Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/161

Rh find.’ She then commanded her daughter to bring a parcel of lead which lay in the cloſet, and giving it to the Chymiſt, deſired him to tranſmute it into gold on the morrow. He undertook it, and the next day brought her an ingot which weighed two ounces, which with the utmoſt ſolemnity he avowed was the very individual lead ſhe gave him, tranſmuted to gold.

She began now to engage him in ſerious diſcourſe; and finding by his replies, that he wanted money to make more powder, ſhe enquired how much would make a ſtock that would maintain itſelf? He replied, one fifty pounds after nine months would produce a million. She then begged the ingot of him, which he proteſted had been tranſmuted from lead, and fluſhed with the hopes of ſucceſs, hurried to town to examine whether the ingot was true gold, which proved fine beyond the ſtandard. The lady now fully convinced of the truth of the empyric’s declaration, took fifty pounds out of the hands of a Banker, and entruſted him with it.

The only difficulty which remained, was, how to carry on the work without ſuſpicion, it being ſtrictly prohibited at that time. He was therefore reſolved to take a little houſe in another county, at a few miles diſtance from London, where he was to build a public laboratory, as a profeſſed Chymiſt, and deal in ſuch medicines as were moſt vendible, by the ſale of which to the apothecaries, the expence of the houſe was to be defrayed during the operation. The widow was accounted the houſekeeper, and the Dr. and his man boarded with her; to which ſhe added this precaution, that the laboratory, with the two lodging rooms over it, in which the Dr. and his man lay, was a different wing of the building from that where ſhe and her little daughter, and maid-ſervant reſided; and as ſhe knew ſome time muſt