 Chapter 3 of Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds Volume 1 by Charles McKay The Chulipomania What Madness, O Citizens? Lucan The Chulip, so-named it is said, from a Turkish word, signifying a turban, was introduced into Western Europe about the middle of the 16th century. Conrad Gessner, who claims the merit of having brought it into repute, little dreaming of the commotion it was shortly afterwards to make in the world, says that he first saw it in the year 1559 in a garden at Osberg, belonging to the learned councillor Hewitt, a man very famous in his day for his collection of rare exotics. The bulbs were sent to this gentleman by a friend at Constantinople, but the flower had long been a favourite. In the course of 10 or 11 years after this period, Chulips were much sought after by the wealthy, especially in Holland and Germany. Rich people at Amsterdam sent for the bulbs direct to Constantinople and paid the most extravagant prices for them. The first roots planted in England were brought from Vienna in 1600. Until the year 1634, the Chulip annually increased in reputation until it was deemed a proof of bad taste in any manner fortune to be without a collection of them. Many learned men, including Pompey Esther Angles and the celebrated Lupissus of Leiden, the author of the treatise De Constantina, were passionately fond of Chulips. The rage for possessing them soon caught the middle classes of society, and merchants and shopkeepers, even a moderate means, began to vie with each other in the rarity of these flowers and the preposterous prices they paid for them. The trader at Haarlem was known to pay one half of his fortune for a single root, not with the design of selling it again at a profit, but to keep in his own conservatory for the admiration of his acquaintance. One would suppose that there must have been some great virtue in this flower to have made it so valuable in the eyes of so prudent a people as the Dutch. But it has neither the beauty nor the perfume of the rose, hardly the beauty of the sweet, sweet pea. Neither is it as enduring as either. Cowley, it is true, is loud in its praise, he says. The Chulip next appeared all over gay, but wanton full of pride and full of play. The world can sure die, but here has place, nay by new mixtures she can change her face. Purple and gold are both beneath her care, the richest needlework she loves to wear. Her only study is to please the eye and to outshine the rest in finery. This, though not very poetical, is the description of a poet. Beckman, in his history of inventions, paints it with more fidelity and emprows more pleasing than Cowley's poetry. He says, There are few plants which acquire through accident, weakness or disease, so many variations as the Chulip. When uncoldivated and in its natural state, it is almost of one colour, as large leaves and an extraordinarily long stem. When it has been weakened by cultivation, it becomes more agreeable in the eyes of the florist. The petals are then paler, smaller and more diversified in hue, and the leaves acquire a softer green colour. Thus this masterpiece of culture, the more beautiful it turns, grows so much the weaker, so that, with the greatest skill and most careful attention, it can scarcely be transplanted or even kept alive. Many persons grow insensibly attached to that which gives them a great deal of trouble, as a mother often loves her sick and ever-alien child better than her more healthy offspring. Upon the same principle, we must account for the unmerited incomnia lavished upon these fragile blossoms. In 1634, the rage among the Dutch to possess them was so great that the ordinary industry of the country was neglected and the population, even to its lowest regs, embarked in the tulip trade. As the mania increased, prices augmented until in the year 1635, many persons were known to invest a fortune of 100,000 florins in the purchase of 40 roots. It then became necessary to sell them by their weight in parrots, a small weight less than a grain. The tulip of the species, called Admiral Liefken, weighing 400 parrots, was worth 4,400 florins, and Admiral van der Eike, weighing 446 parrots, was worth 1,260 florins. A childer of 106 parrots was worth 1,615 florins, a viceroy of 400 parrots, 3,000 florins, and most precious of all, a Semper Augustus, weighing 200 parrots, was thought to be very cheap at 5,500 florins. The latter was much sought after, and even an inferior bulb might command a price of 2,000 florins. It is related that, at one time, early in 1636, there were only two roots of this description to be had in all Holland, and those not of the best. One was in the possession of a dealer in Amsterdam, and the other in Haarlem. So anxious were the speculators to obtain them that one person offered the fee simple of 12 acres of building ground for the Haarlem tulip. That of Amsterdam was brought for 4,600 florins, a new carriage, two grey horses, and a complete suit of harness. Hunting, an industrious author of that day, who wrote a folio volume of 1,000 pages upon the tulip mania, has preserved the folio wing list of the various articles and their value, which were delivered for one single root of the rare species called the viceroy. Two lasts of wheat, 448 florins, four lasts of rye, 558 florins, four fat oxen, 480 florins, eight fat swine, 240 florins, two hogsheads of wine, 70 florins, four tons of beer, 32 florins, two tons of butter, 192 florins, 1,000 pounds of cheese, 120 florins, a complete bed, 100 florins, a suit of clothes, 80 florins, a silver drinking cup, 60 florins, total 2,500 florins. People who had been absent from Holland and whose chance it was to return when this folly was at its maximum was sometimes led into awkward dilemmas by the ignorance. There is an amusing instance of the kind related in Blainville's travels. A wealthy merchant who prided himself not a little on his rare tulips received upon one occasion a very valuable consignment of merchandise from the Levant. Intelligence of its arrival was brought him by a sailor, who presented himself for that purpose at the counting house, among bails of goods of every description. The merchant, to reward him for his news, manifestantly made him a present of a fine red herring for his breakfast. The sailor had, it appears, a great partiality for onions. And seeing a bald very like an onion lying upon the counter of this liberal trader and thinking it no doubt very much out of its place among silks and velvets, he slightly seized an opportunity and slipped it into his pocket as a relish for his herring. He got clear off with his prize and proceeded to the key to eat his breakfast. Hardly was his back turned when the merchant missed his valuable Semper Augustus, worth 3,000 florins, or about 280 pound sterling. The whole establishment was instantly in an uproar. Search was everywhere made for the precious root, but it was not to be found. Great was the merchant's distress of mind. The search was renewed, but again without success. At last, someone thought of the sailor. The unhappy merchant sprang into the street at the bare suggestion. His alarmed household followed him. The sailor, simple soul, had not thought of concealment, who was found quietly sitting on a coil of ropes, masticating the last morsel of his onion. Little did he dream that he'd been eating a breakfast whose cost might have regaled a whole ship's crew for a twelve month, or as the plundered merchant himself expressed it, might have sumptuously feasted with the prince of Orange and the whole court of the standholder. Anthony caused pearls to be dissolved in wine to drink the health of Cleopatra. Sir Richard Whittington was as foolishly magnificent in an entertainment to King Henry V, and Sir Thomas Greshan drank a diamond dissolved in wine to the health of Queen Elizabeth when she opened the royal exchange. But the breakfast at this roguish Dutchman was as splendid as either. He had an advantage, too, over his wasteful predecessors. Their gems did not improve the taste or the wholesomeness of their wine, while his tulip was quite delicious with his red herring. The most unfortunate part of the business for him was that he remained in prison for some months on a charge of felony preferred against him by the merchant. Another story is told of an English traveller which is scarcely less ludicrous. This gentleman, an amateur botanist, happened to see a tulip root lying in the conservatory of a wealthy Dutchman. Being ignorant of its quality, he took out his penknife and peeled off its coats with the view of making experiments upon it. When it was by this means reduced to half its size, he cut it into two equal sections, making all the time many learned remarks on the singular appearances of the unknown bowl. Suddenly, the owner pounced upon him and with fury in his eyes, asked him if he knew what he had been doing. Peeling a most extraordinary onion, replied the philosopher. 100,000 duvels said the Dutchman. It's an Admiral van der Eich. Thank you, replied the traveller, taking out his notebook to make a memorandum of the same. Are these admirals common in your country? Death and the devil, said the Dutchman, seizing the astonished man of science by the collar. Come before the syndic and you shall see. In spite of his remonstrances, the traveller was led through the streets by a mob of persons. When brought into the presence of the magistrate, he learned to his consternation that the route upon which he had been experimentalising was worth 4,000 florins, and notwithstanding all he could urge in its denuation, he was lodged in prison until he found securities for the payment of this sum. The demand for tulips of a rare species increased so much in the year 1636 that regular marts for the sale were established on the stock exchange of Amsterdam in Rotterdam, Haarlem, Leiden, Alkmaar, Horn and other towns. Symptoms of gambling now became, for the first time, apparent. The stock-jobbers, ever on the alert for a new speculation, dealt largely in tulips, making use of all the means they so well knew how to employ to cause fluctuations in prices. At first, as in all these gambling mania, confidence was at its height, and everybody gained. The tulip-jobbers speculating in the rise and fall of the tulip stocks and made large profits by buying when prices fell and selling out when they rose. Many individuals grew suddenly rich. A golden bait hung tentingly out before the people, and one after the other, they rushed to the tulip marts, like flies around a honeypot. Everyone imagined that the passion for tulips would last forever, and that the wealthy from every part of the world would send to and pay whatever prices were asked for them. The riches of Europe would be concentrated on the shores of the Zundersee, and poverty banished from the favoured climate of Holland. Nobles, citizens, farmers, mechanics, seamen, footmen, maid servants, even chimney suites and old clotheswomen, dabbled in tulips. People of all grades converted their property into cash and invested it in flowers. Houses and lands were offered for sale at runously low prices, or limited payment of bargains made at the tulip mart. Foreigners became smitten with the same frenzy, and money poured into Holland from all directions. The prices of the necessities of life rose again by degrees. Houses and lands, horses and carriages, and luxuries of every sort rose in value with them. And for some months Holland seemed the very anti-chamber of Plutus. The operations of the trade became so extensive and so intricate that it was found necessary to draw up a code of laws for the guidance of the dealers. Notaries and clerks were also appointed who devoted themselves exclusively to the interests of the trade. The designation of public notary was hardly known in some towns, that of tulip notary usurping its place. In the smaller towns where there was no exchange, the principal tavern was usually selected as the show place, where high and low traded in tulips and confirmed their bargains over sumptuous entertainments. These dinners were sometimes attended by two or three hundred persons, and large vases of tulips in full bloom were placed at regular intervals upon the tables and sideboards for their gratification during the repast. At last however, the more prudent began to see that this folly could not last forever. Rich people no longer brought the flowers to keep them in the gardens, but to sell them again at a 3% profit. It was seen that somebody must lose fearfully in the end. As this conviction spread, prices fell and never rose again. Confidence was destroyed and a universal panic seized upon the dealers. A had agreed to purchase ten Semper Augustines from B at 4000 Florence each at six weeks after the signing of the contract, B was ready with the flowers at the appointed time, but the price had fallen to three or four hundred Florence, and A refused either to pay the difference or receive the tulips. Defaulters were announced day after day in all the towns of Holland. Hundreds who, a few months previously, had begun to doubt that there was such a thing as poverty in the land, suddenly found themselves the possessors of a few bulbs which nobody would buy, even though they offered them at one quarter of the sums they had paid for them. The cry of distress resounded everywhere and each man accused his neighbour. The few who had contrived to enrich themselves hid their wealth from the knowledge of their fellow citizens and invested it in the English or other funds. Many who, for a brief season, had emerged from the humbler walks of life, were cast back into their original obscurity. Substantial merchants were reduced almost to beggary, and many a representative of a noble line saw the fortunes of his house ruined beyond redemption. When the first alarm subsided, the tulip holders in the several towns held public meetings to devise what measures were best to be taken to restore public credit. It was generally agreed that deputies should be sent from all parts of Amsterdam to consult with the government upon some remedy for the evil. The government at first refused to interfere, but advised the tulip holders to agree to some plan among themselves. Several meetings were held for this purpose, but no measure could be devised likely to give satisfaction to the deluded people, or repair even a slight portion of the mischief that had been done. The language of complaint and reproach was in everybody's mouth, and all the meetings were of the most stormy character. At last, however, after much bickering and ill-will, it was agreed at Amsterdam by the assembled deputies that all contracts made in the height of the mania or prior to the month of November 1636 should be declared null and void and that, in those made after that date, purchasers should be freed from their engagements on paying 10% to the vendor. This decision gave no satisfaction. The vendors who had their tulips on hand were of course discontented, and those who had pledged themselves to purchase thought themselves hardly treated. Tulips which had, at one time, worth 6,000 Florence, were now to be procured for 500 so that the composition of 10% was 100 Florence more than the actual value. Actions for breach of contract were threatened in all the courts of the country, but the latter refused to take cognizance of gambling transactions. The matter was finally referred to the Provincial Council at the Hague, and it was confidently expected that the wisdom of this body would invent some measure by which credit should be restored. Expectation was on the stretch for its decision, but it never came. The members continued to deliberate week after week, and at last after thinking about it for 3 months declared that they could offer no final decision until they had more information. They advised however that in the meantime every vendor should, in the presence of witnesses offer the tulips in natura to the purchaser for the sums agreed upon. If the latter refused to take them, they might be put up for sale by public auction, and the original contractor held responsible for the difference between the actual and the stipulated price. This was exactly the plan recommended by the deputies, and which was already shown to be of no avail. There was no court in Holland which would enforce payment. The question was raised in Amsterdam that the judges unanimously refused to interfere. On the ground that debts contracted in gambling were no debts in law. Thus the matter rested. Defined remedy was beyond the power of the government. Those who were unlucky enough to have had stores of tulips on hand at the time of the sudden reaction were left to bear their ruin as philosophically as they could. Those who had made profits were allowed to keep them. But the commerce of the country suffered as severe shock, from which it was many years air it recovered. The example of the Dutch was imitated to some extent in England. In the year 1636 tulips were publicly sold in the exchange of London, and the jobbers exerted themselves to the utmost to raise them to the fictitious value they had acquired in Amsterdam. In Paris also the jobbers strove to create a tulipomania. In both cities they only partially succeeded. However the force of example brought the flowers into great favour, and amongst a certain class of people tulips have ever since been prized more highly than any other flowers of the field. The Dutch are still notorious for their partiality to them, and continue to pay higher prices for them than any other people. As the rich Englishman boasts of his fine race horses or his old pictures, so does the wealthy Dutchman vaunt him of his tulips. In England, in our day, strangers it may appear, the tulip will produce more money than an oak. If one could be found rara in terrace, and black as the black swan of juvenile its price would equal that of a dozen acres of standing corn. In Scotland, towards the close of the 17th century, the highest price for tulips, according to the authority of a writer in the supplement to the third edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, was ten guineas. Their value appears to have diminished from that time, till the year 1769 when the two most valuable species in England were the Don Quavedo and the Valentinia, the former of which was worth two guineas and the latter two guineas and a half. These prices appear to have been the minimum. In the year 1800, a common price was 15 guineas for a single bulb. In 1835 a bulb of the species called the Miss Fanny Kemble was sold by public auction in London for 75 pounds. Still more remarkable was the price of the tulip in the possession of a gardener in the King's Road, Chelsea. In his catalogs, it was labelled at 200 guineas. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4, Part 1 of Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Volume 1 by Charles McKay Chapter 4 The Alchemists or Searchers for the Philosopher's Stone in the Water of Life, Part 1 Mercury, Locatur The mischief a secret any of them know, above the consuming of coals and drawing of Yuscaba, howsoever they may pretend under the specious names of Gebber, Arnold, or Bombast of Hohenheim to commit miracles in art and treason against nature, as if the title of philosopher, that creature of glory were to be fetched out of a furnace. I am their crude and their sublimate, their precipitate in their unctions, their male and their female, sometimes their hermaphrodite, what they list to style me. They will cow-sign you a grave matron as it might be a mother of the maids and spring up a young virgin out of her ashes, as fresh as a phoenix. Lay you an old cordier on the coals like a sausage or a bloat herring and after they have broiled him enough blow a soul into him with a pair of bellows. See, they begin to muster again and draw their forces out against me. The genius of the place defend me. Ben Johnson's Mask Mercury, Vindicated from the Alchemists Disatisfaction with his lot seems to be the characteristic of man in all ages and climates. So far, however, from being an evil, as at first might be supposed, it has been the great civiliser of our race and has tended more than anything else to raise us above the condition of the brutes. But the same discontent which has been the source of all improvement has been the parent of no small progeny of follies and absurdities. To trace these latter is our present object. Vast as the subject appears, it is easily reducible within such limits as will make it comprehensible without being wearisome and render its study both instructive and amusing. Three causes especially have excited the discontent of mankind and by impelling us to seek for remedies for the irremediable have bewildered us in a maze of madness and error. These are death, toil, and ignorance of the future, the doom of man upon this sphere, and for which he shoes his antipathy by his love of life, his longing for abundance, and his craving curiosity to pierce the secrets of the days to come. The first has led many to imagine that they might find means to avoid death or failing in this that they might nevertheless so prolong existence as to reckon it by centuries instead of units. From this sprang the search so long continued and still pursued for the elixir vitae or water of life which has led thousands to pretend to it and millions to believe in it. From the second sprang the search for the philosopher's stone which was to create plenty by changing all metals into gold, and from third, the false sciences of astrology, divination, and their divisions of necromancy, chyromancy, augury, with all their train of signs, portents, and omens. In tracing the career of the airing philosophers, or the willful cheats who have encouraged or prayed upon the credulity of mankind, it will simplify and elucidate the subject if we divide it into three classes. The first comprising alchemists are those in general who have devoted themselves to the suffering of the philosopher's stone and the water of life. The second comprising astrologers, necromancers, sorcerers, geomancers, and all those who pretended to discover futurity. And the third consisting in the dealers in charms, amulets, filters, universal panacea mongers, touchers for the evil, seventh sons of a seventh son, sympathetic powder compounders, homeopaths, animal magnetizers, and all the motley tribe of quacks, empirics, and charlatans. But in narrating the career of such men it will be found that many of them united several or all of the functions just mentioned that the alchemist was a fortune teller or a necromancer, that he pretended to cure all maladies by touch or charm and to work miracles of every kind. In the dark and early ages of European history this is more especially the case. Even as we advance to more recent periods we shall find great difficulty in separating the characters. The alchemist seldom confined himself strictly to his pretended science, the sorcerer and necromancer to theirs, or the medical charlatan to his. Beginning with alchemy some confusion of these classes is unavoidable, but the ground will clear for us as we advance. Let us not in the pride of our superior knowledge turn with contempt from the follies of our predecessors. The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive. As the man looks back to the days of his childhood and his youth and recalls to his mind the strange notions and false opinions that swayed his actions at that time, that he may wonder at them. So should society, for its edification, look back to the opinions which govern the ages fled. He is but a superficial thinker who would despise and refuse to hear of them merely because they are absurd. No man is so wise, but that he may learn some wisdom from his past errors, either of thought or action, and society has made such advances as to be capable of no improvement from the retrospect of its past folly and credulity. And not only is such a study instructive, he who reads for amusement only will find no chapter in the annals of the human mind more amusing than this. It opens out the whole realm of fiction, the wild, the fantastic, and the wonderful, and all the immense variety of things that are not and cannot be, but that have been imagined and believed. For more than a thousand years the art of alchemy captivated many noble spirits and was believed in by millions. Its origin is involved in obscurity. Some of its devotees have claimed for it an antiquity covalent with the creation of man himself. Others, again, would trace it no further back than the time of Noah. Vincent de Beauvais argues, indeed, that all the antediluvians must have possessed a knowledge of alchemy, and particularly cites Noah as having been acquainted with the elixir vitae, or he could not have lived to so prodigious an age and have begotten children when upwards of five hundred. L'englais du Fresnoi in his History of the Hermetic Philosophy says, most of them pretended that Shem, or Chem, the son of Noah, was an adept in the art, and thought it highly probable that the words chemistry and alchemy are both derived from his name. Others say the art was derived from the Egyptians, amongst whom it was first founded by Hermes Magistus. Moses, who is looked upon as a first-rate alchemist, gained his knowledge in Egypt, but he kept it all to himself and would not instruct the children of Israel in its mysteries. All the writers upon alchemy triumphantly cite the story of the golden calf in the 32nd Chapter of Exodus to prove that this great law-giver was an adept and could make or unmake gold at his pleasure. It is recorded that Moses was so wrathed with the Israelites for their idolatry that the calf which they had made, and burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink it. This, say the alchemist, he never could have done had he not been in possession of the philosopher's stone. By no other means could he have made the powder of gold float upon the water. But we must leave this naughty point for the consideration of the adepts in the art, if any such there be, and come to more of it. Father Martini, in his Historia Sinica, says it was practiced by the Chinese 2,500 years before the birth of Christ, but his assertion being unsupported is worth nothing. It would appear, however, that pretenders to the art of making gold and silver existed in Rome in the first centuries after the Christian era, and that when discovered they were liable to punishment as naves and imposters. At Constantinople in the fourth century it was very generally believed in, and many of the Greek ecclesiastics wrote treatises upon the subject. Their names are preserved and some notice of their works given in the third volume of Langlais du Fresnois' History of the Hermetic Philosophy. Their notion appears to have been that all metals were composed of two substances, the one metallic earth and the other a red inflammable matter which they called sulfur. The pure union of metals were mixed with and contaminated by various foreign ingredients. The object of the philosopher's stone was to dissolve or neutralize all these ingredients by which iron, lead, copper, and all metals would be transmuted into the original gold. Many learned and clever men wasted their time, their health and their energies in this vain pursuit, but for several centuries it took no great hold upon the imagination of the people. The history of the philosophers in a manner lost from this time to the eighth century when it appeared amongst the Arabians. From this period it becomes easier to trace its progress. A master then appeared, who was long looked upon as the father of the science and whose name is indissolubly connected with it. Geber. Of this philosopher who devoted his life to the study of alchemy, but few particulars are known. He is thought to have lived in the year 730. His true name was Abu Musa Musa Jafar, to which was added al-Sofi or the wise, and he was born at Huron in Mesopotamia. Some have thought he was a Greek, others a Spaniard, and others a prince of Hindustan. But of all the mistakes which have been made respecting him, the most ludicrous was that made by the French translator of Sprenger's history of medicine who thought from the sound of his name that he was a German, and rendered it as the Donatur or no details of his life are known. But it is asserted that he wrote more than five hundred works upon the philosopher's stone and the water of life. He was a great enthusiast in his art and compared the incredulous to little children shot up in a narrow room, without windows or aperture, who, because they saw nothing beyond, denied the existence of the great globe itself. He thought that a preparation of gold would cure all maladies, not only in man, but in the inferior animals and plants. He also imagined that all metals labored under disease, with the exception of gold, which was the only one in perfect health. He affirmed that the secret of the philosopher's stone had been more than once discovered, but that the ancient and wise men who had hid upon it would never, by word or writing, communicate it to men because of their unworthiness and incredulity. His sum of perfection or instructions in the laborious search for the stone and elixir has been translated into most of the languages of Europe. An English translation by a great enthusiast in alchemy, one Richard Russell, was published in London in 1686. The preface is dated eight years previously from the house of the alchemist at the Starr in Newmarket in Wapping, near the dock. His design in undertaking the translation was, as he informs us, to expose the false pretenses of the ignorant pretenders to the science who abounded in his day. End footnote. But the life of Geber, though spent in the pursuit of this vain chimera, was not altogether useless. He stumbled upon discoveries which he did not seek, and science is indebted to him for the first mention of corrosive sublimate, the red oxide of mercury, nitric acid, and the nitrate of silver. For more than two hundred years after the death of Geber, the Arabian philosophers devoted themselves to the study of alchemy, joining with it that of astrology. Of these the most celebrated was Al-Farabi. Al-Farabi flourished at the commencement of the tenth century and enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most learned men of his age. He spent his life in travelling from country to country, that he might gather the opinions of philosophers upon the great secrets of nature. No danger dismayed him. No toil wearied him of the pursuit. Many sovereigns endeavored to retain him at their courts, but he refused to rest until he had discovered the great object of his life, the art of preserving it for centuries and of making gold as much as he needed. This wandering mode of life at last proved fatal to him. He had been on a visit to Mecca, not so much for religious as for philosophical purposes. When returning through Syria he stopped at the court of the sultan Sifit Duley, who was renowned as the patron of learning. He presented himself in his travelling attire in the presence of that monarch in his courtiers, and without invitation Cooley set himself down on the sofa beside the prince. The courtiers and wise men were indignant and the sultan, who did not know the intruder, was at first inclined to follow their example. He turned to one of his officers and ordered him to eject the presumptuous stranger from the room. But Al-Farabi, without moving, went upon him and, turning himself calmly to the prince, remarked that he did not know who was his guest or he would treat him with honour not with violence. The sultan, instead of being still further incensed as many potentates would have been, admired his coolness and, requesting him to sit still closer to him on the sofa, entered into a long conversation with him upon science and divine philosophy. All the court were charmed with the stranger. After discussion were propounded, on all of which he should superior knowledge, he convinced everyone who ventured to dispute with him and spoke so eloquently upon the science of alchemy that he was at once recognised as only second to the great geber himself. One of the doctors present inquired whether a man who knew so many sciences was acquainted with music. Al-Farabi made no reply, but merely requested that a lute should be brought to him. And he played such ravishing and tender melodies that all the court were melted into tears. He then changed his theme and played air so sprightly that he set the grave philosophers sultan and all dancing as fast as their legs could carry them. He then sobered them again by a mournful strain and made them sob and sigh as if broken-hearted. The sultan, highly delighted with his powers and treated him to stay, offering him every inducement that wealth power and dignity could supply, but the alchemist resolutely refused. It being decreed, he said, that he should never repose till he had discovered the philosopher s tone. He set out accordingly the same evening and was murdered by some thieves in the deserts of Syria. His biographers give no further particulars of his life, beyond mentioning that he wrote several valuable treatises on his art, all of which, however, have been lost. His death happened in the year 1984. Avicenna, whose real name was Ebensinna, another great alchemist, was born at Bacchara in 980. His reputation as a physician and a man skilled in all sciences was so great that the sultan Magdal Duleth resolved to try his powers in the great science of government. He was accordingly made grand vizier of that prince and ruled the state with some advantage, but in a science still more difficult he failed completely. He could not rule his own passions, but gave himself up to wine and women and led a life of shameless debauchery. Amid the multifarious pursuits of business and pleasure he nevertheless found time to write seven treatises upon the philosopher s tone, which were for many ages looked upon as of great value by pretenders to the art. It is rare that an eminent physician as Avicenna appears to have been abandons himself to central gratification, but so completely did he become enthralled in the course of a few years that he was dismissed from his high office and died shortly afterwards of premature old age and a complication of maladies brought on by debauchery. His death took place in the year 1036. After his time few philosophers of any note in Arabia are heard of as devoting themselves to the study of alchemy, but it began shortly afterwards to attract greater attention in Europe. Learned men in France, England, Spain, and Italy expressed their belief in the science, and many devoted their whole energies to it. In the 12th and 13th centuries especially it was extensively pursued, and some of the brightest names of that age are connected with it. Among the most eminent of them are Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. The first of these philosophers was born in the year 1193 of a noble family at Longan Duchy of Newburgh on the Danube. For the first thirty years of his life he appeared remarkably dull and stupid and it was feared by everyone that no good could come of him. He entered a Dominican monastery at an early age, but made so little progress in his studies that he was more than once upon the point of abandoning them in despair. But he was endowed with extraordinary perseverance. As he advanced to middle age his mind expanded and he learned whatever he applied himself to his dream facility. So remarkable a change was not in that age to be accounted for but by a miracle. It was asserted and believed that the Holy Virgin, touched with his great desire to become learned and famous, took pity upon his incapacity and appeared to him in the cloister where he sat almost despairing and asked him whether he wished to excel in philosophy or divinity. He chose philosophy to the chagrin of the Virgin who reproached him in mild and sorrowful accents that he had not made a better choice. She, however, granted his request that he should become the most excellent philosopher of the age but set this drawback to his pleasure that he should relapse when at the height of his fame into his former incapacity and stupidity. Albertus never took the trouble to contradict the story but prosecuted his studies with such unremitting zeal that his reputation speedily spread over all Europe. In the year 1244 the celebrated Thomas Aquinas placed himself under his tuition. Many extraordinary stories are told of the master and his pupil. While they paid all due attention to other branches of science they never neglected the pursuit of the philosopher's stone and the elixir vitae. Although they discovered neither it was believed that Albert had seized some portion of the secret of life and found means to animate a brazen statue upon the formation of which under proper injunctions of the planets he had been occupied many years of his life. He and Thomas Aquinas completed it together and doubted with the faculty of speech and made it perform the functions of a domestic servant. In this capacity it was exceedingly useful but through some defect in the machinery it chattered much more than was agreeable to either philosopher. Various remedies were tried to cure it of its gorility but in vain and one day Thomas Aquinas got enraged at the noise it made when he was in the midst of a mathematical problem that he seized a ponderous hammer and smashed it to pieces. He was sorry afterwards for what he had done and was reproved by his master for giving way to his anger so unbecoming in a philosopher. They made no attempt to reanimate the statue. Such stories as these show the spirit of the age. Every great man who attempted to study the secrets of nature was thought a magician and it is not to be wondered at that when philosophers themselves pretended to discover an elixir for conferring immortality or a red stone which was to create boundless wealth that popular opinion should have enhanced upon their pretensions and have endowed them with powers still more miraculous. It was believed of Albertus Magnus that he could even change the course of the seasons a feat which the many thought less difficult than the discovery of the grand elixir. Albertus was desirous of attaining a piece of ground on which to build a monastery in a neighborhood of Cologne. The ground belonged to William Count of Holland and King of the Romans who for some reason or other did not wish to part with it. Albertus is reported to have gained it by the following extraordinary method. He invited the prince as he was passing through Cologne to a magnificent entertainment prepared for him in all his court. The prince accepted it and reportedly retinued to the residence of the sage. It was in the midst of winter the rind was frozen over and the cold was so bitter that the knights could not sit on horseback without running the risk of losing their toes by the frost. Great, therefore, was their surprise on arriving at Albertus' house to find that the repast was spread in his garden in which the snow had drifted to the depth of several feet. The earl and high dudgeon remounted his steed upon him to take his seat at the table. He had no sooner done so than the dark clouds rolled away from the sky, a warm sun shone forth. The cold north wind veered suddenly round and blew a mild breeze from the south. The snows melted away, the ice was unbound upon the streams, and the trees brought forth their green leaves and their fruit. Flowers sprang up beneath their feet while larks, nightingales, blackbirds, cuckoos, thrushes, and every sweet songbird sang hymns from every tree. The earl and his attendants wondered greatly, but they ate their dinner, and in recompense for it Albert got his piece of ground to build a convent on. He had not, however, shown them all his power. Immediately that the repast was over he gave the word, and dark clouds obscured the sun, the snow fell in large flakes, the singing birds fell dead, the leaves dropped from the trees, and the winds blew so cold and howled so mournfully that the guests wrapped themselves up in their thick cloaks and retreated into the house to warm themselves at the blazing fire in Albert's kitchen. Thomas Aquinas could also work wonders as well as his master. It is related of him that he lodged in a street at Cologne where he was much annoyed by the incessant clatter made by the horse's hoofs as they were led through it daily to exercise by their grooms. He had entreated the latter to select some other spot where they might not hear, but the grooms turned a deaf ear to all his solicitations. In this emergency he had recourse to the aid of magic. He constructed a small horse of bronze upon which he inscribed certain cabalistic characters, and buried it at midnight in the midst of the highway. The next morning a troop of grooms came riding along as usual, but the horses, as they arrived at the spot where the magic horse was buried, reared and plunged violently, their nostrils distended with terror, their mains grew erect, and the perspiration ran down their sides in streams. In vain the riders applied the spur. In vain they coaxed or threatened. The animals would not pass the spot. On the following day their success was no better. They were at length compelled to seek another spot for their exercise, and Thomas Aquinas was left in peace. Albertus Magnus was made bishop of Radispan in 1259, but he occupied this sea only when he resigned, on the ground that its duties occupied too much of the time which he was anxious to devote to philosophy. He died in Cologne in 1280, at the advanced age of 87. The Dominican riders deny that he ever sought the philosopher's stone, but his treatise upon minerals sufficiently proves that he did. Artefius. Artefius, a name noted in the annals of alchemy, was born in the early part of the 12th century. He wrote two famous treatises, the one upon the philosopher's stone and the other on the art of prolonging human life. In the latter he wants his great qualifications for instructing mankind on such a matter as he was at that time in the 1025th year of his age. He had many disciples who believed in his extreme age, and who attempted to prove that he was Apollonius of Taiana, who lived soon after the advent of Jesus Christ, and the particulars of whose life and pretended miracles have been so fully described by Philistratus. He took care never to contradict a story which so much increased the power he was desirous of wielding over his fellow mortals. On all convenient occasions he boasted of it, and having an excellent memory, a fertile imagination, and a thorough knowledge of all existing history, he was never at a loss for an answer when questioned as to the personal appearance, the manners, or the character of the great men of antiquity. He also pretended to have found a stone, and said that, in search of it, he had descended to hell and seen the devil sitting on a throne of gold, with a legion of imps and fiends around him. His works on alchemy have been translated into French, and were published in Paris in 1609 or 1610. Elaine de Lille Contemporary with Albert's Magnus was Elaine de Lille of Flanders, who was named from his great learning the universal doctor. He was taught to possess knowledge of all the sciences, and like Artefius, to have discovered the elixir vitae. He became one of the friars of the Abbey of Citeau, and died in 1298, aged about 110 years. It was said of him that he was at the point of death when in his fiftieth year, but that the fortunate discovery of the elixir enabled him to add sixty years to his existence. He wrote a commentary on the prophecies of Merlin. Arnold de Villeneuve This philosopher has left a much greater reputation. He was born in the year 1245, and studied medicine with great success in the University of Paris. He afterwards traveled for twenty years in Italy and Germany, where he made acquaintance with Pietro de Pón, a man of a character akin to his own, and addicted to the same pursuits. As a physician he was taught in his own lifetime to be the most able the world had ever seen. Like all the learned men of that day he dabbled in astrology and alchemy, and was thought to have made immense quantities of gold from lead and copper. When Pietro de Pón was arrested in Italy, and brought to trial as a sorcerer, a similar accusation was made against Arnold, but he managed to leave the country in time and escape the fate of his unfortunate friend. He lost some credit by predicting the end of the world, but afterwards regained it. The time of his death is not exactly known, but it must have been prior to the year 1311 when Pope Clement V wrote a circular letter to all the clergy of Europe who lived under his obedience, praying them to use their utmost efforts to discover the famous treatise of Arnold on the practice of medicine. The author had promised during his lifetime to make a present of the work to the Holy See, but died without fulfilling it. In a very curious work by M. Longville Arcue, entitled The History of the Persons who have lived several centuries and then grown young again, there is a receipt said to have been given by Arnold de Villeneuve by means of which anyone might prolong his life for a few hundred years or so. In the first place, say Arnold and M. Arcue, the person intending so to prolong his life must rub himself well two or three times a week with the juice or marrow of Cassia, Moëlle de Lacasse. Every night upon going to bed he must put a caster, composed of a certain quantity of oriental saffron, red rose leaves, sandalwood, aloes and amber, liquefied in oil of roses and the best white wax. In the morning he must take it off and enclose it carefully in a leaden box till the next night when it must be again applied. If he be of sanguine temperament he shall take sixteen chickens, if phlegmatic twenty-five, and if melancholy thirty, which he shall put apart where the air and the water are pure. Upon these he is to feed, eating one a day, but previously the chickens are to be fattened by a peculiar method which will impregnate their flesh with the qualities that are to produce longevity in the eater. Being deprived of all other nourishment till they are almost dying of hunger, they are to be fed upon broth made of serpents and vinegar, which broth is to be thickened with wheat and bran. Various ceremonies are to be performed in the cooking of this mess, which those may see in the book of Mishir Harquay, who are at all interested in the matter. And the chickens are to be fed upon it for two months. They are then fit for table, and are to be washed down with moderate quantities of good white wine or claret. This regimen is to be followed regularly every seven years, and anyone may live to be as old as Methuselah. It is right to state that Mishir Harquay has but little authority for attributing this precious composition to Arnold of Villeneuve. It is not found in the collected works of that philosopher, but was first brought to light by Mishir Harquay at the commencement of the sixteenth century, who asserted that he had discovered it in manuscript in the undoubted writing of Arnold. The Alchemists Part II Pietro D'Apone This unlucky sage was born at Apone near Padua in the year 1250. Like his friend Arnold de Villeneuve, he was an eminent physician and a pretender to the arts of astrology and alchemy. The Alchemist Part II Pietro D'Apone This unlucky sage was born at Apone near Padua in the year 1250 to the arts of astrology and alchemy. He practiced for many years in Paris and made great wealth by killing and curing and telling fortunes. In an evil day for him he returned to his own country with the reputation of being a magician of the First Order. It was universally believed that he had drawn seven evil spirits from the infernal regions whom he kept enclosed in seven crystal vases until he required their services when he sent them forth to the ends of the earth to execute his pleasure. One spirit excelled in philosophy, a second in alchemy, a third in astrology, a fourth in physics, a fifth in poetry, a sixth in music and the seventh in painting. And whenever Pietro wished for information or instruction in any of these arts he had only to go to his crystal vase and liberate the presiding spirit. Immediately all the secrets of the art were revealed to him and he might, if it pleased him, excel Homer in poetry, in painting, or Pythagoras himself in philosophy. Although he could make gold out of brass it was said of him that he was very sparing of his powers in that respect and kept himself constantly supplied with money by other and less credible means. Whenever he dispersed gold he muttered a certain charm, not only to himself, and next morning the gold was safe again in his own possession. The trader to whom he gave it might lock it in his strongbox and have it guarded by a troop of soldiers but the charmed metal flew back to its old master. Even if it were buried in the earth or thrown into the sea the dawn of the next morning would behold it in the pockets of Pietro. Few people in consequence like to have dealings with such a personage especially for gold. Some, bolder than the rest, thought that his power did not extend over silver but when they made the experiment they found themselves mistaken. Bolts and bars could not restrain it and it sometimes became invisible in their very hands and was whisked through the air to the purse of the magician. He necessarily acquired a very bad character and having given utterance to some sentiments regarding religion which were the very reverse of orthodox he was summoned before the tribunals of the Inquisition to answer for his crimes as a heretic and a sorcerer. He loudly protested his innocence even upon the rack where he suffered more torture than nature could support. He died in prison when the trial was concluded but was afterwards found guilty. His bones were ordered to be dug up and publicly burned. He was also burned in effigy in the streets of Padua. Raymond Luley While Arnold de Villeneuve and Pietro d'Apone flourished in France and Italy a more celebrated adept than either appeared in Spain. This was Raymond Luley, a name which stands in the first rank among alchemists. Unlike many of his predecessors he was of great decimacy but taking gibber for his model studied intently the nature and composition of metals without reference to charms and contagions or any foolish ceremonies. It was not however till late in life that he commenced his study of the art. His early and middle age were spent in a different manner and his whole history is romantic in the extreme. He was born in an illustrious family in Mallorca in the year 1235 when that island was taken from the Saracens king of Aragon in 1230 the father of Raymond who was originally of Catalonia settled there and received a considerable appointment from the crown. Raymond married at an early age and being fond of pleasure he left the solitudes of his native isle and passed over with his bride into Spain. He was made Grand Santa Scala at the court of King James and led a gay life for several years. Faithless to his wife he was always in the pursuit of some new beauty till his heart was fixed at last by the lovely but unkind Ambrosia de Castello. This lady, like her admirer, was married but unlike him was faithful to her vows and treated all his solicitations with disdain. Raymond was so enamoured that repulse only increased his flame. He lingered all night under her windows wrote passionate verses in her praise neglected his affairs and made himself the butt of all the courtiers. One day while watching under her lattice he by chance caught sight of her bosom as her neckachiff was blown aside by the wind. The fit of inspiration came over him and he sat down and composed some tender stanzas upon the subject and sent them to the lady. The fair Ambrosia had never before condescended to answer his letters but she replied to this. She told him that she could never listen to his suit that it was unbecoming in a wise man to fix his thoughts as he had done on any other than his god and entreated him to devote himself to her religious life and conquer the unworthy passion which he had suffered to consume him. She however offered, if he wished it, to show him the fair bosom which had so captivated him. Raymond was delighted. He thought the latter part of this epistle but ill-corresponded with the former and that Ambrosia, in spite of the good advice she gave him, had at last relented and would make him as happy as he desired. In treating her to fulfill her promise but still Ambrosia was cold and implored him with tears to importune her no longer for that she never could be his and never would if she were free tomorrow. What means your letter then? said the despairing lover. I will show you, replied Ambrosia who immediately uncovered her bosom and exposed to the eyes of her horror-stricken admirer a large cancer which had extended to both breasts. After Ambrosia had left and extending her hand to him she prayed him once more to lead a religious life and set his heart upon the creator and not upon the creature. He went home an altered man. He threw up on the morrow his valuable appointment at the court separated from his wife and took a farewell of his children after dividing one half of his ample fortune among them. The other half he shared among the poor. Ambrosia had vowed as the most acceptable atonement for his errors that he would employ the remainder of his days in the task of converting the muscle-men to the Christian religion. In his dream he saw Jesus Christ who said to him Raymond, Raymond, follow me the vision was three times repeated and Raymond was convinced that it was an intimation direct from heaven. Having put his affairs in order he set out on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostello where Jesus lived for ten years in solitude amid the mountains of Aranda. Here he learned the Arabic to qualify himself for his mission of converting the Mohammedans. He also studied various sciences as taught in the works of the learned men of the East and first made acquaintance with the writings of Geber which were destined to exercise so much influence over his future life. At the end of this probation and when he had entered his fortieth year he emerged from his solitude into more active life. As some remains of his fortune which had accumulated during his retirement he founded a college for the study of Arabic which was approved of by the Pope with many commendations upon his zeal and piety. At this time he narrowly escaped assassination from an Arabian youth whom he had taken into his service. Raymond prayed to God in some of his excesses of fanaticism that he might suffer martyrdom in his holy cause. His servant had overheard him and being as great a fanatic as his master he resolved to gratify his wish and punish him at the same time for the curses which he incessantly launched against Mohammed and all who believed in him by stabbing him to the heart. He therefore aimed a blow at his master as he sat one day at table but the instinct of self-preservation being stronger than the desire of martyrdom Raymond grappled with his antagonist and overthrew him. He scorned to take his life himself but handed him over to the authorities of the town by whom he was afterwards found dead in his prison. After this adventure Raymond traveled to Paris where he resided for some time and made the acquaintance of Arnold de Villeneuve. From him he probably received some encouragement to search for the philosopher's stone as he began from that time forth to devote less of his attention to religious matters and more to the study of alchemy. Still he never lost sight of the great object for which he lived the conversion of the Mohammedans and proceeded to Rome to communicate personally with Pope John XXI on the best measures to be adopted for that end. The Pope gave him encouragement in words but failed to associate any other persons with him in the enterprise which he meditated. Raymond therefore set out for Tunis alone and was kindly received by many Arabian philosophers who had heard of his fame as a professor of alchemy. If he had stuck to alchemy while in their country it would have been well for him but he began cursing Mohammed and got himself into trouble with Christianity in the great bazaar of Tunis. He was arrested and thrown into prison. He was shortly afterwards brought to trial and sentenced to death. Some of his philosophic friends interceded hard for him and he was pardoned upon condition that he left Africa immediately and never again set foot in it. If he was found there again no matter what his object might be or whatever length of time might intervene his original sentence would be carried into execution. Raymond was not at all solicitous of martyrdom when it came to the point whatever he might have been when there was no danger and he gladly accepted his life upon these conditions and left Tunis with the intention of proceeding to Rome. He afterwards changed his plan and established himself at Milan where for a length of time he practiced alchemy and some say astrology with great success. Many writers who believed in the secrets of alchemy and who have noticed the life of Raymond Lully assert that while in Milan there were letters from Edward King of England inviting him to settle in his states they add that Lully gladly accepted the invitation and had apartments assigned for his use in the Tower of London where he refined much gold superintended the coinage of rose nobles and made gold out of iron quicksilver, lead and pewter to the amount of six millions. The writers in the bibliography Univercel, an excellent authority in general deny that Raymond was ever in England and say that in all these stories of his wondrous powers as an alchemist he has been mistaken for another Raymond, a Jew of Tarragona. Noday in his Apology says simply that six millions were given by Raymond Lully to King Edward to make war against the Turks and other infidels. Not that he transmuted so much metal into gold but as he afterwards adds that he advised Edward to lay attacks upon wool which produced that amount to show that Raymond went to England his admirers quote a work attributed to him the Transmutationi anime Metallorum in which he expressly says that he was in England at the intercession of the king. The Hermetic writers are not agreed whether it was Edward I or Edward II who invited him over but by fixing the date of his journey in 1312 they make it appear that it was Edward II. Edmund Dickinson in his work on the quintessences of the philosophers says that Raymond worked in Westminster Abbey where a long time after his departure there was found in the cell which he had occupied a great quantity of gold and dust of which the architects made a great profit. In the biographical sketch of John Kremmer Abbot of Westminster given by Lenglet it is said that it was chiefly among his instrumentality that Raymond came to England. Kremmer had been himself for 30 years occupied in the vain search for the philosopher's stone when he accidentally met Raymond in Italy an endeavour to induce him to communicate his grand secret. Raymond told him that he must find it for himself as all great alchemists had done before him. Kremmer on his return to England spoke to King Edward in high terms of the wonderful attainments of the philosopher and a letter of invitation was forthwith sent him. Robert Constantinus in the nomenclator scriptorum mediocrum published in 1515 says that after a great deal of research he found that Raymond Lully resided for some time in London and that he actually made gold in the means of the philosopher's stone in the tower. That he had seen the golden pieces of his coinage which were still named in England the nobles of Raymond or rose nobles. Lully himself appears to have boasted that he made gold for in his well known testamentum he states that he converted no less than 50,000 pounds weight of quicksilver lead and pewter into that metal. It seems highly probable that the English king believing in the extraordinary powers of the alchemist and that he was employed in refining gold and in coining. Camden, who is not credulous in matters like these affords his countenance to the story of his coinage of nobles and there is nothing at all wonderful in the fact of a man famous for his knowledge of metals being employed in such a capacity. Raymond was at this time an old man in his 77th year and somewhat in his dotage. He was willing enough to have it believed that he had discovered the grand secret and supported the rumour rather than contradicted it. He did not long remain in England but returned to Rome to carry out the projects which were nearer to his heart than the profession of alchemy. He had proposed them to several successive popes with little or no success. The first was a plan for the introduction of the Oriental languages into all monasteries of Europe. The second for the reduction into one of all the military orders that being united they might move more efficaciously against the Saracens and the third that the sovereign pontiff forbid the works of Averroes to be read in the schools as being more favourable to Mohammedanism than to Christianity. The pope did not receive the old man with much cordiality and after remaining for about two years in Rome he proceeded once more to Africa alone and unprotected to preach the gospel of Jesus. He landed at Bona in 1314 and so irritated the Mohammedans by cursing their prophet that they stoned him and found some hours afterward by a party of Genoese merchants who conveyed him on board their vessel and sailed toward Mallorca. The unfortunate man still breathed but could not articulate. He lingered in this state for some days and expired just as the vessel arrived within sight of his native shores. His body was conveyed with great pomp to the church of St. Ulela at Palma where a public funeral was instituted in his honour. Miracles were afterwards said to have been worked and ended the career of Raymond Lully one of the most extraordinary men of his age and with the exception of his last boss about the six millions of gold the least inclined to quackery of any of the professors of alchemy. His writings were very numerous and include nearly 500 volumes upon grammar, rhetoric, morals, theology, politics, civil and canon law, physics, metaphysics, astronomy, medicine and chemistry. Roger Bacon His vision of alchemy seized upon a mind still greater than that of Raymond Lully. Roger Bacon firmly believed in the philosopher's stone and spent much of his time in search of it. His example helped to render all the learned men of the time more convinced of his practicability and more eager in the pursuit. He was born at Ilchester in the county of Somerset in the year 1214. He studied for some time in the University of Oxford and afterwards in that of Paris in which he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Returning to England in 1240 he became a monk of the Order of St. Francis. He was by far the most learned man of his age and his acquirements were so much above the comprehension of his contemporaries that they could only account for them by supposing that he was indebted for them to the devil. Voltaire has not in aptly designated him de l'or accorté de toutes les ordures de son siècle. But the crust of the superstition that enveloped his powerful mind though it may have dimmed did not obscure the brightness of his genius. To him and apparently to him only among all the inquiring spirits of the time were known the properties of the concave and convex lens. He also invented the magic lantern that pretty plaything of modern days which acquired for him a reputation that embittered his life. In a history of alchemy the name of this great man cannot be omitted although unlike many others of whom we shall have occasion to speak he only made it secondary to other pursuits. The love of universal knowledge that filled his mind would not allow him to neglect one branch of science of which neither he nor the world could yet see the absurdity. He made ample amends for his time lost in this pursuit by his knowledge in physics and his acquaintance with astronomy. The telescope, burning lenses and gunpowder are discoveries which may well carry his fame to the remotest time and make the world blind to the one spot of folly the diagnosis of the age in which he lived and the circumstances by which he was surrounded. His treatise on the admirable power of art and nature in the production of the Philosopher's Stone was translated into French by Gerard de Torne and published at Lyon in 1557. His Mirror of Alchemy was also published in French in the same year and in Paris in 1612 with some additions from the works of Raymond Lully. A complete list of all the published treatises upon the subject may be seen in L'Englès de Fresnois. Pope John XXII This prelate is said to have been the friend and pupil of Arnold de Villeneuve by whom he was instructed in all the secrets of alchemy. Tradition asserts of him that he made great quantities of gold and died as rich as Crises. He was born at Cahour in the province of Guyane in the year 1244. He was a very eloquent preacher and soon reached high dignity in the church. He wrote a work on the Transmentation of Metals and had a famous laboratory at Avignon. He issued two bulls against the numerous pretenders to the art, who had sprung up in every part of Christendom, from which it might be inferred that he was himself free from the delusion. The alchemists claim him however, as one of the most distinguished and successful professors of their art, and say that his bulls were not directed against the real adepts but the false pretenders. They lay particular stress upon these words in his bull. These, it is clear, they say, relate only to poor alchemists and therefore false ones. He died in the year 1344 leaving in his coffers a sum of 18 millions of Florence. Popular belief alleged that he had made and not amassed this treasure. And alchemists complacently cite this as a proof that the philosopher Ston was not such a chimera as the incredulous pretended. They take it for granted that John really left this money and asked by what possible reasons he could have accumulated it. Replying to their own question, they say triumphantly, his book shows it was by Alchemy, the secrets of which he learned from Arnold de Vilnius and Raymond Lully, but he was as prudent as all other Hermetic philosophers. Whoever would read his book to find out his secret would employ all his labor in vain. The Pope took good care not to divulge it. Unluckily for their own credit all these gold-makers are in the same predicament. Their great secret loses its worth wonderfully in the telling, and therefore they keep it snugly to themselves. Perhaps they thought that if everybody could transmute metals gold would be so plentiful that it would be no longer valuable, and that some new art would be requisite to transmute it back again into steel and iron. If so, society is much indebted to them for their forbearance. Jean de Mioen. All classes of men dabbled in the art at this time. The last mention was a Pope, the one of whom we now speak, was a poet. Jean de Mioen, the celebrated author of the Romande de la Rose, was born in the year 1279 or 1280 and was a great personage at the courts of Louis X, Philip de Long, Charles IV and Philip de Valois. His famous poem of the Romande de la Rose, which treats of every subject in vogue at that day necessarily makes great mention of alchemy. Jean was a firm believer in the art and wrote, besides his roman, two shorter poems, one entitled, The Remonstrance of Nature to the Wandering Alchemist and The Reply of the Alchemist to Nature. Poetry and alchemy were his delight, and priests and women were his abomination. A pleasant story is related of him and the ladies of the court of Charles IV. He had written the following libelous couplet upon the fair sex. Footnote. These verses are but a coarser expression of the slanderous line of pope, that every woman is at heart a rake. This naturally gave great offence and being perceived one day in the king's antechamber by some ladies who were waiting for an audience, they resolved to punish him. To the number of ten or twelve they armed themselves with canes and rods, and surrounding the unlucky poet, called upon him, to the number of ten or twelve they armed themselves with canes and surrounding the unlucky poet, called upon the gentleman present to strip him naked, that they might wreak just vengeance upon him and lash him through the streets of the town. Some of the lords present were in no wise loathe and promised themselves great sport from his punishment, but Jean de Mion was unmoved by their threats and stood up calmly in the midst of them, begging them to hear him first, and then, if not satisfied, they might do as they liked with him. Silence being restored he stood upon a chair on his defense. He acknowledged that he was the author of the obnoxious verses, but denied that they bore reference to all womankind. He only meant to speak of the vicious and abandoned, whereas those whom he saw around him were patterns of virtue, loveliness and modesty. If, however, any lady present thought herself aggrieved, he would consent to be stripped, and she might lash him till her arms were wearied. It is added that by this means Jean escaped his flogging, and that the wrath of the servants immediately subsided. The gentlemen present were, however, of opinion, that if every lady in the room whose character corresponded with the verses had taken him at his word, the poet would in all probability have been beaten to death. All his life long he evinced a great animosity toward the priesthood, and his famous poem abounds with passages reflecting upon their avarice, cruelty and immorality. At his death he left a large box filled with some weighty material which he bequeathed to the Cordilliers as a peace offering for the abuse he had lavished upon them. As his practice of alchemy was well known, it was thought that the box was filled with gold and silver, and the Cordilliers congratulated themselves on their rich acquisition. When it came to be opened, they found to their horror that it was filled only with slates, scratched with hieroglyphic and cabalistic characters. Indignant at the insult, they determined to refuse him Christian burial on pretense that he was a sorcerer. He was, however, honourably buried in Paris, the whole court attending his funeral. End of Chapter 4, Part 2 Chapter 4, Part 3 of Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Read by Morgan Scorpion. Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Volume 1 by Charles Mackay The Alchemists Part 3 Nicholas Flamel The story of this alchemist, as handed down by tradition and enshrined in the pages of wrong-lader Fresnoi is not a little marvellous. He was born at Pontoise of a poor but respectable family at the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century. Having no patrimony he set out for Paris at an early age to try his fortune as a public scribe. He had received a good education, was well skilled in the learned languages and was an excellent penman. He soon procured occupation as a letter writer and copyist and used to sit at the corner of the Rue de Marivaux and practice his calling but he hardly made proper enough to keep body and soul together. To mend his fortunes he tried poetry, but this was a more wretched occupation still. As a transcriber he had at least gained bread and cheese but his rhymes were not worth a crust. He then tried painting with as little success and as a last resource began to search for the philosopher's stone and tell fortunes. This was a happier idea. He soon increased in substance and had wherewithal to live comfortably. He therefore took unto himself his wife Petronella and began to save money but continued to all outward appearance as poor and miserable as before. In the course of a few years he became desperately addicted to the study of alchemy and thought of nothing but the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life and the universal alchohest. In the year 1257 he bought by chance an old book for Lawrence, which soon became his soul study. It was written with a steel instrument upon the bark of trees and contained twenty-one, or as he himself always expressed it, three times seven leaves. The writing was very elegant and in the Latin language. Each seventh leaf contained a picture and no writing. On the first of these was a serpent swallowing rods. On the second a cross with a serpent crucified and on the third the representation of a desert in the midst of which was a fountain with serpents crawling from side to side. It purported to be written by no less a personage than Abraham, patriarch, Jew, prince, philosopher, priest, Levite and astrologer and invoked curses upon anyone who should cast eyes upon it without being a sacrificer or ascribe. Nicholas Flamel Nicholas Flamel never thought it extraordinary that Abraham should have known Latin and was convinced that the characters on the book had been traced by the hands of that great patriarch himself. He was at first afraid to read it after he became aware of the curse it contained but he got over that difficulty by recollecting that, although he was not a sacrificer, he had practised as ascribe. As he read he was filled with admiration and found that it was a perfect treatise upon the transmutation of metals. All the processes were clearly explained. The vessels, the retorts, the mixtures and the proper times and seasons for experiment. But, as ill luck would have it, the possession of the philosopher's stone or prime agent in the work was presupposed. This was a difficulty which was not to be got over. It was like telling the starving man how to cook a beef steak and buy one. But Nicholas did not despair and set about studying the hieroglyphics and allegorical representations with which the book abounded. He soon convinced himself that it had been one of the sacred books of the Jews and that it was taken from the temple of Jerusalem on its destruction by Titus. The process of reasoning by which he arrived at this conclusion is not stated. From some expression in the treatise he learnt that the allegorical drawings on the fourth and fifth leaves enshrined the secret of the philosopher's stone without which all the fine Latin of the directions was utterly unavailing. He invited all the alchemists and learned men of Paris to come and examine them, but they all departed as wise as they came. Nobody could make anything either of Nicholas or his pictures, and some even went so far as to say that his invaluable book was not worth a farthing. This was not to be born and Nicholas resolved to discover the great man by himself without troubling the philosophers. He found on the first page of the fourth leaf the picture of Mercury attacked by an old man resembling Saturn or time. The latter had an R-glass on his head and in his hand a scythe with which he aimed a blow at Mercury's feet. The reverse of the leaf represented a flower growing on a mountaintop shaken rudely by the wind with a blue stalk, red and white blossoms and leaves of pure gold. Around it were a great number of dragons and griffins. On the first page of the fifth leaf was a fine garden in the midst of which was a rose-tree in full bloom supported against the trunk of a giant oak. At the foot of this they bubbled up a fountain of milk-white water which, forming a small stream, flowed through the garden and was afterwards lost in the sands. On the second page was a king with a sword in his hand, which were intending a number of soldiers who, in execution of his orders, were killing a great multitude of young children, spurning the prayers and tears of their mothers who tried to save them from destruction. The blood of the children was carefully collected by another party of soldiers and put into a large vessel in which two allegorical figures of the sun and the moon were bathing themselves. For twenty-one years poor Nicholas wearied himself with the study of these pictures until he could make nothing of them. His wife Petronella at last assuaded him to find out some learned rabbi, but there was no rabbi in Paris learned enough to be of any service to him. The Jews met but small encouragement to fix their abode in France and all the chiefs of that people were located in Spain. To Spain accordingly Nicholas Flamel repaired. He left his book in Paris for fear perhaps that he might be robbed of it on the road, and telling his neighbors that he was going on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostelo he trudged on foot towards Madrid in search of a rabbi. He was absent two years in that country and made himself known to a great number of Jews, descendants of those who had been expelled from France in the reign of Philip Augustus. The believers in the philosopher's stone gave the following account of his adventures. They say that at Leon he made the acquaintance of a converted Jew named Couches, a very learned physician to whom he explained the title and nature of his little book. The doctor was transported with joy as soon as he heard it named and immediately resolved to accompany Nicholas to Paris that he might have a sight of it. The two set out together, the doctor on the way entertaining his companion with the history of his book, which, if the genuine book he thought it to be from the description he had heard of it was in the handwriting of Abraham himself and had been in the possession of personages no less distinguished as Couches, Joshua, Solomon and Esdras. It contained all the secrets of alchemy and of many other sciences and was the most valuable book that had ever existed in this world. The doctor was himself no mean adept and Nicholas profited greatly by his discourse as in the garb of poor pilgrims they wended their way to Paris convinced of their power to turn every old shovel in that capital into pure gold. But unfortunately for Napoleon the doctor was taken dangerously ill. Nicholas watched by his bedside and acted the double part of a physician and nursed to him. But he died after a few days lamenting with his last breath that he had not lived long enough to see the precious volume. Nicholas rendered the last honours to his body and with a sorrowful heart and not one soon his pocket proceeded home to his wife Petronella. He immediately recommended but for two whole years he was as far from understanding them as ever. At last, in the third year a glimmer of light stole over his understanding. He recalled some expression of his friend the doctor which had hitherto escaped his memory and he found that all his previous experiments had been conducted on a wrong basis. He recommended them now with renewed energy and at the end of the year had the satisfaction to see all his toils rewarded. On the thirteenth of January 1382, says Longley, he made a projection on Mercury and had some very excellent silver. On the twenty-fifth of April following he converted a large quantity of Mercury into gold and the great secret was his. Nicholas was now about eighty years of age and still a hail and stout old man. His friends say that by a simultaneous discovery of the elixir of life he found means to keep death at a distance for another quarter of a century and that he died in 1415 at the age of 116. In this interval he made immense quantities of gold though to all outward appearance he was as poor as a mass. At an early period of his changed fortune he had, like a worthy man, taken counsel with his old wife Petronella as to the best use he could make of his wealth. Petronella replied that as unfortunately they had no children the best thing he could do was to build hospitals and endow churches. Nicholas thought so too especially when he began to find that his elixir could not keep off death and that the grim foe was making rapid advances upon him. He richly endowed the church of Saint Jacques de la Boucherie near the Rue de Marivaux where he had all his life resided beside seven others in different parts of the kingdom. He also endowed 14 hospitals and built three chapels. The fame of his great wealth and his magnificent benefactions soon spread over all the country and he was visited, among others by the celebrated doctors of that day Jean Gershon Jean de Côte-Croix and Pierre de Ailey. They found him in his humble apartment mean-declared an eating porridge out of an earthen vessel and with regard to his secret as impenetrable as all his predecessors in alchemy. His fame reached the ears of the king on the sixth who sent M. de Cromoissey the master of requests to find out whether Nicholas had indeed discovered the philosopher's stone. But M. de Cromoissey took nothing by his visit. All his attempts to sound the alchemist were unavailing and he returned to his royal master no wiser than he came. It was in this year, 1414 that he lost his faithful wife Petronella. and was buried with great pomp by the grateful priests of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie. The great wealth of Nicholas Flamel is undoubted as the records of several churches and hospitals in France can testify that he practiced alchemy is equally certain as he left behind several works upon the subject. Those who knew him well and were incredulous about the philosopher's stone gave a satisfactory solution of the secret of his wealth. They say that he was always a miser and a usurer that his journey to Spain was undertaken with very different motives from those pretended by the alchemists. That, in fact, he went to collect debts due from Jews in that country to their brethren in Paris and that he charged a commission of fully cent percent in consideration of the difficulty of collecting and of the dangers of the road that when he possessed thousands he lived upon almost nothing and was the general moneylender to all the dissipated young men at the French court. Among the works written by Nicholas Flamel on the subject of alchemy is The Philosophic Summary, a poem reprinted in 1735 as an appendix to the third volume of the Roman de la Rose. He also wrote three treatises upon natural philosophy and an alchemic allegory entitled Les désirs des urêts. Specimens of his writing and a facsimile of the drawings of the book of Abraham may be seen in Salomon's Bibliothèque des philosophes chimiques. The writer of the article Flamel in the biography Universal says that for a hundred years after the death of Flamel many of the adepts believed that he was still alive and that he would live for upwards of six hundred years. The house he formerly occupied at the corner of the Rue de Malleval has been often taken by credulous speculators and ransacked in the hopes that gold might be found. A report was current in Paris not long previous to the year 1816 that some lodgers had found in the cellars several jars filled with a dark coloured ponduous matter. Upon the strength of the rumour a believer in all the wondrous tales told of Nicholas Flamel bought the house and nearly pulled it to pieces in ransacking the walls and wainscotting for hidden gold. He got nothing for his pains, however, and had a heavy bill to pay for his expeditions. George Ripley While alchemy was thus cultivated on the continent of Europe it was not neglected in the isles of Britain. Since the time of Roger Bacon it had fascinated the imagination of many ardent men in England. In the year 1404 an act of parliament was passed declaring the making of golden silver to be felony. Great alarm was felt at that time lest any alchemist should succeed in his projects and perhaps bring ruin upon the state by punishing bandless wealth to some designing tyrant who would make use of it to enslave his country. The alarm appears to have soon subsided for in the year 1455 King Henry VI by advice of his council and parliament granted four successive patents and commissions to several knights, citizens of London, chemists, monks, mass priests and others to find out the philosophers of stone and elixir to the great benefit, said the patent of the realm and the enabling of the king to pay all the debts of the crown in real gold and silver. Thrin, in his Orum Reginae observes as a note to this passage that the king's reason for granting this patent to ecclesiastics was that they were such good artists in transubstantiating bread and wine in the Eucharist and therefore the more likely to be able to affect the transmutation to better. No gold, of course, was ever made and the next year the king, doubting very much the practicability of the thing took further advice and appointed a commission of ten learned men in persons of eminence to judge and certify to him whether the transmutation of metals were a thing to practice or no. It does not appear whether the commission ever made any report upon the subject. In the succeeding reign an alchemist appeared who pretended to have discovered the secret. This was George Ripley, the canon of Bridlington in Yorkshire. He studied for twenty years in the universities of Italy and was a great favourite with Pope Innocent VIII who made him one of his domestic chaplains and master of the ceremonies in his household. Returning to England in 1477 he dedicated to King Edward IV his famous work The Compound of Alchemy or The Twelve Gates Leading to the Discovery of the Philosopher's Stone. These Gates he described to be calcination, solution, separation, conjunction, putrefaction, conglulation, civation, sublimation, fermentation, exaltation, multiplication and projection to which he might have added followation, the most important process of all. He was very rich and allowed it to be believed that he could make gold out of iron. Fuller, in his Worthies of England says that an English gentleman of good credit reported that in his travels abroad he saw a record in the island of Malta which declared that Ripley gave yearly to the knights of that island and of Rhodes the enormous sum of one hundred thousand pounds sterling to enable them to carry on the war against the Turks. In his old age he became an anchorite near Boston and wrote twenty-five volumes upon the subject of alchemy, the most important of which is the duodesse importarum already mentioned. Before he died he seems to have acknowledged that he had misspent his life in this vain study and requested that all men when they met with any of his books would burn them or afford them no credit as they had been written merely from his opinion and not from proof and that subsequent trial had made manifest to him that they were false and vain. Basil Valentine Germany also produced many famous alchemists in the fifteenth century. The chief of whom are Basil Valentine, Bernard of Trev and the Albert Trithymius. Basil Valentine was born at Mayance and was made prior to Saint Peter's at Urfot about the year 1414. It was known during his life that he diligently sought the philosopher's stone and that he had written some works upon the process of transmutation. They were thought for many years to be lost but were after his death discovered enclosed in the stonework of one of the pillars in the abbey. They were twenty-one in number and are fully set forth in the third volume of Longleys' history of the Hermetic philosophy. The alchemists asserted that heaven itself conspired to bring to light these extraordinary works and that the pillar in which they were enclosed was miraculously shattered by a thunderbolt and that as soon as the manuscripts were liberated the pillar closed up again of its own accord. Bernard of Trev The life of this philosopher is a remarkable instance of talent and perseverance misapplied. In the search of his chimera nothing could daunt him. Repeated disappointment never diminished his hopes and from the age of 14 to that of 85 he was incessantly employed among the drugs and furnaces of his laboratory, wasting his life with the view of prolonging it and reducing himself to beggary in the hopes of growing rich. He was born at either Trev's or Padua in the year 1406. His father is said by some to have been a physician in the Latter City and by others to have been count of the marches of Trev and one of the most wealthy nobles of his country. At all events, whether noble or physician, he was a rich man and left his son a magnificent estate. At the age of 14 he first became enamored of the science of alchemy and read the Arabian authors in their own language. He himself has left a most interesting record of his labours and wanderings from which the following particulars are chiefly extracted. The first book which fell into his hands was that of the Arabian philosopher Razer's, from the reading of which he imagined that he had discovered the means of augmenting gold a hundred fold. For four years he worked in his laboratory with the book of Razer's continually before him. At the end of that time he found that he had spent no less than 800 crowns upon his experiment and had got nothing but fire and smoke for his pains. He now began to lose confidence in Razer's and turn to the works of Gaber. He studied him assiduously for two years and being young, rich and credulous was beset by all the alchemists of the town who kindly assisted him in spending his money. He did not lose his faith in Gaber or patience with his hungry assistants until he had lost two thousand crowns a very considerable sum in those days. Among all the crowd of pretended men of science who surrounded him there was but one as enthusiastic and as disinterested as himself. With this man who was a monk of the Order of Saint Francis he contracted an intimate friendship and spent nearly all his time. Some obscure treatises of Rupasissa and Sacrobosco having fallen into their hands they were persuaded from reading them that highly rectified Spirits of Wine was the Universal Alchohest which would aid them greatly in the process of transmutation. They rectified the alcohol thirty times till they made it so strong as to burst the vessels which contained it. After they had worked three years and spent three hundred crowns in the liquor they discovered that they were on the wrong track. They next tried Alam and Copperus but this great secret still escaped them. They afterwards imagined that there was a marvellous virtue in all excrement, especially the human and actually employed more than two years in experimenting upon it with mercury, salt and molten lead. Again the adepts flocked around him from far and near to aid him with their councils. He received them all hospitably and divided his wealth among them so generously and unhesitatingly that they gave him the name of the Good Trevison by which he is still often mentioned in works that treat on alchemy. For twelve years he led this life making experiments every day upon some new substance and praying to God night and morning that he might discover the secret of transmutation. In this interval he lost his friend the monk and was joined by a magistrate of the city of Trev as ardent as himself in the search. His new acquaintance imagined that the ocean was the mother of gold and that sea salt would change lead or iron into the precious metals. Bernard resolved to try and transporting his laboratory to a house on the shores of the Baltic he worked upon salt for more than a year melting it sublimating it crystallizing it and occasionally drinking it for the sake of other experiments. Still the strange enthusiast was not wholly discouraged and his failure in one trial only made him the more anxious to attempt another. He was now approaching the age of fifty and had as yet seen nothing of the world. He therefore determined to travel through Germany, Italy, France and Spain. Wherever he stopped he made inquiries whether there were any alchemists in the neighbourhood. He invariably sought them out and if they were poor, relieved and if affluent encouraged them. At Sitto he became acquainted with one Geoffrey Luvier a monk of that place who persuaded him that the essence of eggshells was a valuable ingredient. He tried therefore what could be done and was only prevented from wasting a year or two on the experiment by the opinions of an attorney at Bergen in Flanders who said that the great secret resulted in vinegar and copperous. He was not convinced of the absurdity of this idea until he had nearly poisoned himself. He resided in France for about five years when hearing accidentally that one Master Henry confessor to the Emperor Frederick III had discovered the philosopher's stone, he set out for Germany to pay him a visit. He had as usual surrounded himself with a set of hungry dependents several of whom determined to accompany him. He had not heart to refuse them and he arrived at Vienna with five of them. Bernard set a polite invitation to the confessor and gave him a sumptuous entertainment at which were present nearly all the alchemists of Vienna. Master Henry frankly confessed that he had not discovered the philosopher's stone that he had all his life been employed in searching for it to continue till he found it or died. This was a man after Bernard's own heart and they vowed with each other an eternal friendship. It was resolved at supper that each alchemist present should contribute a certain sum towards raising forty-two marks of gold which in five days it was confidently asserted by Master Henry would increase in his furnace fivefold. Bernard, being the richest man, contributed the lion's share ten marks of gold. The alchemist, the alchemist, and the others won or two a piece except the dependents of Bernard who were obliged to borrow their quota from their patron. The grand experiment was duly made. The golden marks were put into a crucible with a quantity of salt, copperus, aquafortus, eggshells, mercury, lead and dung. The alchemist watched this precious mess with intense interest expecting that it would soon ablomerate into one lump of pure gold. At the end of three weeks he gave up the trial upon some excuse that the crucible was not strong enough or that some necessary ingredient was wanting. Whether any thief had put his hands into the crucible is not known but it is alleged that the gold found therein at the close of the experiment was worth only sixteen marks instead of the forty-two which were put there at the beginning. Bernard, though he made no gold at Vienna made away with a very considerable quantity. He felt the loss so acutely that he vowed to think no more of the philosopher's stone. This wise resolution he kept for two months but he was miserable. He was in the condition of the gambler who cannot resist the fascination of the game while he has a coin remaining but plays on with the hope of retrieving former losses. Till hope forsakes him and he can live no longer he returned once more to his beloved crucibles and resolved to prosecute his journey in search of a philosopher who had discovered the secret and would communicate it so zealous and persevering an adept as himself. From Vienna he travelled to Rome and from Rome to Madrid. Taking ship at Gibraltar he proceeded to Messina and from Messina to Cyprus from Cyprus to Greece from Greece to Constantinople and thence into Egypt Palestine and Persia. These wanderings occupied him about eight years. From Persia he made his way back to Messina and from thence into France. He afterwards passed over into England still in search of his great Camero and this occupied form years more of his life. He was now growing both old and poor, for he was 62 years of age and had been obliged to sell a great portion of his patrimony to provide for his expenses. His journey to Persia had cost upwards of 13,000 crowns about one half of which had been fairly melted in his all-devouring furnaces. The other half was lavished upon the sycophants that he made it a business to search out in every town he stopped at. On his return to Trev he found to his sorrow that if not an actual beggar he was not much better. His relatives looked upon him as a madman and refused even to see him. Too proud to ask for favours from anyone and still confident that some day or other he would be the possessor of unbounded wealth, he made up his mind to retire to the island of Rhodes where he might in the meantime hide his poverty from the eyes of the world. Here he might have lived unknown and happy, but as ill luck would have it he fell in with a monk as mad as himself upon the subject of transmutation. They were, however, both so poor that they could not afford to buy the proper materials to work with. They kept up each other's spirits by loan of discourses on the Hermetic philosophy and in the reading of all the great authors who had written upon the subject. Thus did they nurse their folly as the good wife of Tamar Shanta did her wrath to keep it warm. After Bernard had resided about a year in Rhodes, a merchant who knew his family advanced him the sum of 8,000 Florence upon the security of the last remaining acres of his formerly large estate. Once more provided with funds he recommenced his labours with all the zeal and enthusiasm of a young man. For three years he hardly stepped out of his laboratory. He ate there and slept there and did not even give himself time to wash his hands and clean his beard so intense was his application. It is melancholy to think that such wonderful perseverance should have been wasted in so vain a pursuit and that energies so unconquerable should have had no worthier field to strive in. Even when he had fumed away his last coin and had nothing left in perspective to keep his old age from starvation, hope never forsook him. He still dreamed of ultimate success and sat down a grey-headed man of 80 to read over all the authors on the Hermetic Mysteries. From Gabor to his own day, lest he should have misunderstood some process which it was not yet too late to recommence. The alchemists say he succeeded at last and discovered the secret of transmutation in his 82nd year. They add that he lived three years afterwards to enjoy his wealth. He lived it is true to this great age and made a valuable discovery more valuable than gold or gems. He learned as he himself informs us just before he had attained his 83rd year that the great secret of philosophy was contentment with our lot. Happy would it have been for him if he had discovered it sooner and before he became decrepit, a beggar and an exile. He died at Rhodes in the year 1490 and all the alchemists of Europe sang elegies over him and sounded his praise as the good trevison. He wrote several treaties upon his chimera, the chief of which are the Book of Chemistry, the Alchemism and an Essay to Natura Ovi. End of chapter 4 part 3