At last, after many delays, and no spirit appearing, or
money returned, the young man indicts him for a cheat at the Old Bailey
in London; the Jury found the bill, and at the hearing of the cause this
jest happened: some of the bench enquired what Hart did? 'He sat like an
Alderman in his gown,' quoth the fellow; at which the court fell into a
great laughter, most of the court being Aldermen. He was to have been
set upon the pillory for this cheat; but John Taylour, the Water Poet,
being his great friend, got the Lord Chief Justice Richardson to bail
him, ere he stood upon the pillory, and so Hart fled presently into
Holland, where he ended his days. It was my fortune, upon the sale of
his books in 1634, to buy _Argoll's Primum Mobile_ for fourteen
shillings, which I only wanted.
In Lambeth Marsh at the same time lived one Captain Bubb, who resolved
horary questions astrologically; a proper handsome man, well spoken, but
withal covetous, and of no honesty, as will appear by this story, for
which he stood upon the pillory. A certain butcher was robbed, going to
a fair, of forty pounds; he goes to Bubb, who for ten pounds in hand
paid, would help him to the thief; appoints the butcher such a night
precisely, to watch at such a place, and the thief should come thither;
commanded him by any means to stop him; the butcher attends according to
direction.
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