Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court · chunk 4 of 5
Jonson, Ben · published 1616 · first performed or written 1616 [Jan 1] (Annals) masque · before the Court unassigned nearest T12 Olympian gods: Jupiter, Juno, Venus and · 564 words
Marked words are the most distinguishing words of the nearest topic T12: iupiter, saturn, iuno, venus, gods, mars, earth, titan, love, fair.
IT is in vaine, Vulcan, to pitch your net in the sight of the fowle thus: I am no sleepy Mars, to be catch'd i'your subtile toyes. I know what your aymes are, Sir, to teare the wings from my head, and heeles, and lute mee vp in a glasse, with my owne seales, while you might wrest the Caducaeus out of my hand, to the adultery and spoile of Nature, and make your accesses by it, to her dishonour, more easie. Sir, would you beleeue, it should be come to that height of impudence, in mankind, that such a nest of firewormes, as these are (because their Patron Mulciber heretofore has made stooles stirre, and statues dance, a dog of brasse to barke, and (which some will say, was his worst acte, a woman to speake) should therefore with their heats cal'd Balnei, cineris, or horse-doung, professe to outworke the Sunne in vertue, and contend to the great act of generation, nay, almost creation? it is so, though. For, in yonder vessels which you see, in their laboratorie, they haue inclos'd Materials, to produce men, beyond the deedes of Deucalion, or Prometheus (of which, one, they say, had the Philosophers stone, and threw it ouer his shoulder, the other the fire, and lost it.) And what men are they, they are so busie about, thinke you? not common or ordinary creatures, but of rarity and excellence, such as the times wanted, and the Age had a speciall deale of neede of: such, as there was a necessitie, they should be artificiall; for Nature could neuer haue thought or dreamt o' their composition. I can remember some o' their titles to you, and the ingredients doe not looke for Paracelsus man among 'hem, that he promised you out of white bread, and dele-wine, for hee neuer came to light. But of these, let me see; the first that occurres; a master of the Duel, a carrier of the differencies. To him went spirit of ale, a good quantitie, with the amalgama of sugar and nutmegs, oyle of othes, sulphure of quarrell, strong waters, valour precipitate, vapor'd o're the helme with tobacco, and the rosin of Mars with a dram o'the businesse, for that's the word of tincture, the businesse. Let me alone with the businesse, I will carrie the businesse. I doe vnderstand the businesse. I doe finde an affront i' the businesse. Then another is a fencer i' the Mathematiques, or the townes-cunning-man, a creature of arte too; a supposed secretary to the starres; but, indeed, a kind of lying Intelligencer from those parts. His materials, if I be not deceiu'd, were iuyce of almanacks, extraction of Ephemerides, scales of the Globe, fylings of figures, dust o'the twelue houses, conserue of questions, salt of confederacy, a pound of aduenture, a graine of skill, and a drop of trueth. I saw vegitals too, aswell as minerals, put into one glasse there, as adders tongue, title-bane, nitre of clyents, tartar of false conueyance, Aurum palpabile, with a huge deale of talke, to which they added tincture of conscience, with the faces of honesty; but for what this was, I could not learne; onely I haue ouer-heard one o' the Artists say, Out o'the corruption of a Lawyer was the best generation of a Broker in suits: whether this were he or no, I know not.
seed 43: unassigned · seed 44: unassigned — topic numbers are assigned independently in each run; equal or different numbers say nothing by themselves
Original spelling (EEBO-TCP, unregularized)
IT is in vaine, Vulcan, to pitch your net in the sight of the fowle thus: I am no sleepy Mars, to be catch'd i'your subtile toyes. I know what your aymes are, Sir, to teare the wings from my head, and heeles, and lute mee vp in a glasse, with my owne seales, while you might wrest the Caducaeus out of my hand, to the adultery and spoile of Nature, and make your accesses by it, to her dishonour, more easie. Sir, would you beleeue, it should be come to that height of impudence, in mankind, that such a nest of firewormes, as these are (because their Patron Mulciber heretofore has made stooles stirre, and statues dance, a dog of brasse to barke, and (which some will say, was his worst acte, a woman to speake) should therefore with their heats cal'd Balnei, cineris, or horse-doung, professe to outworke the Sunne in vertue, and contend to the great act of generation, nay, almost creation? it is so, though. For, in yonder vessels which you see, in their laboratorie, they haue inclos'd Materials, to produce men, beyond the deedes of Deucalion, or Prometheus (of which, one, they say, had the Philosophers stone, and threw it ouer his shoulder, the other the fire, and lost it.) And what men are they, they are so busie about, thinke you? not common or ordinary creatures, but of rarity and excellence, such as the times wanted, and the Age had a speciall deale of neede of: such, as there was a necessitie, they should be artificiall; for Nature could neuer haue thought or dreamt o' their composition. I can remember some o' their titles to you, and the ingredients doe not looke for Paracelsus man among 'hem, that he promised you out of white bread, and dele-wine, for hee neuer came to light. But of these, let me see; the first that occurres; a master of the Duel, a carrier of the differencies. To him went spirit of ale, a good quantitie, with the amalgama of sugar and nutmegs, oyle of othes, sulphure of quarrell, strong waters, valour precipitate, vapor'd o're the helme with tobacco, and the rosin of Mars with a dram o'the businesse, for that's the word of tincture, the businesse. Let me alone with the businesse, I will carrie the businesse. I doe vnderstand the businesse. I doe finde an affront i' the businesse. Then another is a fencer i' the Mathematiques, or the townes-cunning-man, a creature of arte too; a supposed secretary to the starres; but, indeed, a kind of lying Intelligencer from those parts. His materials, if I be not deceiu'd, were iuyce of almanacks, extraction of Ephemerides, scales of the Globe, fylings of figures, dust o'the twelue houses, conserue of questions, salt of confederacy, a pound of aduenture, a graine of skill, and a drop of trueth. I saw vegitals too, aswell as minerals, put into one glasse there, as adders tongue, title-bane, nitre of clyents, tartar of false conueyance, Aurum palpabile, with a huge deale of talke, to which they added tincture of conscience, with the faces of honesty; but for what this was, I could not learne; onely I haue ouer-heard one o' the Artists say, Out o'the corruption of a Lawyer was the best generation of a Broker in suits: whether this were he or no, I know not.