barque of their bruised
ruffs, then they goeth flip-flap in the wind, like rags that flew
abroad, lying upon their shoulders like the dish-clout of a slut.'
Having thus, with great exultation, described these reproofs to human
pride, he mentions how 'the devil, as he, in the fulness of his
malice, first invented these great ruffs, so hath he now found out
also two great pillars to bear up and maintain this his kingdom of
great ruffs--for the devil is king and prince over all the kingdom of
pride.' One pillar appears to have been a wire framework--something,
perhaps, of the nature of the hoop. The other was 'a certain kind of
liquid matter, which they call starch, wherein the devil hath willed
them to wash and dye their ruffs well; and this starch they make of
divers colours and hues--white, red, blue, purple, and the like,
which, being dry, will then stand stiff and inflexible about their
necks.'

Mrs Turner, at her execution, was arrayed in a ruff stiffened with the
material for the invention of which she was so famous. She had for her
scientific adviser a certain Dr Forman--a man who was believed to be
deep in all kinds of dangerous chemical lore, and at the same time to
possess a connection with the Evil One, which gave him powers greater
than those capable of being obtained through mere scientific agency.
Had he been alive, he would have undoubtedly been tried with the other
poisoners. His widow gave some account of his habits, and of his
wonderful apparatus, such as 'a ring which would open like a watch;'
but the glimpse obtained of him is brief and mysteriously tantalising.
We remember that, about twenty-five years ago, this man was made the
hero of a novel called _Forman_, which contains much effective
writing, but did not somehow fit the popular taste.

Notwithstanding the scientific ingenuity both of the males and females
concerned in this affair, the poisoning seems to have been conducted
in a very bungling manner when compared with the slow and secret
poisonings of the French and Italians. It is believed that a female of
Naples, called Tophana, who used a tasteless liquid, named after her
_Aqua Tophana_, killed with it 600 people before she was discovered to
be a murderess. The complete secrecy in which these foreigners
shrouded their operations--people seeming to drop off around them as
if by the silent operation of natural causes--was what made their
machinations so frightful. Poisoning, however, is a co