I say,my lord,can such a subtilty (But all his craft ye must not wot of me,And somewhat help I yet to his working),That all the ground on which we ben riding,Till that we come to Canterbury town,He can all clean turnen so up so down,And pave it all of silver and of gold.
THE CANON'S YEOMAN'S PROLOGUE,CANTERBURY TALES.
THE artist commenced his narrative in the following terms:--I was bred a blacksmith,and knew my art as well as e'er a black-thumbed,leathern-aproned,swart-faced knave of that noble mystery.But I tired of ringing hammer-tunes on iron stithies,and went out into the world,where I became acquainted with a celebrated juggler,whose fingers had become rather too stiff for legerdemain,and who wished to have the aid of an apprentice in his noble mystery.I served him for six years,until I was master of my trade--I refer myself to your worship,whose judgment cannot be disputed,whether I did not learn to ply the craft indifferently well?Excellently,said Tressilian;but be brief.It was not long after I had performed at Sir Hugh Robsart's,in your worship's presence,said the artist,that I took myself to the stage,and have swaggered with the bravest of them all,both at the Black Bull,the Globe,the Fortune,and elsewhere;but Iknow not how--apples were so plenty that year that the lads in the twopenny gallery never took more than one bite out of them,and threw the rest of the pippin at whatever actor chanced to be on the stage.So I tired of it--renounced my half share in the company,gave my foil to my comrade,my buskins to the wardrobe,and showed the theatre a clean pair of heels.Well,friend,and what,said Tressilian,was your next shift?I became,said the smith,half partner,half domestic to a man of much skill and little substance,who practised the trade of a physicianer.In other words,said Tressilian,you were Jack Pudding to a quacksalver.Something beyond that,let me hope,my good Master Tressilian,replied the artist;and yet to say truth,our practice was of an adventurous description,and the pharmacy which I had acquired in my first studies for the benefit of horses was frequently applied to our human patients.But the seeds of all maladies are the same;and if turpentine,tar,pitch,and beef-suet,mingled with turmerick,gum-mastick,and one bead of garlick,can cure the horse that hath been grieved with a nail,I see not but what it may benefit the man that hath been pricked with a sword.But my master's practice,as well as his skill,went far beyond mine,and dealt in more dangerous concerns.He was not only a bold,adventurous practitioner in physic,but also,if your pleasure so chanced to be,an adept who read the stars,and expounded the fortunes of mankind,genethliacally,as he called it,or otherwise.He was a learned distiller of simples,and a profound chemist--made several efforts to fix mercury,and judged himself to have made a fair hit at the philosopher's stone.I have yet a programme of his on that subject,which,if your honour understandeth,I believe you have the better,not only of all who read,but also of him who wrote it.He gave Tressilian a scroll of parchment,bearing at top and bottom,and down the margin,the signs of the seven planets,curiously intermingled with talismanical characters and scraps of Greek and Hebrew.In the midst were some Latin verses from a cabalistical author,written out so fairly,that even the gloom of the place did not prevent Tressilian from reading them.The tenor of the original ran as follows:-Si fixum solvas,faciasque volare solutum,Et volucrem figas,facient te vivere tutum;Si pariat ventum,valet auri pondere centum;
Ventus ubi vult spirat--Capiat qui capere potest.I protest to you,said Tressilian,all I understand of this jargon is that the last words seem to mean 'Catch who catch can.'That,said the smith,is the very principle that my worthy friend and master,Doctor Doboobie,always acted upon;until,being besotted with his own imaginations,and conceited of his high chemical skill,he began to spend,in cheating himself,the money which he had acquired in cheating others,and either discovered or built for himself,I could never know which,this secret elaboratory,in which he used to seclude himself both from patients and disciples,who doubtless thought his long and mysterious absences from his ordinary residence in the town of Farringdon were occasioned by his progress in the mystic sciences,and his intercourse with the invisible world.Me also he tried to deceive;but though I contradicted him not,he saw that I knew too much of his secrets to be any longer a safe companion.Meanwhile,his name waxed famous--or rather infamous,and many of those who resorted to him did so under persuasion that he was a sorcerer.And yet his supposed advance in the occult sciences drew to him the secret resort of men too powerful to be named,for purposes too dangerous to be mentioned.Men cursed and threatened him,and bestowed on me,the innocent assistant of his studies,the nickname of the Devil's foot-post,which procured me a volley of stones as soon as ever I ventured to show my face in the street of the village.At length my master suddenly disappeared,pretending to me that he was about to visit his elaboratory in this place,and forbidding me to disturb him till two days were past.When this period had elapsed,I became anxious,and resorted to this vault,where Ifound the fires extinguished and the utensils in confusion,with a note from the learned Doboobius,as he was wont to style himself,acquainting me that we should never meet again,bequeathing me his chemical apparatus,and the parchment which Ihave just put into your hands,advising me strongly to prosecute the secret which it contained,which would infallibly lead me to the discovery of the grand magisterium.And didst thou follow this sage advice?said Tressilian.