[Footnote C: Life ubi supri.]
[Footnote D: Mr. John Oxenbridge, who was made fellow of Eton College curing the civil war, but ejected at the Restoration; he died in New England, and was a very enthusiastic person.]
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Mrs. ELIZABETH THOMAS,
This lady, who is known in the world by the poetial name of Corinna, seems to have been born for misfortunes; her very bitterest enemies could never brand her with any real crime, and yet her whole life has been one continued scene of misery[A]. The family from which she sprung was of a rank in life beneath envy, and above contempt. She was the child of an ancient, and infirm parent, who gave her life when he was dying himself, and to whose unhappy constitution she was sole heiress. From her very birth, which happened 1675, she was afflicted with fevers and defluxions, and being over-nursed, her constitution was so delicate and tender, that had she not been of a gay disposition, and possessed a vigorous mind, she must have been more unhappy than she actually was. Her father dying when she was scarce two years old, and her mother not knowing his real circumstances, as he was supposed from the splendour of his manner of life to be very rich, some inconveniencies were incurred, in bestowing upon him a pompous funeral, which in those times was fashionable. The mother of our poetess, in the bloom of eighteen, was condemned to the arms of this man, upwards of 60, upon the supposition of his being wealthy, but in which she was soon miserably deceived. When the grief, which so young a wife may be supposed to feel for an aged husband, had subsided, she began to enquire into the state of his affairs, and found to her unspeakable mortification, that he died not worth one thousand pounds in the world. As Mrs. Thomas was a woman of good sense, and a high spirit, she disposed of two houses her husband kept, one in town, the other in the county of Essex, and retired into a private, but decent country lodging. The chambers in the Temple her husband possessed, she sold to her brother for 450 l. which, with her husband's books of accounts, she lodged in her trustee's hands, who being soon after burnt out by the fire in the paper buildings in the temple (which broke out with such violence in the dead of night, that he saved nothing but his life) she lost considerably. Not being able to make out any bill, she could form no regular demand, and was obliged to be determined by the honour of her husband's clients, who though persons of the first fashion, behaved with very little honour to her. The deceased had the reputation of a judicious lawyer, and an accomplished gentleman, but who was too honest to thrive in his profession, and had too much humanity ever to become rich. Of all his clients, but one lady behaved with any appearance of honesty. The countess dowager of Wentworth having then lost her only daughter the lady Harriot (who was reputed the mistress of the duke of Monmouth) told Mrs. Thomas, 'that she knew she had a large reckoning with the deceased, but, says she, as you know not what to demand, so I know not what to pay; come, madam, I will do better for you than a random reckoning, I have now no child, and have taken a fancy to your daughter; give me the girl, I will breed her as my own, and provide for her as such when I die.' The widow thank'd her ladyship, but with a little too much warmth replied, 'she would not part with her child on any terms;' which the countess resented to such a degree, that she would never see her more, and dying in a few years, left 1500 l. per annum inheritance, at Stepney, to her chambermaid.
Thus were misfortunes early entailed upon this lady. A proposal which would have made her opulent for life, was defeated by the unreasonable fondness of her mother, who lived to suffer its dismal consequences, by tasting the bitterest distresses. We have already observed, that Mrs. Thomas thought proper to retire to the country with her daughter. The house where she boarded was an eminent Cloth-worker's in the county of Surry, but the people of the house proved very disagreeable. The lady had no conversation to divert her; the landlord was an illiterate man, and the rest of the family brutish, and unmannerly. At last Mrs. Thomas attracted the notice of Dr. Glysson, who observing her at church very splendidly dressed, sollicited her acquaintance. He was a valuable piece of antiquity, being then, 1684, in the hundredth year of his age. His person was tall, his bones very large, his hair like snow, a venerable aspect, and a complexion, which might shame the bloom of fifteen. He enjoyed a sound judgment, and a memory so tenacious, and clear, that his company was very engaging. His visits greatly alleviated the solitude of this lady. The last visit he made to Mrs. Thomas, he drew on, with much attention, a pair of rich Spanish leather gloves, embost on the backs, and tops with gold embroidery, and fringed round with gold plate. The lady could not help expressing her 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 performed by a large concave-glass, with a deep pointed focus, quick-silvered on the backside and set in tin, with a socket for a candle, sconce fashion, and hung up against a wall. While the flame of the candle was diametrically opposite to the centre, the rays equally diverging, gave so powerful a light as is scarce credible; but on the least variation from the focus, the charm ceased. The lady discerning in this man a genius which might be improved to better purposes than deceiving the country people, desired him not to hide his talents, but to push himself in the world by the abilities of which he seemed possessed. 'Madam, said he, I am now a fiddle to asses, but I am finishing a great work which will make those asses fiddle to me.' She then asked what that work might be? He replied, 'his life was at stake if it took air, but he found her a lady of such uncommon candour, and good sense, that he should make no difficulty in committing his life and hope to her keeping.' All women are naturally fond of being trusted with secrets; this was Mrs. Thomas's failing: the Dr. found it out, and made her pay dear for her curiosity. 'I have been, continued he, many years in search of the Philosopher's Stone, and long master of the smaragdine-table of Hermes Trismegistus; the green and red dragons of Raymond Lully have also been obedient to me, and the illustrious sages themselves deign to visit me; yet is it but since I had the honour to be known to your ladyship, that I have been so fortunate as to obtain the grand secret of projection. I transmuted some lead I pulled off my window last night into this bit of gold.' Pleased with the sight of this, and having a natural propension to the study, the lady snatched it out of the philosopher's hand, and asked him why he had not made more? He replied, 'it was all the lead I could 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 elapse before any profit could be expected, she managed with the utmost frugality. The Dr. mean time acted the part of a tutor to miss, in Arithmetic, Latin, and Mathematics, to which she discovered the strongest propensity. All things being properly disposed for the grand operation, the vitriol furnace was set to work, which requiring the most intense heat for several days, unhappily set fire to the house; the stairs were consumed in an instant, and as it surprized them all in their first sleep, it was a happy circumstance that no life perished. This unlucky accident was 300 l. loss to Mrs. Thomas: yet still the grand project was in a fair way of succeeding in the other wing of the building. But one misfortune is often followed by another. The next Sunday evening, while she was reading to, and instructing her little family, a sudden, and a violent report, like a discharge of cannon was heard; the house being timber, rocked like a cradle, and the family were all thrown from their chairs on the ground. They looked with the greatest amazement on each other, not guessing the cause, when the operator pretending to revive, fell to stamping, tearing his hair, and raving like a madman, crying out undone, undone, lost and undone for ever. He ran directly to the Athanor, when unlocking the door, he found the machine split quite in two, the eggs broke, and that precious amalgamum which they contained was scattered like sand among the ashes. Mrs. Thomas's eyes were now sufficiently opened to discern the imposture, and, with a very serene countenance, told the empyric, that accidents will happen, but means might be fallen upon to repair this fatal disappointment. The Dr. observing her so serene, imagined she would grant him more money to compleat his scheme, but she soon disappointed his expectation, by ordering him to be gone, and made him a present of five guineas, left his desperate circumstances should induce him to take some violent means of providing for himself.
Whether deluded by a real hope of finding out the Philosopher's Stone, or from an innate principle of villainy, cannot be determined, but he did not yet cease his pursuit, and still indulged the golden delusion. He now found means to work upon the credulity of an old miser, who, upon the strength of his pretensions, gave him his daughter in marriage, and embarked all his hoarded treasure, which was very considerable, in the same chimerical adventure. In a word, the miser's stock was also lost, the empyric himself, and the daughter reduced to beggary. This unhappy affair broke the miser's heart, who did not many weeks survive the loss of his cash. The Dr. also put a miserable end to his life by drinking poison, and left his wife with two young children in a state of beggary. But to return to Mrs. Thomas.