Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/218

 202 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES great pretender to astrology, alchemy, and magic. Beginning as dupe, he soon developed into cheat ; for in this department of natural history the shrewder pigeons, when plucked, are apt to turn hawks ; and with the equally notorious Kelly rambled over Europe, ostensibly as conjurer, really as spy. On his return, he settled at Mortlake, where, notwithstanding his possession of the philosopher's stone, he died in ex- treme poverty, being, as Lilly says, " enforced many times to sell some book or other to buy a dinner." In the print before one of his books he appears wrapped in a rough, shaggy gown ; to this Jonson alludes. Kelly is mentioned, Act iv., Sc. i, and Gifford has an interesting note on his career. Abel has another thing he would impart. Hard by him is lodged a rich young widow. Dame Pliant, but nineteen at the most, to whom he now and then gives a fucus, and sometimes physic, in return for which she trusts him with all her mind. She has come up to town to learn the fashion^ and she strangely longs to know her fortune. His worship the doctor is, of course, the very one wise man who can tell it ; and Face hints that Nab may win her. " Drug. No, sir, she'll never marry Under a knight : her brother has made avow. Face. What I and dost thou despair, my little Nab, Knowing what the doctor has set down for thee, And seeing so many of the city dubbed ? . . . what's her brother, a knight ? Drug. No, sir, a gentleman newly warm in his land, sir, Scarce cold in his one-and-twenty, that does govern His sister here ; and is a man himself Of some three thousand a year, and is come up To learn to quarrel, and to live by his wits, And will go down again, and die in the country.