'Though the show of it were glorious, the
substance
of it
was dross, and nothing but alchymy and cozenage.
John Donne
123. And
'Sir. Your way into Spain was eastward, and that is the way to the
land of perfumes and spices; their way hither is westward, and that
is the way to the land of gold and of mines,' &c. _To Sir Robert Ker._
Gosse's _Life, &c._, ii. 191.
l. 24. _All wealth alchimie_: i.e. imposture or 'glittering dross'
(O.E.D.).
'Though the show of it were glorious, the
substance
of it
was dross, and nothing but alchymy and cozenage.
' Harrington, _Orlando
Furioso_ (1591). See also poem cited II. p. 11.
PAGE =12=. THE INDIFFERENT.
l. 7. _dry corke._ Cork was a favourite metaphor for what was dry
and withered. To our taste it is hardly congruous with love or tragic
poetry, perhaps because of its associations. 'Bind fast his corky
arms,' says Cornwall, speaking of Gloucester (_King Lear_, III. vii.
31), but Shakespeare seems to have taken the epithet from Harsnett's
_Declaration of Egregious Popishe Impostures, &c._ (1603): 'It would
pose all the cunning exorcists .
