Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/159

Rh curioſity, to know the hiſtory of thoſe gloves, which he ſeemed to touch with ſo much reſpect. He anſwered, ‘I do reſpect them, for the laſt time I had the honour of approaching my miſtreſs, Queen Elizabeth, ſhe pulled them from her own Royal hands, ſaying, here Glyſſon, wear them for my ſake. I have done ſo with veneration, and never drew them on, but when I had a mind to honour thoſe whom I viſit, as I now do you; and ſince you love the memory of my Royal miſtreſs, take them, and preſerve them carefully when I am gone.’ The Dr. then went home, and died in a few days.

This gentleman’s death left her again without a companion, and an uneaſineſs hung upon her, viſible to the people of the houſe; who gueſſing the cauſe to proceed from ſolitude, recommended to her acquaintance another Phyſician, of a different caſt from the former. He was denominated by them a conjurer, and was ſaid to be capable of raiſing the devil. This circumſtance diverted Mrs. Thomas, who imagined, that the man whom they called a conjurer, muſt have more ſenſe than they underſtood. The Dr. was invited to viſit her, and appeared in a greaſy black Grogram, which he called his Scholar’s Coat, a long beard, and other marks of a philoſophical negligence. He brought all his little mathematical trinkets, and played over his tricks for the diverſion of the lady, whom, by a private whiſper, he let into the ſecrets as he performed them, that ſhe might ſee there was nothing of magic in the caſe. The two moſt remarkable articles of his performance were, firſt lighting a candle at a glaſs of cold water (performed by touching the brim before with phoſphorus, a chymical fire which is preſerved in water and burns there) and next reading the ſmalleſt print by a candle of ſix in the pound, at a hundred yards diſtance in the open air, and darkeſt night. This was