“SIR EPICURE MAMMON: This night, I’ll change
All that is metal, in my house, to gold:
And, early in the morning, will I send
To all the plumbers and the pewterers,
and buy their tin and lead up; and to Lothbury
For all the copper.
PERTINAX SURLY: What, and turn that too?
SIR EPICURE MAMMON: Yes, and I’ll purchase Devonshire, and Cornwall,
And make them perfect Indies!”
—Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, 1610.