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To prepare his body for so hardy a task,
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MIRACLE MONGERS AND THEIR METHODS
78
before he makes his appearance on the
stage, he takes a pill about the quantity of
a hazel nut, confected with the gall of an
heifer, and wheat flour baked. After
which he drinks privately in his chamber
four or five pints of luke-warm water, to
take all the foulness and slime from his
stomach, and to avoid that loathsome
spectacle which otherwise would make thick
the water, and offend the eye of the
observer.
In the first place, he presents you with a
pail of luke-warm water, and sixteen
glasses in a basket, but you are to
understand that every morning he boils two
ounces of Brazil thin-sliced in three pints
of running water, so long till the whole
strength and color of the Brazil is
exhausted: of this he drinks half a pint in
his private chamber before he comes on
the stage: you are also to understand that
he neither eats nor drinks in the morning
on those days when he comes on the stage,
the cleansing pill and water only excepted;
but in the evening will make a
very good supper, and eat as much as two
or three other men who have not their
stomachs so thoroughly purged.
Before he presents himself to the
spectators, he washes all his glasses in the best
white-wine vinegar he can procure. Coming
on the stage, he always washes his first
glass, and rinses it two or three times, to
take away the strength of the vinegar, that
it may in no wise discolour the complexion
of what is represented to be wine.
At his first entrance, he drinks four and
twenty glasses of luke-warm water, the
first vomit he makes the water seems to be
a full deep claret: you are to observe that
his gall-pill in the morning, and so many
glasses of luke-warm water afterwards,
will force him into a sudden capacity to
vomit, which vomit upon so much warm
water, is for the most part so violent on
him, that he cannot forbear if he would.
You are again to understand that all
that comes from him is red of itself, or has
a tincture of it from the first Brazil water;
but by degrees, the more water he drinks,
as on every new trial he drinks as many
glasses of water as his stomach will contain,
the water that comes from him will
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MIRACLE MONGERS AND THEIR METHODS
79
grow paler and paler. Having then made
his essay on claret, and proved it to be of
the same complexion, he again drinks
four or five glasses of luke-warm water,
and brings forth claret and beer at once
into two several glasses: now you are to
observe that the glass which appears to be
claret is rinsed as before, but the beer
glass not rinsed at all, but is still moist
with the white-wine vinegar, and the first
strength of the Brazil water being lost,
it makes the water which he vomits up to
be of a more pale colour, and much like
our English beer.
He then brings his rouse again, and
drinks up fifteen or sixteen glasses of
luke-warm water, which the pail will
plentifully afford him: he will not bring
you up the pale Burgundian wine, which,
though more faint of complexion than the
claret, he will tell you is the purest wine
in Christendom. The strength of the Brazil
water, which he took immediately before
his appearance on the stage, grows
fainter and fainter. This glass, like the
first glass in which he brings forth his
claret, is washed, the better to represent
the colour of the wine therein.
The next he drinks comes forth sack
from him, or according to that complexion.
Here he does not wash his glass
at all; for the strength of the vinegar
must alter what is left of the complexion
of the Brazil water, which he took in the
morning before he appeared on the stage.
You are always to remember, that in the
interim, he will commonly drink up four
or five glasses of the luke-warm water,
the better to provoke his stomach to a
disgorgement, if the first rouse will not
serve turn. He will now (for on every
disgorge he will bring you forth a new
colour), he will now present you with white
wine. Here also he will not wash his
glass, which (according to the vinegar in
which it was washed) will give it a colour
like it. You are to understand, that when
he gives you the colour of so many wines,
he never washes the glass, but at his first
evacuation, the strength of the vinegar being
no wise compatible with the colour of
the Brazil water.
Having performed this task, he will
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MIRACLE MONGERS AND THEIR METHODS
80
then give you a show of rose-water; and
this indeed, he does so cunningly, that it
is not the show of rose-water, but rose-
water itself. If you observe him, you will
find that either behind the pail where his
luke-warm water is, or behind the basket
in which his glasses are, he will have on
purpose a glass of rose-water prepared
for him. After he has taken it, he will
make the spectators believe that he drank
nothing but the luke-warm water out of
the pail; but he saves the rose-water in the
glass, and holding his hand in an indirect
way, the people believe, observing the
water dropping from his fingers, that it is
nothing but the water out of the pail.
After this he will drink four or five glasses
more out of the pail, and then comes up
the rose-water, to the admiration of the
beholders. You are to understand, that
the heat of his body working with his
rose-water gives a full and fragrant smell
to all the water that comes from him as if
it were the same.
The spectators, confused at the novelty
of the sight, and looking and smelling on
the water, immediately he takes the
opportunity to convey into his hand another
glass; and this is a glass of Angelica
water, which stood prepared for him behind
the pail or basket, which having
drunk off, and it being furthered with
four or five glasses of luke-warm water,
out comes the evacuation, and brings with
it a perfect smell of the Angelica, as it was
in the rose-water above specified.
To conclude all, and to show you what
a man of might he is, he has an instrument
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