fruitfulness of his imagination led him into certain notions which,
although in appearance very unaccountable, were not without their
mysteries and their meanings, nor wanted followers to countenance
and improve them. I shall therefore be extremely careful and exact
in recounting such material passages of this nature as I have been
able to collect either from undoubted tradition or indefatigable
reading, and shall describe them as graphically as it is possible,
and as far as notions of that height and latitude can be brought
within the compass of a pen. Nor do I at all question but they will
furnish plenty of noble matter for such whose converting
imaginations dispose them to reduce all things into types, who can
make shadows--no thanks to the sun--and then mould them into
substances--no thanks to philosophy--whose peculiar talent lies in
fixing tropes and allegories to the letter, and refining what is
literal into figure and mystery.

Jack had provided a fair copy of his father's will, engrossed in
form upon a large skin of parchment, and resolving to act the part
of a most dutiful son, he became the fondest creature of it
imaginable. For although, as I have often told the reader, it
consisted wholly in certain plain, easy directions about the
management and wearing of their coats, with legacies and penalties
in case of obedience or neglect, yet he began to entertain a fancy
that the matter was deeper and darker, and therefore must needs have
a great deal more of mystery at the bottom. "Gentlemen," said he,
"I will prove this very skin of parchment to be meat, drink, and
cloth, to be the philosopher's stone and the universal medicine."
In consequence of which raptures he resolved to make use of it in
the most necessary as well as the most paltry occasions of life. He
had a way of working it into any shape he pleased, so that it served