The few that would give out themselves to be Court and town-stallions, and, each-where, bely 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,1dormice, and camels' Boiled in the spirit of sol, and dissolved pearl, 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 politicians of those days. I subjoin a few of the See Massinger, vol. iii. p. 55; 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. A more elaborate account of it may be seen in Walton's Angler, P. 449, edit. 1808. Calvering at present is a far more simple process than that formerly in use. I myself will have 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 always accounted delicious. Even honest Walton licks his lips at the mention of them. "The tongues of carps (he says) are noted to be choice Go forth, and be a knight.] Covertly reflectand costly meat, especially to them that buying, as I believe, on the number of knights them but Gesner says carps have no tongue (many of them more unfit for the honour than Sir like other fish, but a piece of flesh-like fish in Epicure's cook) who were made at the accession their mouth, like to a tongue, and should be of James. called a palate: but it is certain it is choicely Why, I have heard he must be homo frugi, good." Fuller gives the same account ef them. A pious, hely, &c.] All the pretenders to 2 Apicius' diet, 'gainst the epilepsy:] This alchemy affected a more than ordinary degree of (as Upton observes) is from Lampridius: Comedit piety. Even the works of the most notorious sæpius ad imitationem Apicii calcanea came-cheats abound with grave exhortations to frelorum, et cristas vivis gallinaceis demptas, linguas pavonum et lusciniarum: quod qui ederet ab epilepsia tutus diceretur. Vit. Heliogab. 3 Spoons of amber, quent prayer and purity of life. "The study 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 Mam* Calvered, &c.] This method of dressing fish mon is a most correct and beautiful epitome of is frequently mentioned by our old dramatists.all that has been advanced on the subject. Headed with diamond and carbuncle.] The spoons of Jonson's time (and I have seen many of them) had frequently ornamented heads; usually small figures of amber, pearl, or silver washed with gold. Sir Epicure improves on this fashionable luxury. 1 Prevent your day at morning.] i.e., anticipate it: a very common expression in old writers. In a note on this line, in the margin of Whalley's copy, in the handwriting of Steevens, it is said that the last of the moderns who uses the word in this sense is Prior: Which (heaven I call to witness, with your self, To whom I have poured my thoughts) in Have looked no way, but unto public good, Mam. I know, sir; You shall not need to fear me: I but come Indeed, sir, somewhat costive of belief 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? There is the "English ment of the vulgar. 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. “Then had I come, preventing Sheba's queen, and learned Jamieson. He gives two instances This has escaped the recollection of the accurate of its use: To see the comliest of the sons of men. Solomon. This is certainly not the latest instance:-but the matter is of little import. 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, celèbre 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 "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. Face. [within.] Whitish. Sub. Infuse vinegar, To draw his volatile substance and his tincture: And let the water in glass E be filtered, And put into the gripe's egg. well; And leave him closed in balneo.2 Face. [within.] I will, sir. Lute him Mam. Have you another? [Exit Face. Sub. Yes, son; were I assured Sur. What a brave language here is! I mean to tinct C in sand-heat to-morrow, next to canting. 2 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." And give him imbibition.5 Mam. Of white oil? Sub. No, sir, of red. F is come over the helm too, I thank my maker, in S. Mary's bath, heaven! Blessed be 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. 5 And give him imbibition.] Imbibitio est ablutio, quando liquor corpori adjunctus elevatur, 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. Give him nine pound: you may give him ten. Sur. Yes, twenty, and be cozened, do. Mam. There 'tis. 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: [Gives Face the money. I told you he had no faith. The hay's a pitching.] Hays are nets for is said to be hermetically sealed when it is closed catching rabbits: they were usually stretched in such a manner that the most subtle spirit canbefore their holes. Thus, in a passage already not transpire. This is effected by heating the quoted from Minsheu (vol. i. p. 26 b). "A neck in the fire, and then twisting it. connie-catcher is one who robs warrens and connie-grounds, pitching haies before their holes," &c.; and in Wyat's Epistle to Poynes: "Nor none, I trowe, that hath a wit so badde, To sett his hay for conneyes ore riveres.' And signed with Hermes' seal.] A vessel 3 He's ripe for inceration.] "Inceratio est mistio humoris cum re sicca, per combibitionem lentam ad consistentiam cera remollitæ." 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? Sub. Why, I think that the greater No egg but differs from a chicken more 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? Mam. Ay, now it heats: stand, father, 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 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 Make the rest ductile, malleable, extensive. And even in gold they are; for we do find Seeds of them by our fire, and gold in them; And can produce the species of each metal More perfect thence, than nature doth in earth. Beside, who doth not see in daily practice Art can beget bees, hornets, beetles, wasps, Out of the carcasses and dung of crea tures; Yea, scorpions of an herb, being rightly placed? And these are living creatures, far more perfect And excellent than metals. Mam. Well said, father! Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument, He'll bray you in a mortar. Sur. Pray you, sir, stay. Rather than I'll be brayed, sir, I'll believe That Alchemy is a pretty kind of game, Somewhat like tricks o' the cards, to cheat a man With charming. been a man of very confined knowledge; and his palpable want of judgment prevented him from making much advantage of what he really possessed. I have not thought it necessary to quote the passages to which Jonson alludes; but the reader who may think it worth his while to turn to them in the Theatrum Chemicum, will be struck with the wonderful dexterity with which he has availed himself of his most wretched materials. |