THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
phrey, Earl of Hereford Lord Marcher of Wales and Lord High Constable of the Realm of England." Underneath this astrological personage, sometime dwelt Messer Antonio dei Coglonieri, a Venetian and a great clerk, who knew Greek and many things besides; but both his temper and his complexion were too hot to be pleasant, and everybody from my lord to the serving-maids agreed that there was no satisfying him, and that the sooner he were gone the better it would be. In the western tower of the grand gate-house was the apartment of Master Nicholas Bubbewyth, a man far gone in mechanical knowledge, who was able to twist a large river round his little finger, and to make it go up or down, to right or left, in a straight line, a spiral, or in maze-wise just as he pleased without any reference to the natural predilections of the water. It was Master Bubbewyth who perfected that pleasant contrivance by the which all the meadows about the castle could be put under water in five minutes; and also a device, not less pleasant, for shooting boiling lead through the air; but he was a man of wit and merry fancy who knew what a joke was, and understood the violent, mixt, and natural motion of projectiles. Last and best of all this company came Dom Benedict Rotherham who had been in Arabia and Syria and amongst the Moors both of Spain and Africa, and in these places had practised the art of multiplication, and was affirmed to be an adept in the operation of Hermes. And besides those high mysteries that relate to the making of gold, and the preparation of
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