Then intervened seventeen years, which, since they have little or naught to do with the Lady Millicent, I may pass over without excess of detail. I was educated at Salisbury Grammar School, and in 1617 became gentleman commoner at Christchurch, where, in 1622, I took the degree of Master of Arts. My father dying about this time, left me the estate of Amnest. My three sisters were married, one to a French noble, the others to men of position in our own county. Unaccustomed to the use of money, I set to squandering my fortune, and, being drawn into the vices of the court, kept wenches and horses both for myself and my less endowed friends. Time came when I discovered that half my money was dissipated: all my land mortgaged. I had some talent for writing: at Oxford I had composed many satires; so, with some wild view of retrieval, I wrote a play, which was often acted with great applause by the High and Mighty Prince Charles’s servants, at the private house in Salisbury Court. Three other comedies followed; then a tragedy, then an epic of _Mars and Venus_, then _The Mother_, a tragi-comedy, on the presentation of which, before the king and queen, at the ‘Red Bull’ in Drury Lane, I first met Humphreville, now Sir Humphreville Campion. His repute had often reached me, for he was accounted one of the maddest men in England. In his youth he had spent some years on the continent, and had there imbibed a love of occult things. ’Twas even said that he discovered the philosopher’s stone. Darcy, my schoolfellow, who was murdered in Italy on his first tour, wrote once from Paris, where he had visited Sir Humphreville, who showed him a richly-coloured water, which he declared would turn any metal into gold. Then, doubtless by some sleight of hand, he performed an experiment whereby two ounces of the great metal were found in a crucible where lead had been before. Darcy had begged for a piece, but had been denied on the plea that all was not perfected. Seeing that I had often wondered about him, it will amaze none to find that I examined him from top to toe. He was very tall--of at least six feet; his frame was thin; his hands and feet were small, the former exquisitely kept; his face was speckled like a toad’s belly; his eyes deep brown--the left one with a slight cast; his hair black and crisp; his lips ripe red, very full and voluptuous, and his teeth of dazzling purity.