Which first, perchance, she’ll prove on cats and dogs,
Then afterwards up higher, but there is
No danger in what show of death it makes,
More than the locking up the spirits a time
To be more fresh reviving. She is fool’d
With a most false effect; and I the truer
So to be false with her.”[12]
The caution of the physician is well described, and his resort to subterfuge in order to checkmate the evil design of his wily mistress and old pupil, whom he evidently distrusts.
The Queen is supposed to have possessed considerable knowledge and skill in the use of drugs, and her conserves had evidently a great reputation. Her scientific ideas were in advance of the age she lived in when she states her desire to make physiological experiments on animals to advance her knowledge; but the clear acumen of Cornelius saw through the apparently laudable spirit of research that imbued his pupil, and he supplied her with drugs of less potency.
The following allusions are made to the apothecary:—