasses, cormorants, and men of no religion."Spottiswood's Hist. "Can this," he adds, "be a corruption of Gallowglass, a word used by Shakspeare?" Certainly not: the allusion is to Ulenspiegle, or Howleglass, the knave of Saxony. 3 Look well to the register.] So they call the iron plate or slider, which on being pushed forward increases the heat of the fire in small chimneys, by accelerating the current of air. To the aludels.] Aludel, the Alchem. Dict. says, est vitrum sublimatorium: that is, if I understand the term, subliming pots without bottoms fitted into each other without luting. And leave him closed in balneo.] Balneum, est quando res dissolvenda in conveniente vase aqua calidæ in suo aheneo contenta imponitur, inibique operatio perficitur."-Lexicon Alchem. "When the heat is communicated to the vessel containing the body to be distilled, through any medium, as that of boiling water or hot sand, the body is said to be distilled in a water bath or sand bath, the chemists having agreed to call the medium serving for the communication of heat to the distilling or subliming vessel, a bath." hopeful state of the process, though not so forward a one as the crow's head. I shall employ it all in pious uses, &c.] How exquisitely does the hypocrisy of Mammon set off the knavery of Subtle? Cartwright has imitated this part of the dialogue with great pleasantry: "Hearsay. Your care shall be Only to tame your riches, and to make them Build a cathedral next in Banbury, Ordinary, act ii. sc. 3. And give him imbibition.] Imbibitio est ablutio, quando liquor corpori adjunctus eleva tur, et exitum non inveniens in corpus recidit. But I need not proceed: for as my author gravely adds, hæc plane philosophica est operatio, nec ad vulgares sese dimittit. St. Mary's bath (balneum Mariæ), which occurs below, is setting a vessel in a larger one filled with water over the fire. To reverberate, is to heat in a fire where the flames are beat back from the top upon the matter placed at the bottom. Sub. Are you sure you loosed them In their own menstrue? Face. Yes, sir, and then married them, And put them in a bolt's-head nipped to digestion, According as you bade me, when I set Sub. The process then was right. Face. Yes, by the token, sir, the retort brake, And what was saved was put into the pellican, And signed with Hermes' seal.2 Sub. I think 'twas so. We should have a new amalgama. Is rank as any polecat. Sub. But I care not; [Aside. Sub. This needs not; but that you will have it so, To see conclusions of all: for two Sub. And the philosopher's vinegar? [Exit. Sur. We shall have a sallad ! Mam. When do you make projection? Sub. Son, be not hasty, I exalt our med'cine, By hanging him in balneo vaporoso, geal him; For look, how oft I iterate the work, His third solution, ten; his fourth, a hundred : After his fifth, a thousand thousand ounces Of any imperfect metal, into pure Mam. Not those of iron? Sub. Yes, you may bring them too; Sur. I believe you in that. Shall he not? Sub. If he please. and pot Mam. This gentleman you must bear withal: I told you he had no faith. is said to be hermetically sealed when it is closed in such a manner that the most subtle spirit cannot transpire. This is effected by heating the neck in the fire, and then twisting it. 3 He's ripe for inceration.] Inceratio est mistio humoris cum re sicca, per combibitionem lentam ad consistentiam ceræ remollita."Ibid. Ay, are you bolted?] Still alluding to the rabbit-net. Are you at length driven by the 'ferret," as he has just called Face (from his red eyes), into the snare laid for you? 7 Sub. Why, I think that the greater miracle. No egg but differs from a chicken more Than metals in themselves. Sur. That cannot be. The egg's ordained by nature to that end, And is a chicken in potentia. Sub. The same we say of lead and other metals, Which would be gold if they had time. Our art doth further. Sub. Ay, for 'twere absurd To think that nature in the earth bred gold Perfect in the instant: something went before. There must be remote matter. Sur. Ay, what is that? Sub. Marry, we say Where it retains more of the humid fatness, It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver, means. Nature doth first beget the imperfect, then Proceeds she to the perfect. Of that airy And oily water, mercury is engendered; Sulphur of the fat and earthy part; the one, Which is the last, supplying the place of male, The other, of the female, in all metals. That both do act and suffer. But these two Out of the carcasses and dung of creatures; Mam. Ay, now it heats: stand, father, Yea, scorpions of an herb, being rightly Pound him to dust. Sub. It is, of the one part, A humid exhalation, which we call Materia liquida, or the unctuous water; On the other part, a certain crass and viscous Portion of earth; both which, concorporate, Do make the elementary matter of gold; Which is not yet propria materia, But common to all metals and all stones; For, where it is forsaken of that moisture, And hath more dryness, it becomes a stone: 1 Art can beget bees, &c.] While the doctrine of equivocal generation was in fashion, this was a powerful argument. Alchemy has now lost one of its principal props. Upton refers for an explanation of this to Pliny and Ovid: if he had referred to the works of Kelley, Ripley, Norton, &c., he would have been much more fortunate: for in them Jonson found not only most of his terms, but the greater part of his reasoning. But of these writers Upton probably knew nothing. With all his learning, he seems to have |