, how oft I iterate the work,
So many times I add unto his virtue.
As, if at first one ounce convert a hundred,
After his second loose, he'll turn a thousand;
His third solution, ten; his fourth, a hundred:
After his fifth, a thousand thousand ounces
Of any imperfect metal, into pure
Silver or gold, in all examinations,
As good as any of the natural mine.
Get you your stuff here against afternoon,
Your brass, your pewter, and your andirons.

MAM. Not those of iron?

SUB. Yes, you may bring them too:
We'll change all metals.

SUR. I believe you in that.

MAM. Then I may send my spits?

SUB. Yes, and your racks.

SUR. And dripping-pans, and pot-hangers, and hooks?
Shall he not?

SUB. If he please.

SUR.--To be an ass.

SUB. How, sir!

MAM. This gentleman you must bear withal:
I told you he had no faith.

SUR. And little hope, sir;
But much less charity, should I gull myself.

SUB. Why, what have you observ'd, sir, in our art,
Seems so impossible?

SUR. But your whole work, no more.
That you should hatch gold in a furnace, sir,
As they do eggs in Egypt!

SUB. Sir, do you
Believe that eggs are hatch'd so?

SUR. If I should?

SUB. Why, I think that the greater miracle.
No egg but differs from a chicken more
Than metals in themselves.

SUR. That cannot be.
The egg's ordain'd by nature to that end,
And is a chicken in potentia.

SUB. The same we say of lead and other metals,
Which would be gold, if they had time.

MAM. And that
Our art doth further.

SUB. Ay, for 'twere absurb
To think that nature in the earth bred gold
Perfect in the instant: something went before.
There must be remote matter.

SUR. Ay, what is that?

SUB. Marry, we say--

MAM. Ay, now it heats: stand, father,
Pound him to dust.

SUB. It is, of the one part,
A humid exhalation, which we call
Material liquida, or the unctuous water;
On the other part, a certain crass and vicious
Portion of earth; both which, concorporate,
Do make the elementary matter of gold;
Which is not yet propria materia,
But common to all metals and all stones;
For, where it is forsaken of that moisture,
And hath more driness, it becomes a stone:
Where it retains more of the humid fatness,
It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver,
Who are the parents of all other metals.
Nor can this remote matter suddenly
P