Mam. This gentleman you must bear withal:

I told you he had no faith.

Sur. And little hope, sir;

But much less charity, should I gull myself.

Sub. Why, what have you observed, sir, in our art,

Seems so impossible?

Sur. But your whole work, no more.

That you should hatch gold in a furnace, sir,

As they do eggs in Egypt!

Sub. Sir, do you

Believe that eggs are hatched so?

Sur. If I should?

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.

Mam. And that

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

Mam. Ay, now it heats: stand, father,

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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 vicious
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;
Where it retains more of the humid fatness,
It turns to sulphur or to quicksilver,
Who are the parents of all other metals.
Nor can this remote matter suddenly
Progress so from extreme unto extreme,

As to grow gold, and leap o'er all the 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.
Some do believe hermaphrodeity,

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,

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Out of the carcases and dung of creatures;

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 mortar.

Sur. Pray you, sir, stay.

Rather than I'll be bray'd, sir, I'll believe

That Alchemy is a pretty kind of game,

Somewhat like tricks o' the cards, to cheat a man
With charming.

Sub. Sir?

Sur. What else are all your terms,

Whereon no one of your writers 'grees with other?
Of your elixir, your lac virginis,

Your stone, your med'cine, and your chrysosperme,
Your sal, your sulphur, and your mercury,
Your oil of height, your tree of life, your blood,

Your marchesite, your tutie, your magnesia,

Your toad, your crow, your dragon, and your panther;
Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop,
Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit,
And then your red man and your white woman,
With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials,
Of lye and egg-shells, women's terms, man's blood,
Hair o' the head, burnt clouts, chalk, merds, and clay,
Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass,

And worlds of other strange ingredients,
Would burst a man to name?1

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1 It would be time wasted to rummage the old works on alchemy for an explanation of all these terms, which were doubtless as strange to the major

Sub. And all these named,

Intending but one thing; which art our writers

Used to obscure their art.

Mam. Sir, so I told him

Because the simple idiot should not learn it,
And make it vulgar.

Sub. Was not all the knowledge

Of the Egyptians writ in mystic symbols?
Speak not the Scriptures oft in parables?

Are not the choicest fables of the poets,

That were the fountains and first springs of wisdom,
Wrapp'd in perplexed allegories?

Mam. I urged that,

And cleared to him that Sisyphus was damned

To roll the ceaseless stone, only because

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He would have made ours common. [DOL appears at the door.

Sub. You very knave! do you use me thus?

Face. Wherein, sir?

Sub. Go in and see, you traitor. Go!

Mam. Who is it, sir?

Sub. Nothing, sir; nothing.

Mam. What's the matter, good sir?

[Exit FACE.

I have not seen you thus distemper'd: who is't?
Sub. All arts have still had, sir, their adversaries,

But ours the most ignorant.

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ity of play-goers in Jonson's time as they are to us; the more common and important are explained in the course of the play.

Re-enter FACE.

What now?

Face. 'Twas not my fault, sir; she would speak with you.

Sub. Would she, sir! Follow me.

[Exit.

Mam. 'Fore God, a Bradamante,' a brave piece.

Sur. Heart, this is an evil house! I will be burnt else. 540

Mam. Oh, by this light, no; do not wrong him. He's

Too scrupulous that way: it is his vice.

No, he's a rare physician, do him right,

An excellent Paracelsian,2 and has done

Strange cures with mineral physic. He deals all

With spirits, he; he will not hear a word

Of Galen or his tedious recipes.

How now, Lungs !

Re-enter FACE.

1 A Christian amazon, sister to Rinaldo, and mistress of Ruggiero, in Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, and Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. She possessed an irresistible spear, which unhorsed all her antagonists. Wheeler: Noted Names of Fiction.

2 Paracelsus was born in 1493 and died in 1541.