Your brafs, your pewter, and your andirons.

Mam. Not thofe of iron?

Sub. Yes, you may bring them too.

We'll change all metals.

Sur. I believe you in that.

Mam. Then I may fend my fpits?

Sub. Yes, and your racks.

Sur. And dripping-pans, and pot-hangers, and hooks? Shall he not?

Sub. If he please.

Sur. To be an ass.

Sub. How, fir!

Mam. This gentleman you must bear withal : I told you, he had no faith.

Sur. And as little hope, fir;

But much less charity, fhould I gull myself.

Sub. Why, what have you observ'd, fir, in our art,

Seems fo impoffible?

Sur. But your whole work, no more.

That you fhould hatch gold in a furnace, fir,
As they do eggs in Egypt 18!

Sub. Sir, do you

Believe that eggs are hatch'd fo?

Sur. If I fhould?

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 ordain'd by nature to that end,

And is a chicken in potentia.

Sub. The fame we fay of lead, and other metals, Which would be gold, if they had time.

13 That you should bath gold in a furnace, fir,

As they do eggs in Egypt.] Befides the accounts given us by Sandys and other later travellers, of the manner of hatching chickens at Grand Cairo, the reader may confult an exact rela 1737. the celebrated Mr. John Greaves, zd vol. of his works, edit.

Mam.

Mam. And that

Our art doth further.

Sub. I, for 'twere abfurd

To think that nature in the earth bred gold

Perfect i' the inftant.

Something went before.

There must be remote matter.

Sur. I, what is that?

Sub. Marry, we fay

Mam. I, now it heats: ftand 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 crafs 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 flones,
For, where it is forfaken of that moisture;
And hath more drinefs, it becomes a stone.
Where it retains more of the humid fatnefs;
It turns to fulphur, or to quickfilver,
Who are the parents of all other metals.
Nor can this remote matter fuddenly
Progress fo from extreme unto extreme,
As to grow gold, and leap o're all the means.
Nature doth first beget th' imperfect, then
Proceeds fhe to the perfect. Of that airy
And oily water, mercury is engendred;
Sulphur o' the fat and earthy part; the one
(Which is the laft) fupplying 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 reft ductile, malleable, extensive.

And even in gold they are; for we do find

Seed's

Seeds of them, by our fire, and gold in them;
And can produce the fpecies of each metal
More perfect thence, than nature doth in earth,
Befide, who doth not fee in daily practice,
Art can beget bees, hornets, beetles, wafps,
Out of the carcaffes and dung of creatures;
Yea, fcorpions of an herb, being rightly plac'd?
And these are living creatures, far more perfect
And excellent than metals.

Mam. Well faid, father!

Nay, if he take you in hand, fir, with an argument, He'll bray you in a mortar.

Sur. Pray you, fir, ftay.

Rather than I'll be bray'd, fir, 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 elfe are all your terms,

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

Your stone, your med'cine, and your Chryfofperme,
Your fal, your fulphur, 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 fun, 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 menftrues, and materials,
Of pifs and egg-fhells, womens terms, mans blood,
Hair o' th' head, burnt clouts, chalk, merds, and clay,
Powder of bones, fcalings of iron, glafs,

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

Sub. And all thefe nam'd,

In

Intending but one thing; which art our writers
Us'd to obfcure their art.

Mam. Sir, fo I told him,

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

Sub. Was not all the knowledge

Of the Ægyptians writ in myftic fymbols?
Speak not the fcriptures oft in parables?
Are not the choiceft fables of the poets,

That were the fountains and firft fprings of wisdom,
Wrap'd in perplexed allegories?

Mam. I urg'd that,

And clear'd to him, that Syfiphus was damn'd
To roll the ceaflefs ftone, only because

He would have ours common. Who is this?

[Dol is feen.

Sub.God's precious-What do you mean? go in good

Let me entreat you. Where's this varlet?

Fac. Sir?

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

Fac. Wherein, fir?

Sub. Go in, and fee, you traitor. Go.

Mam. Who is it, fir?

Sub. Nothing, fir: nothing.

Mam. What's the matter, good fir?

[lady,

I have not feen you thus diftemper'd? who is't?
Sub. All arts have still had, fir, their adversaries;

But ours the moft ignorant. What now?

[Face returns. Fac. 'Twas not my fault, fir; fhe would speak with Sub. Would she, fir? Follow me.

Mam. Stay, lungs.

Fac. I dare not, fir.

Mam. How! pray thee stay.

Fac. She's mad, fir, and fent hither

Mam. Stay man, what is the ?

[you.

Fac.

Mam. 'Fore God, a Bradamante, a brave piece1. Sur. Heart, this is a bawdy-houfe! I'll be burnt elfe. Mam. O, by this light, no. Do not wrong him. H'is Too fcrupulous that way. It is his vice.

No, h'is a rare physician, do him right,
An excellent Paracelfian, and has done
Strange cures with mineral phyfick. He deals all
With fpirits, he. He will not hear a word
Of Galen, or his tedious Recipe's.
How now, lungs!

[Face again:
Fac. Softly, fir, fpeak foftly. I meant
To ha' told your worfhip all. This must not hear.
Mam. No, he will not be gull'd: let him alone.
Fac. Y'are very right, fir, she is a most rare scholar,
And is gone mad with ftudying Broughton's works".
If you but name a word touching the Hebrew,
She falls into her fit, and will discourse

So learnedly of genealogies,

As you would run mad too, to hear her, fir. [lungs?
Mam.How might one do' t' have conference with her,
Fac. O divers have run mad upon the conference.
I do not know, fir: I am sent in haste,

To fetch a vial.

Sur. Be not gull'd, fir Mammon.

19 'Fore God, a BRADAMANTE ] An heroine in Orlando Furiofo. 20 She is gone mad with ftudying BROUGHTON's works.] Mr. Hugh Broughton, a celebrated rabbin in Queen Elizabeth's days, and a great publisher. See STRYP Whitgift, and Annals of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 2. Dr. GREY.

VOL. III.

D

Mam.