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This is her evening mask, her next morn's eye,
Shall overshine the sun in majesty.

Amp. But this sad night will make an end of me.
Brother, farewell! grief, famine, sorrow, want,
Have made an end of wretched Ampedo.

And. Where is the wishing hat?

Amp. Consumed in fire.

And. Accursed be those hands that did destroy it;

That would redeem us, did we now enjoy it.

Amp. Wanton, farewell! I faint; death's frozen hand Congeals life's little river in my breast:

No man before his end is truly bless'd.

And. Oh, miserable, miserable soul!

Thus a foul life makes death to look more foul.

Enter LONGAVILE and MONTROSE, with a Cord.

Long. Thus shall this golden purse divided be, One day for you, another day for me.

Mon. Of days anon: say, what determine you,
Shall they have liberty, or shall they die?

Long. Die sure: and see, I think the elder 's dead.
And. Ay, murderers, he is dead. Oh, sacred wisdom!

Had Fortunatus been enamoured

Of thy celestial beauty, his two sons

[Dies.

Had shin'd like two bright suns. [They fix the cord round his neck.

Long. Pull hard, Montrose.

And. Come you to strangle me? are you the hangman?

Hell-hounds, you 're damn'd for this impiety.

Fortune forgive me! I deserve thy hate;

Myself have made myself a reprobate :
Virtue forgive me! for I have transgress'd
Against thy laws; my vows were quite forgot,
And therefore shame is fall'n to my sins' lot.
Riches and knowledge are two gifts divine;
They that abuse them both as I have done,

To shame, to beggary, to hell must run.

Oh, conscience, hold thy sting! cease to afflict me.
Be quick, tormentors! I desire to die;

No death is equal to my misery.

Cyprus, vain world, and vanity farewell,

Who builds his heaven on earth, is sure of hell. [They strangle him.

The two rapacious courtiers seize the purse, but its power is gone.

BASILIUS VALENTINUS.

STEELE.

BASILIUS VALENTINUS was a person who had arrived at the utmost perfection in the hermetic art, and initiated his son Alexandrinus in the same mysteries; but, as you know they are not to be attained but by the painful, the pious, the chaste, and pure of heart, Basilius did not open to him, because of his youth, and the deviations too natural to it, the greatest secrets of which he was master, as well knowing that the operation would fail in the hands of a man so liable to errors in life as Alexandrinus. But believing, from a certain indisposition of mind as well as body, his dissolution was drawing nigh, he called Alexandrinus to him, and as he lay on a couch, over-against which his son was seated, and prepared by sending out servants one after another, and admonition to examine that no one overheard them, he revealed the most important of his secrets with the solemnity and language of an adept. "My son,” said he, “many have been the watchings, long the lucubrations, constant the labours of thy father, not only to gain a great and plentiful estate to his posterity, but also to take care that he should have no posterity. Be not amazed, my child: I do not mean that thou shalt be taken from me, but that I will never leave thee, and consequently cannot be said to have posterity. Behold, my dearest Alexandrinus, the effect of what was propagated in nine months. We are not to contradict Nature, but to follow and to help her; just as long as an infant is in the womb of its parent, so long are these medicines of revivification in preparing. Observe this small phial and this little gallipot-in this an unguent, in the other a liquor. In these, my child, are collected such powers, as shall revive the springs of life when they are yet but just ceased, and give new strength, new spirits, and, in a word, wholly restore all the organs and senses of the human body to as great a duration as it had before enjoyed from its birth to the day of the application of these my medicines. But, my beloved son, care must be taken to apply them within ten hours after the breath is out of the body, while yet the clay is warm with its late life, and yet capable of resuscitation. I find my frame grown crazy with perpetual toil and meditation; and I conjure you, as soon as I am dead, to anoint me with this unguent; and when you see me begin to move, pour into my lips this inestimable liquor, else the force of the ointment will be ineffectual. By this means you will give me life as I have you, and we will from that hour mutually lay aside the authority of having bestowed life on each other, live as brethren, and prepare new medicines against such another period of time as will demand another application of the same restoratives." In a few days

after these wonderful ingredients were delivered to Alexandrinus, Basilius departed this life. But such was the pious sorrow of the son at the loss of so excellent a father, and the first transports of grief had so wholly disabled him from all manner of business, that he never thought of the medicines till the time to which his father had limited their efficacy was expired. To tell the truth, Alexandrinus was a man of wit and pleasure, and considered his father had lived out his natural time; his life was long and uniform, suitable to the regularity of it; but that he himself, poor sinner, wanted a new life, to repent of a very bad one hitherto, and, in the examination of his heart, resolved to go on as he did with this natural being of his, but to repent very faithfully, and spend very piously the life to which he should be restored by application of these rarities, when time should come, to his own person.

It has been observed, that Providence frequently punishes the self-love of men, who would do immoderately for their own offspring, with children very much below their characters and qualifications; insomuch that they only transmit their names to be borne by those who give daily proofs of the vanity of the labour and ambition of their progenitors.

It happened thus in the family of Basilius; for Alexandrinus began to enjoy his ample fortune in all the extremities of household expense, furniture, and insolent equipage; and this he pursued till the day of his own departure began, as he grew sensible, to approach. As Basilius was punished with a son very unlike him, Alexandrinus was visited with one of his own disposition. It is natural that ill men should be suspicious; and Alexandrinus, besides the jealousy, had proofs of the vicious disposition of his son Renatus, for that was his name.

Alexandrinus, as I observed, having very good reasons for thinking it unsafe to trust the real secret of his phial and gallipot to any man living, projected to make sure work, and hope for his success depending from the avarice, not the bounty of his benefactor.

With this thought he called Renatus to his bed-side, and bespoke him in the most pathetic gesture and accent. "As much, my son, as you have been addicted to vanity and pleasure, as I also have been before you, neither you nor I could escape the fame or the good effects of the profound knowledge of our progenitor, the renowned Basilius. His symbol is very well known to the philosophic world; and I shall never forget the venerable air of his countenance, when he let me into the profound mysteries of the smaragdine table of Hermes. 'It is true,' said he, and far removed from all colour of deceit; that which is inferior is like that which is superior, by which are acquired and perfected all the miracles of a certain work. The father is the sun, the mother the moon, the wind is in the womb, the earth is the nurse of it, and mother of all perfection. All this must be received with modesty and wisdom.' The chymical people carry, in all their jargon, a whimsical

sort of piety, which is ordinary with great lovers of money, and is no more but deceiving themselves, that their regularity and strictness of manners, for the ends of this world, has some affinity to the innocence of heart which must recommend them to the next." Renatus wondered to hear his father talk so like an adept, and with such a mixture of piety; while Alexandrinus, observing his attention fixed, proceeded. “This phial, child, and this little earthen pot, will add to thy estate so much as to make thee the richest man in the German empire. I am going to my long home, but shall not return to common dust." Then he resumed a countenance of alacrity, and told him, that if within an hour after his death he anointed his whole body, and poured down his throat that liquor which he had from old Basilius, the corpse would be converted into pure gold. I will not pretend to express to you the unfeigned tenderness that passed between these two extraordinary persons; but if the father recommended the care of his remains with vehemence and affection, the son was not behindhand in professing that he would not cut the least bit off him, but upon the utmost extremity, or to provide for his younger brothers and sisters.

Well, Alexandrinus died, and the heir of his body (as our term is) could not forbear, in the wantonnesses of his heart, to measure the length and breadth of his beloved father, and cast up the ensuing value of him before he proceeded to operation. When he knew the immense reward of his pains, he began the work: but lo! when he had anointed the corpse all over, and began to apply the liquor, the body stirred, and Renatus, in a fright, broke the phial.

THE HEIR OF LINNE.

PART THE FIRST.

LITHE and listen, gentlemen,

To sing a song I will begin; It is of a lord of fair Scotland,

Which was the unthrifty heir of Linne. His father was a right good lord,

His mother a lady of high degree;
But they, alas! were dead, him fro',
And he lov'd keeping company.
To spend the day with merry cheer,
To drink and revel every night,
To card and dice from eve to morn,
It was, I ween, his heart's delight.
To ride, to run, to rant, to roar,

To alway spend and never spare,
I wot, an' it were the king himself,
Of gold and fee he mote be bare.
So fares the unthrifty lord of Linne

Till all his gold is gone and spent ; And he maun sell his lands so broad,

His house, and lands, and all his rent. His father had a keen stewàrd,

And John o' the Scales was called he: But John is become a gentleman,

And John has got both gold and fee. Says, Welcome, welcome, lord of Linne, Let nought disturb thy merry cheer ; If thou wilt sell thy lands so broad,

Good store of gold I'll give thee here. My gold is gone, my money is spent ; My land now take it unto thee: Give me the gold, good John o' the Scales, And thine for aye my land shall be. Then John he did him to record draw, And John he cast him a God's-penny; But for every pound that John agreed,

The land, I wis, was well worth three.

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