ice. But these practical men at first
ridiculed the notion as a madman's fancy, and it required all the art of
Hastings to overcome their contempt, and appeal to the native acuteness
of the king. Edward, however, was only caught by Adam's incidental
allusions to the application of his principle to ships. The
merchant-king suddenly roused himself to attention, when it was promised
to him that his galleys should cross the seas without sail, and against
wind and tide.

"By Saint George!" said he, then, "let the honest man have his whim.
Mend thy model, and every saint in the calendar speed thee! Master
Heyford, tell thy comely wife that I and Hastings will sup with
her to-morrow, for her hippocras is a rare dainty. Good day to
you, worshipful my masters. Hastings, come hither; enough of these
trifles,--I must confer with thee on matters really pressing,--this
damnable marriage of gentle George's!"

And now Adam Warner was restored to his native element of thought; now
the crucible was at rest, and the Eureka began to rise from its ruins.
He knew not the hate that he had acquired in the permission he had
gained; for the London deputies, on their return home, talked of nothing
else for a whole week but the favour the king had shown to a strange
man, half-maniac, half-conjuror, who had undertaken to devise a
something which would throw all the artisans and journeymen out of work!
From merchant to mechanic travelled the news, and many an honest man
cursed the great scholar, as he looked at his young children, and wished
to have one good blow at the head that was hatching such devilish malice
against the poor! The name of Adam Warner became a byword of scorn and
horror. Nothing less than the deep ditch and strong walls of the Tower
could have saved him from the popular indignation; and these prejudices
were skilfully fed by the jealous enmity of his fellow-student, the
terrible Friar Bungey. This man, though in all matters of true learning
and science worthy the utmost contempt Adam could heap upon him, was by
no means of despicable abilities in the arts of imposing upon men. In
his youth he had been an itinerant mountebank, or, as it was called,
tregetour. He knew well all the curious tricks of juggling that then
amazed the vulgar, and, we fear, are lost to the craft of our modern
necromancers. He could clothe a wall with seeming vines, that vanished
as you approached; he could conjure up in his quiet cell the likeness
of a