world in doubt as to his real motives for pretending that he had
discovered the philosopher's stone. It seems probable that the sentence he
puts into the mouths of his wisest acquaintances was the true reason of
his retreat; that he was, in fact, reduced to poverty, and hid his shame
in foreign countries. Nothing further is known of his life, and his real
name has never yet been discovered. He wrote a work on alchymy, entitled
_The true Natural Philosophy of Metals_.

DR. DEE AND EDWARD KELLY.

John Dee and Edward Kelly claim to be mentioned together, having been so
long associated in the same pursuits, and undergone so many strange
vicissitudes in each other's society. Dee was altogether a wonderful man,
and had he lived in an age when folly and superstition were less rife, he
would, with the same powers which he enjoyed, have left behind him a
bright and enduring reputation. He was born in London in the year 1527,
and very early manifested a love for study. At the age of fifteen he was
sent to Cambridge, and delighted so much in his books, that he passed
regularly eighteen hours every day among them. Of the other six, he
devoted four to sleep and two for refreshment. Such intense application
did not injure his health, and could not fail to make him one of the first
scholars of his time. Unfortunately, however, he quitted the mathematics
and the pursuits of true philosophy, to indulge in the unprofitable
reveries of the occult sciences. He studied alchymy, astrology, and magic,
and thereby rendered himself obnoxious to the authorities at Cambridge. To
avoid persecution, he was at last obliged to retire to the university of
Louvain; the rumours of sorcery that were current respecting him rendering
his longer stay in England not altogether without danger. He found at
Louvain many kindred spirits who had known Cornelius Agrippa while he
resided among them, and by whom he was constantly entertained with the
wondrous deeds of that great master of the hermetic mysteries. From their
conversation he received much encouragement to continue the search for the
philosopher's stone, which soon began to occupy nearly all his thoughts.

[Illustration: DR. DEE.]

He did not long remain on the Continent, but returned to England in 1551,
being at that time in the twenty-fourth year of his age. By the influence
of his friend Sir John Cheek, he was kindly received at the court of King
Edward VI., and rewarded (it is difficult to say for what) with a pension
of one hundred crowns. He continued for several years to practise in
London as an astrologer; casting nativities, telling fortunes, and
pointing out lucky and unlucky days. During the reign of Queen Mary he got
into trouble, being suspected of heresy, and charged with attempting
Mary's life by means of enchantments. He was tried for the latter offence,
and acquitted; but was retained in prison on the former charge, and left
to the tender mercies of Bishop Bonner. He had a very narrow escape from
being burned in Smithfield, but he somehow or other contrived to persuade
that fierce bigot that his orthodoxy was unimpeachable, and was set at
liberty in 1555.

On the accession of Elizabeth, a brighter day dawned upon him. During her
retirement at Woodstock, her servants appear to have consulted him as to
the time of Mary's death, which circumstance no doubt first gave rise to
the serious charge for which he was brought to trial. They now came to
consult him more openly as to the fortunes of their mistress; and Robert
Dudley, the celebrated Earl of Leicester, was sent by command of the Queen
herself to know the most auspicious day for her coronation. So great was
the favour he enjoyed, that, some years afterwards, Elizabeth condescended
to pay him a visit at his house in Mortlake, to view his museum of
curiosities, and when he was ill, sent her own physician to attend upon
him.

Astrology was the means whereby he lived, and he continued to practise it
with great assiduity; but his heart was in alchymy. The philosopher's
stone and the elixir of life haunted his daily thoughts and his nightly
dreams. The Talmudic mysteries, which he had also deeply studied,
impressed him with the belief, that he might hold converse with spirits
and angels, and learn from them all the mysteries of the universe. Holding
the same idea as the then obscure sect of the Rosicrucians, some of whom
he had perhaps encountered in his travels in Germany, he imagined that, by
means of the philosopher's stone, he could summon these kindly spirits at
his will. By dint of continually brooding upon the subject, his
imagination became so diseased, that he at last persuaded himself that an
angel appeared to him, and promised to be his friend and companion as long
as he lived. He relates that, one day, in November 1582, while he was
engaged in fervent prayer, the window of his museum looking towards the
west suddenly glowed with a dazzling light, in the midst of which, in all
his glory, stood the great angel Uriel. Awe and wonder rendered him
speechless; but the angel smiling graciously upon him, gave him a crystal,
of a convex form, and told him that whenever he wished to hold converse
with the beings of another sphere, he had only to gaze intently upon it,
and they would appear in the crystal, and unveil to him all the secrets of
futurity.[41] Thus saying, the angel disappeared. Dee found from
experience of the crystal that it was necessary that all the faculties of
the soul should be concentrated upon it, otherwise the spirits did not
appear. He also found that he could never recollect the conversations he
had with the angels. He therefore determined to communicate the secret to
another person, who might converse with the spirit while he (Dee) sat in
another part of the room, and took down in writing the revelations which
they made.

    [41] The "crystal" alluded to appears to have been a black stone,
         or piece of polished coal. The following account of it is
         given, in the supplement to Granger's _Biographical History_.
         "The black stone into which Dee used to call his
         spirits was in the collection of the Earls of Peterborough,
         from whence it came to Lady Elizabeth Germaine. It was next
         the property of the late Duke of Argyle, and is now Mr.
         Walpole's. It appears upon examination to be nothing more
         than a polished piece of cannel coal; but this is what Butler
         means when he says,

            'Kelly did all his feats upon
             The devil's looking-glass--a stone.'"

[Illustration: SHEW-STONE OF DR. DEE, IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.]

He had at this time in his service, as his assistant, one Edward Kelly,
who, like himself, was crazy upon the subject of the philosopher's stone.
There was this difference, however, between them, that, while Dee was more
of an enthusiast than an impostor, Kelly was more of an impostor than an
enthusiast. In early life he was a notary, and had the misfortune to lose
both his ears for forgery. This mutilation, degrading enough in any man,
was destructive to a philosopher; Kelly, therefore, lest his wisdom should
suffer in the world's opinion, wore a black skull-cap, which, fitting
close to his head, and descending over both his cheeks, not only concealed
his loss, but gave him a very solemn and oracular appearance. So well did
he keep his secret, that even Dee, with whom he lived so many years,
appears never to have discovered it. Kelly, with this character, was just
the man to carry on any piece of roguery for his own advantage, or to
nurture the delusions of his master for the same purpose. No sooner did
Dee inform him of the visit he had received from the glorious Uriel, than
Kelly expressed such a fervour of belief, that Dee's heart glowed with
delight. He set about consulting his crystal forthwith, and on the 2d of
December, 1581, the spirits appeared, and held a very extraordinary
discourse with Kelly, which Dee took down in writing. The curious reader
may see this farrago of nonsense among the Harleian Mss. in the British
Museum. The later consultations were published in a folio volume, in 1659,
by Dr. Meric Casaubon, under the title of _A true and faithful Relation of
what passed between Dr. John Dee and some Spirits; tending, had it
succeeded, to a general Alteration of most States and Kingdoms in the
World_.[42]

    [42] Lilly the astrologer, in his _Life_, written by himself,
         frequently tells of prophecies delivered by the angels in a
         manner similar to the angels of Dr. Dee. He says, "The
         prophecies were not given vocally by the angels, but by
         inspection of the crystal in types and figures, or by
         apparition the circular way; where, at some distance, the
         angels appear, representing by forms, shapes, and creatures,
         what is demanded. It is very rare, yea even in our days,"
         quoth that wiseacre, "for any operator or master to hear the
         angels speak articulately: when they do speak, _it is like,
         the Irish, much in the throat_!"

The fame of these wondrous colloquies soon spread over the country, and
even reached the Continent. Dee at the same time pretended to be in
possession of the _elixir vitæ_, which he stated he had found among the
ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, in Somersetshire. People flocked from far and
near to his house at Mortlake to have their nativities cast, in preference
to visiting astrologers of less renown. They also longed to see a man who,
according to his own account, would never die. Altogether, he carried on a
very profitable trade, but spent so much in drugs and metals to work out
some peculiar process of transmutation, that he never became rich.

About this time there came into England a wealthy polish nobleman, named
Albert Laski, Count Palatine of Siradz. His object was principally, he
said, to visit the court of Queen Elizabeth, the fame of whose glory and
magnificence had reached him in distant Poland. Elizabeth received this
flattering stranger with the most splendid hospitality, and appointed her
favourite Leicester to shew him all that was worth seeing in England. He
visited all the curiosities of London and Westminster, and from thence
proceeded to Oxford and Cambridge, that he might converse with some of the
great scholars whose writings shed lustre upon the land of their birth. He
was very much disappointed at not finding Dr. Dee among them, and told the
Earl of Leicester that he would not have gone to Oxford if he had known
that Dee was not there. The earl promised to introduce him to the great
alchymist on their return to London, and the Pole was satisfied. A few
days afterwards, the earl and Laski being in the antechamber of the Queen,
awaiting an audience of her majesty, Dr. Dee arrived on the same errand,
and was introduced to the Pole.[43] An interesting conversation ensued,
which ended by the stranger inviting himself to dine with the astrologer
at his house at Mortlake. Dee returned home in some tribulation, for he
found he had not money enough, without pawning his plate, to entertain
Count Laski and his retinue in a manner becoming their dignity. In this
emergency he sent off an express to the Earl of Leicester, stating frankly
the embarrassment he laboured under, and praying his good offices in
representing the matter to her majesty. Elizabeth immediately sent him a
present of twenty pounds.

    [43] Albert Laski, son of Jaroslav, was Palatine of Siradz, and
         afterwards of Sendomir, and chiefly contributed to the
         election of Henry of Valois, the Third of France, to the
         throne of Poland, and was one of the delegates who went to
         France in order to announce to the new monarch his elevation
         to the sovereignty of Poland. After the deposition of Henry,
         Albert Laski voted for Maximilian of Austria. In 1583 he
         visited England, when Queen Elizabeth received him with great
         distinction. The honours which were shewn him during his
         visit to Oxford, by the especial command of the Queen, were
         equal to those rendered to sovereign princes. His
         extraordinary prodigality rendered his enormous wealth
         insufficient to defray his expenses, and he therefore became
         a zealous adept in alchymy, and took from England to Poland
         with him two known alchymists.--Count Valerian Krasinski's
         _Historical Sketch of the Reformation in Poland_.

On the appointed day Count Laski came, attended by a numerous retinue, and
expressed such open and warm admiration of the wonderful attainments of
his host, that Dee turned over in his own mind how he could bind
irretrievably to his interests a man who seemed so well inclined to become
his friend. Long acquaintance with Kelly had imbued him with all the
roguery of that personage, and he resolved to make the Pole pay dearly for
his dinner. He found out before many days that he possessed great estates
in his own country, as well as great influence, but that an extravagant
disposition had reduced him to temporary embarrassment. He also discovered
that he was a firm believer in the philosopher's stone and the water of
life. He was therefore just the man upon whom an adventurer might fasten
himself. Kelly thought so too; and both of them set to work to weave a
web, in the meshes of which they might firmly entangle the rich and
credulous stranger. They went very cautiously about it; first throwing out
obscure hints of the stone and the elixir, and finally of the spirits, by
means of whom they could turn over the pages of the book of futurity, and
read the awful secrets inscribed therein. Laski eagerly implored that he
might be admitted to one of their mysterious interviews with Uriel and the
angels; but they knew human nature too well to accede at once to the
request. To the count's entreaties they only replied by hints of the
difficulty or impropriety of summoning the spirits in the presence of a
stranger, or of one who might perchance have no other motive than the
gratification of a vain curiosity; but they only meant to whet the edge of
his appetite by this delay, and would have been sorry indeed if the count
had been discouraged. To shew how exclusively the thoughts both of Dee and
Kelly were fixed upon their dupe at this time, it is only necessary to
read the introduction to their first interview with the spirits, related
in the volume of Dr. Casaubon. The entry made by Dee, under the date of
the 25th of May, 1583, says, that when the spirit appeared to them, "I
[John Dee] and E. K. [Edward Kelly] sat together, conversing of that noble
Polonian Albertus Laski, his great honour here with us obtained, and of
his great liking among all sorts of the people." No doubt they were
discussing how they might make the most of the "noble Polonian," and
concocting the fine story with which they afterwards excited his
curiosity, and drew him firmly within their toils. "Suddenly," says Dee,
as they were thus employed, "there seemed to come out of the oratory a
spiritual creature, like a pretty girl of seven or nine years of age,
attired on her head, with her hair rolled up before and hanging down
behind, with a gown of silk, of changeable red and green, and with a
train. She seemed to play up and down, and seemed to go in and out behind
the books; and as she seemed to go between them, the books displaced
themselves, and made way for her."

With such tales as these they lured on the Pole from day to day, and at
last persuaded him to be a witness of their mysteries. Whether they played
off any optical delusions upon him, or whether, by the force of a strong
imagination, he deluded himself, does not appear, but certain it is that
he became a complete tool in their hands, and consented to do whatever
they wished him. Kelly, at these interviews, placed himself at a certain
distance from the wondrous crystal, and gazed intently upon it, while Dee
took his place in a corner, ready to set down the prophecies as they were
uttered by the spirits. In this manner they prophesied to the Pole that he
should become the fortunate possessor of the philosopher's stone; that he
should live for centuries, and be chosen King of Poland, in which capacity
he should gain many great victories over the Saracens, and make his name
illustrious over all the earth. For this purpose it was necessary,
however, that Laski should leave England, and take them with him, together
with their wives and families; that he should treat them all sumptuously,
and allow them to want for nothing. Laski at once consented; and very
shortly afterwards they were all on the road to Poland.

It took them upwards of four months to reach the count's estates in the
neighbourhood of Cracow. In the mean time, they led a pleasant life, and
spent money with an unsparing hand. When once established in the count's
palace, they commenced the great hermetic operation of transmuting iron
into gold. Laski provided them with all necessary materials, and aided
them himself with his knowledge of alchymy; but, somehow or other, the
experiment always failed at the very moment it ought to have succeeded,
and they were obliged to recommence operations on a grander scale. But the
hopes of Laski were not easily extinguished. Already, in idea, the
possessor of countless millions, he was not to be cast down for fear of
present expenses. He thus continued from day to day, and from month to
month, till he was at last obliged to sell a portion of his
deeply-mortgaged estates to find aliment for the hungry crucibles of Dee
and Kelly, and the no less hungry stomachs of their wives and families. It
was not till ruin stared him in the face that he awoke from his dream of
infatuation, too happy, even then, to find that he had escaped utter
beggary. Thus restored to his senses, his first thought was how to rid
himself of his expensive visitors. Not wishing to quarrel with them, he
proposed that they should proceed to Prague, well furnished with letters
of recommendation to the Emperor Rudolph. Our alchymists too plainly saw
that nothing more was to be made of the almost destitute Count Laski.
Without hesitation, therefore, they accepted the proposal, and set out
forthwith to the imperial residence. They had no difficulty, on their
arrival at Prague, in obtaining an audience of the emperor. They found him
willing enough to believe that such a thing as the philosopher's stone
existed, and flattered themselves that they had made a favourable
impression upon him; but, from some cause or other--perhaps the look of
low cunning and quackery upon the face of Kelly--the emperor conceived no
very high opinion of their abilities. He allowed them, however, to remain
for some months at Prague, feeding themselves upon the hope that he would
employ them; but the more he saw of them, the less he liked them; and,
when the pope's nuncio represented to him that he ought not to countenance
such heretic magicians, he gave orders that they should quit his dominions
within four-and-twenty hours. It was fortunate for them that so little
time was given them; for, had they remained six hours longer, the nuncio
had received orders to procure a perpetual dungeon or the stake for them.

Not knowing well whither to direct their steps, they resolved to return to
Cracow, where they had still a few friends; but, by this time, the funds
they had drawn from Laski were almost exhausted, and they were many days
obliged to go dinnerless and supperless. They had great difficulty to keep
their poverty a secret from the world; but they managed to bear privation
without murmuring, from a conviction that if the fact were known, it would
militate very much against their pretensions. Nobody would believe that
they were possessors of the philosopher's stone, if it were once suspected
that they did not know how to procure bread for their subsistence. They
still gained a little by casting nativities, and kept starvation at arm's
length, till a new dupe, rich enough for their purposes, dropped into
their toils, in the shape of a royal personage. Having procured an
introduction to Stephen king of Poland, they predicted to him that the
Emperor Rudolph would shortly be assassinated, and that the Germans would
look to Poland for his successor. As this prediction was not precise
enough to satisfy the king, they tried their crystal again, and a spirit
appeared who told them that the new sovereign of Germany would be Stephen
of Poland. Stephen was credulous enough to believe them, and was once
present when Kelly held his mystic conversations with the shadows of his
crystal. He also appears to have furnished them with money to carry on
their experiments in alchymy; but he grew tired, at last, of their broken
promises and their constant drains upon his pocket, and was on the point
of discarding them with disgrace, when they met with another dupe, to whom
they eagerly transferred their services. This was Count Rosenberg, a
nobleman of large estates at Trebona in Bohemia. So comfortable did they
find themselves in the palace of this munificent patron, that they
remained nearly four years with him, faring sumptuously, and having an
almost unlimited command of his money. The count was more ambitious than
avaricious: he had wealth enough, and did not care for the philosopher's
stone on account of the gold, but of the length of days it would bring
him. They had their predictions, accordingly, all ready framed to suit his
character. They prophesied that he should be chosen king of Poland; and
promised, moreover, that he should live for five hundred years to enjoy
his dignity, provided always that he found them sufficient money to carry
on their experiments.

But now, while fortune smiled upon them, while they revelled in the
rewards of successful villany, retributive justice came upon them in a
shape they had not anticipated. Jealousy and mistrust sprang up between
the two confederates, and led to such violent and frequent quarrels, that
Dee was in constant fear of exposure. Kelly imagined himself a much
greater personage than Dee; measuring, most likely, by the standard of
impudent roguery; and was displeased that on all occasions, and from all
persons, Dee received the greater share of honour and consideration. He
often threatened to leave Dee to shift for himself; and the latter, who
had degenerated into the mere tool of his more daring associate, was
distressed beyond measure at the prospect of his desertion. His mind was
so deeply imbued with superstition, that he believed the rhapsodies of
Kelly to be, in a great measure, derived from his intercourse with angels;
and he knew not where, in the whole world, to look for a man of depth and
wisdom enough to succeed him. As their quarrels every day became more and
more frequent, Dee wrote letters to Queen Elizabeth to secure a favourable
reception on his return to England, whither he intended to proceed if
Kelly forsook him. He also sent her a round piece of silver, which he
pretended he had made of a portion of brass cut out of a warming-pan. He
afterwards sent her the warming-pan also, that she might convince herself
that the piece of silver corresponded exactly with the hole which was cut
into the brass. While thus preparing for the worst, his chief desire was
to remain in Bohemia with Count Rosenberg, who treated him well, and
reposed much confidence in him. Neither had Kelly any great objection to
remain; but a new passion had taken possession of his breast, and he was
laying deep schemes to gratify it. His own wife was ill-favoured and
ill-natured; Dee's was comely and agreeable; and he longed to make an
exchange of partners without exciting the jealousy or shocking the
morality of Dee. This was a difficult matter; but to a man like Kelly, who
was as deficient in rectitude and right feeling as he was full of
impudence and ingenuity, the difficulty was not insurmountable. He had
also deeply studied the character and the foibles of Dee; and he took his
measures accordingly. The next time they consulted the spirits, Kelly
pretended to be shocked at their language, and refused to tell Dee what
they had said. Dee insisted, and was informed that they were henceforth to
have their wives in common. Dee, a little startled, inquired whether the
spirits might not mean that they were to live in common harmony and
good-will? Kelly tried again, with apparent reluctance, and said the
spirits insisted upon the literal interpretation. The poor fanatic Dee
resigned himself to their will; but it suited Kelly's purpose to appear
coy a little longer. He declared that the spirits must be spirits not of
good, but of evil; and refused to consult them any more. He thereupon took
his departure, saying that he would never return.

Dee, thus left to himself, was in sore trouble and distress of mind. He
knew not on whom to fix as the successor to Kelly for consulting the
spirits; but at last chose his son Arthur, a boy of eight years of age. He
consecrated him to this service with great ceremony, and impressed upon
the child's mind the dignified and awful nature of the duties he was
called upon to perform; but the poor boy had neither the imagination, the
faith, nor the artifice of Kelly. He looked intently upon the crystal as
he was told; but could see nothing and hear nothing. At last, when his
eyes ached, he said he could see a vague indistinct shadow, but nothing
more. Dee was in despair. The deception had been carried on so long, that
he was never so happy as when he fancied he was holding converse with
superior beings; and he cursed the day that had put estrangement between
him and his dear friend Kelly. This was exactly what Kelly had foreseen;
and, when he thought the doctor had grieved sufficiently for his absence,
he returned unexpectedly, and entered the room where the little Arthur was
in vain endeavouring to distinguish something in the crystal. Dee, in
entering this circumstance in his journal, ascribes this sudden return to
a "miraculous fortune" and a "divine fate;" and goes on to record that
Kelly immediately saw the spirits which had remained invisible to little
Arthur. One of these spirits reiterated the previous command, that they
should have their wives in common. Kelly bowed his head and submitted; and
Dee, in all humility, consented to the arrangement.

This was the extreme depth of the wretched man's degradation. In this
manner they continued to live for three or four months, when, new quarrels
breaking out, they separated once more. This time their separation was
final. Kelly, taking the _elixir_ which he had found in Glastonbury Abbey,
proceeded to Prague, forgetful of the abrupt mode in which he had
previously been expelled from that city. Almost immediately after his
arrival, he was seized by order of the Emperor Rudolph, and thrown into
prison. He was released after some months' confinement, and continued for
five years to lead a vagabond life in Germany, telling fortunes at one
place, and pretending to make gold at another. He was a second time thrown
into prison, on a charge of heresy and sorcery; and he then resolved, if
ever he obtained his liberty, to return to England. He soon discovered
that there was no prospect of this, and that his imprisonment was likely
to be for life. He twisted his bed-clothes into a rope, one stormy night
in February 1595, and let himself down from the window of his dungeon,
situated at the top of a very high tower. Being a corpulent man, the rope
gave way, and he was precipitated to the ground. He broke two of his ribs
and both his legs; and was otherwise so much injured, that he expired a
few days afterwards.

Dee, for a while, had more prosperous fortune. The warming-pan he had sent
to Queen Elizabeth was not without effect. He was rewarded soon after
Kelly had left him with an invitation to return to England. His pride,
which had been sorely humbled, sprang up again to its pristine dimensions,
and he set out from Bohemia with a train of attendants becoming an
ambassador. How he procured the money does not appear, unless from the
liberality of the rich Bohemian Rosenberg, or perhaps from his plunder. He
travelled with three coaches for himself and family, and three wagons to
carry his baggage. Each coach had four horses, and the whole train was
protected by a guard of four and twenty soldiers. This statement may be
doubted; but it is on the authority of Dee himself, who made it on oath
before the commissioners appointed by Elizabeth to inquire into his
circumstances. On his arrival in England he had an audience of the queen,
who received him kindly as far as words went, and gave orders that he
should not be molested in his pursuits of chemistry and philosophy. A man
who boasted of the power to turn baser metals into gold, could not,
thought Elizabeth, be in want of money; and she therefore gave him no more
substantial marks of her approbation than her countenance and protection.

Thrown thus unexpectedly upon his own resources, Dee began in earnest the
search for the philosopher's stone. He worked incessantly among his
furnaces, retorts, and crucibles, and almost poisoned himself with
deleterious fumes. He also consulted his miraculous crystal; but the
spirits appeared not to him. He tried one Bartholomew to supply the place
of the invaluable Kelly; but he being a man of some little probity, and of
no imagination at all, the spirits would not hold any communication with
him. Dee then tried another pretender to philosophy, of the name of
Hickman, but had no better fortune. The crystal had lost its power since
the departure of its great high priest. From this quarter, then, Dee could
get no information on the stone or elixir of the alchymists, and all his
efforts to discover them by other means were not only fruitless but
expensive. He was soon reduced to great distress, and wrote piteous
letters to the queen praying relief. He represented that, after he left
England with Count Laski, the mob had pillaged his house at Mortlake,
accusing him of being a necromancer and a wizard; and had broken all his
furniture, burned his library, consisting of four thousand rare volumes,
and destroyed all the philosophical instruments and curiosities in his
museum. For this damage he claimed compensation; and furthermore stated,
that, as he had come to England by the queen's command, she ought to pay
the expenses of his journey. Elizabeth sent him small sums of money at
various times; but Dee still continuing his complaints, a commission was
appointed to inquire into his circumstances. He finally obtained a small
appointment as Chancellor of St. Paul's cathedral, which he exchanged, in
1595, for the wardenship of the college at Manchester. He remained in this
capacity till 1602 or 1603, when, his strength and intellect beginning to
fail him, he was compelled to resign. He retired to his old dwelling at
Mortlake, in a state not far removed from actual want, supporting himself
as a common fortune-teller, and being often obliged to sell or pawn his
books to procure a dinner. James I. was often applied to on his behalf,
but he refused to do any thing for him. It may be said to the discredit of
this king, that the only reward he would grant the indefatigable Stowe, in
his days of old age and want, was the royal permission to beg; but no one
will blame him for neglecting such a quack as John Dee. He died in 1608,
in the eighty-first year of his age, and was buried at Mortlake.

THE COSMOPOLITE.

Many disputes have arisen as to the real name of the alchymist who wrote
several works under the above designation. The general opinion is that he
was a Scotsman named Seton, and that by a fate very common to alchymists
who boasted too loudly of their powers of transmutation, he ended his days
miserably in a dungeon, into which he was thrown by a German potentate
until he made a million of gold to pay his ransom. By some he has been
confounded with Michael Sendivog, or Sendivogius, a Pole, a professor of
the same art, who made a great noise in Europe at the commencement of the
seventeenth century. Lenglet du Fresnoy, who is in general well informed
with respect to the alchymists, inclines to the belief that these
personages were distinct; and gives the following particulars of the
Cosmopolite, extracted from George Morhoff, in his _Epistola ad
Langelottum_, and other writers.

About the year 1600, one Jacob Haussen, a Dutch pilot, was shipwrecked on
the coast of Scotland. A gentleman, named Alexander Seton, put off in a
boat, and saved him from drowning, and afterwards entertained him
hospitably for many weeks at his house on the shore. Haussen saw that he
was addicted to the pursuits of chemistry, but no conversation on the
subject passed between them at the time. About a year and a half
afterwards, Haussen being then at home at Enkhuysen, in Holland, received
a visit from his former host. He endeavoured to repay the kindness that
had been shewn him; and so great a friendship arose between them that
Seton, on his departure, offered to make him acquainted with the great
secret of the philosopher's stone. In his presence the Scotsman transmuted
a great quantity of base metal into pure gold, and gave it him as a mark
of his esteem. Seton then took leave of his friend, and travelled into
Germany. At Dresden he made no secret of his wonderful powers, having, it
is said, performed transmutation successfully before a great assemblage of
the learned men of that city. The circumstance coming to the ears of the
Duke or Elector of Saxony, he gave orders for the arrest of the alchymist.
He caused him to be imprisoned in a high tower, and set a guard of forty
men to watch that he did not escape, and that no strangers were admitted
to his presence. The unfortunate Seton received several visits from the
elector, who used every art of persuasion to make him divulge his secret.
Seton obstinately refused either to communicate his secret, or to make any
gold for the tyrant; on which he was stretched upon the rack, to see if
the argument of torture would render him more tractable. The result was
still the same; neither hope of reward nor fear of anguish could shake
him. For several months he remained in prison, subjected alternately to a
sedative and a violent regimen, till his health broke, and he wasted away
almost to a skeleton.

There happened at that time to be in Dresden a learned Pole, named Michael
Sendivogius, who had wasted a good deal of his time and substance in the
unprofitable pursuits of alchymy. He was touched with pity for the hard
fate, and admiration for the intrepidity of Seton; and determined, if
possible, to aid him in escaping from the clutch of his oppressor. He
requested the elector's permission to see the alchymist, and obtained it
with some difficulty. He found him in a state of great wretchedness, shut
up from the light of day in a noisome dungeon, and with no better couch or
fare than those allotted to the worst of criminals. Seton listened eagerly
to the proposal of escape, and promised the generous Pole that he would
make him richer than an eastern monarch if by his means he were liberated.
Sendivogius immediately commenced operations; he sold some property which
he possessed near Cracow, and with the proceeds led a merry life at
Dresden. He gave the most elegant suppers, to which he regularly invited
the officers of the guard, and especially those who did duty at the prison
of the alchymist. He insinuated himself at last into their confidence, and
obtained free ingress to his friend as often as he pleased; pretending
that he was using his utmost endeavours to conquer his obstinacy and worm
his secret out of him. When their project was ripe, a day was fixed upon
for the grand attempt; and Sendivogius was ready with a post-chariot to
convey him with all speed into Poland. By drugging some wine which he
presented to the guards of the prison, he rendered them so drowsy that he
easily found means to scale a wall unobserved, with Seton, and effect his
escape. Seton's wife was in the chariot awaiting him, having safely in her
possession a small packet of a black powder, which was, in fact, the
philosopher's stone, or ingredient for the transmutation of iron and
copper into gold. They all arrived in safety at Cracow; but the frame of
Seton was so wasted by torture of body and starvation, to say nothing of
the anguish of mind he had endured, that he did not long survive. He died
in Cracow, in 1603 or 1604, and was buried under the cathedral church of
that city. Such is the story related of the author of the various works
which bear the name of the Cosmopolite. A list of them may be found in the
third volume of the _History of the Hermetic Philosophy_.

SENDIVOGIUS.

On the death of Seton, Sendivogius married his widow, hoping to learn from
her some of the secrets of her deceased lord in the art of transmutation.
The ounce of black powder stood him, however, in better service; for the
alchymists say, that by its means he converted great quantities of
quicksilver into the purest gold. It is also said that he performed this
experiment successfully before the Emperor Rudolph II., at Prague; and
that the emperor, to commemorate the circumstance, caused a marble tablet
to be affixed to the wall of the room in which it was performed, bearing
this inscription, "Faciat hoc quispiam alius, quod fecit Sendivogius
Polonus." M. Desnoyers, secretary to the Princess Mary of Gonzaga, Queen
of Poland, writing from Warsaw in 1651, says that he saw this tablet,
which existed at that time, and was often visited by the curious.

The after-life of Sendivogius is related in a Latin memoir of him by one
Brodowski, his steward; and is inserted by Pierre Borel in his _Treasure
of Gaulish Antiquities_. The Emperor Rudolph, according to this authority,
was so well pleased with his success, that he made him one of his
councillors of state, and invited him to fill a station in the royal
household and inhabit the palace. But Sendivogius loved his liberty, and
refused to become a courtier. He preferred to reside on his own
patrimonial estate of Gravarna, where, for many years, he exercised a
princely hospitality. His philosophic powder, which, his steward says, was
red, and not black, he kept in a little box of gold; and with one grain of
it he could make five hundred ducats, or a thousand rix-dollars. He
generally made his projection upon quicksilver. When he travelled, he gave
this box to his steward, who hung it round his neck by a gold chain next
his skin. But the greatest part of the powder he used to hide in a secret
place cut into the step of his chariot. He thought that, if attacked at
any time by robbers, they would not search such a place as that. When he
anticipated any danger, he would dress himself in his valet's clothes,
and, mounting the coach-box, put the valet inside. He was induced to take
these precautions, because it was no secret that he possessed the
philosopher's stone; and many unprincipled adventurers were on the watch
for an opportunity to plunder him. A German prince, whose name Brodowski
has not thought fit to chronicle, served him a scurvy trick, which ever
afterwards put him on his guard. This prince went on his knees to
Sendivogius, and entreated him in the most pressing terms to satisfy his
curiosity, by converting some quicksilver into gold before him.
Sendivogius, wearied by his importunity, consented, upon a promise of
inviolable secrecy. After his departure, the prince called a German
alchymist, named Muhlenfels, who resided in his house, and told him all
that had been done. Muhlenfels entreated that he might have a dozen
mounted horsemen at his command, that he might instantly ride after the
philosopher, and either rob him of all his powder, or force from him the
secret of making it. The prince desired nothing better; Muhlenfels, being
provided with twelve men well mounted and armed, pursued Sendivogius in
hot haste. He came up with him at a lonely inn by the road-side, just as
he was sitting down to dinner. He at first endeavoured to persuade him to
divulge the secret; but finding this of no avail, he caused his
accomplices to strip the unfortunate Sendivogius and tie him naked to one
of the pillars of the house. He then took from him his golden box,
containing a small quantity of the powder; a manuscript book on the
philosopher's stone; a golden medal, with its chain, presented to him by
the Emperor Rudolph; and a rich cap, ornamented with diamonds, of the
value of one hundred thousand rix-dollars. With this booty he decamped,
leaving Sendivogius still naked and firmly bound to the pillar. His
servants had been treated in a similar manner; but the people of the inn
released them all as soon as the robbers were out of sight.

Sendivogius proceeded to Prague, and made his complaint to the emperor. An
express was instantly sent off to the prince, with orders that he should
deliver up Muhlenfels and all his plunder. The prince, fearful of the
emperor's wrath, caused three large gallows to be erected in his
court-yard; on the highest of which he hanged Muhlenfels, with another
thief on each side of him. He thus propitiated the emperor, and got rid of
an ugly witness against himself. He sent back, at the same time, the
bejewelled hat, the medal and chain, and the treatise upon the
philosopher's stone, which had been stolen from Sendivogius. As regarded
the powder, he said he had not seen it, and knew nothing about it.

This adventure made Sendivogius more prudent; he would no longer perform
the process of transmutation before any strangers, however highly
recommended. He pretended also to be very poor; and sometimes lay in bed
for weeks together, that people might believe he was suffering from some
dangerous malady, and could not therefore, by any possibility, be the
owner of the philosopher's stone. He would occasionally coin false money,
and pass it off as gold; preferring to be esteemed a cheat rather than a
successful alchymist.

Many other extraordinary tales are told of this personage by his steward
Brodowski, but they are not worth repeating. He died in 1636, aged upwards
of eighty, and was buried in his own chapel at Gravarna. Several works
upon alchymy have been published under his name.

THE ROSICRUCIANS.

It was during the time of the last-mentioned author that the sect of the
Rosicrucians first began to create a sensation in Europe. The influence
which they exercised upon opinion during their brief career, and the
permanent impression which they have left upon European literature, claim
for them especial notice. Before their time, alchymy was but a grovelling
delusion; and theirs is the merit of having spiritualised and refined it.
They also enlarged its sphere, and supposed the possession of the
philosopher's stone to be, not only the means of wealth, but of health and
happiness, and the instrument by which man could command the services of
superior beings, control the elements to his will, defy the obstructions
of time and space, and acquire the most intimate knowledge of all the
secrets of the universe. Wild and visionary as they were, they were not
without their uses; if it were only for having purged the superstitions of
Europe of the dark and disgusting forms with which the monks had peopled
it, and substituted, in their stead, a race of mild, graceful, and
beneficent beings.

They are said to have derived their name from Christian Rosencreutz, or
"Rose-cross," a German philosopher, who travelled in the Holy Land towards
the close of the fourteenth century. While dangerously ill at a place
called Damcar, he was visited by some learned Arabs, who claimed him as
their brother in science, and unfolded to him, by inspiration, all the
secrets of his past life, both of thought and of action. They restored him
to health by means of the philosopher's stone, and afterwards instructed
him in all their mysteries. He returned to Europe in 1401, being then only
twenty-three years of age; and drew a chosen number of his friends around
him, whom he initiated into the new science, and bound by solemn oaths to
keep it secret for a century. He is said to have lived eighty-three years
after this period, and to have died in 1484.

Many have denied the existence of such a personage as Rosencreutz, and
have fixed the origin of this sect at a much later epoch. The first
dawning of it, they say, is to be found in the theories of Paracelsus and
the dreams of Dr. Dee, who, without intending it, became the actual,
though never the recognised founders of the Rosicrucian philosophy. It is
now difficult, and indeed impossible, to determine whether Dee and
Paracelsus obtained their ideas from the then obscure and unknown
Rosicrucians, or whether the Rosicrucians did but follow and improve upon
them. Certain it is, that their existence was never suspected till the
year 1605, when they began to excite attention in Germany. No sooner were
their doctrines promulgated, than all the visionaries, Paracelsists, and
alchymists, flocked around their standard, and vaunted Rosencreutz as the
new regenerator of the human race. Michael Mayer, a celebrated physician
of that day, and who had impaired his health and wasted his fortune in
searching for the philosopher's stone, drew up a report of the tenets and
ordinances of the new fraternity, which was published at Cologne, in the
year 1615. They asserted, in the first place, "that the meditations of
their founders surpassed every thing that had ever been imagined since the
creation of the world, without even excepting the revelations of the
Deity; that they were destined to accomplish the general peace and
regeneration of man before the end of the world arrived; that they
possessed all wisdom and piety in a supreme degree; that they possessed
all the graces of nature, and could distribute them among the rest of
mankind according to their pleasure; that they were subject to neither
hunger, nor thirst, nor disease, nor old age, nor to any other
inconvenience of nature; that they knew by inspiration, and at the first
glance, every one who was worthy to be admitted into their society; that
they had the same knowledge then which they would have possessed if they
had lived from the beginning of the world, and had been always acquiring
it; that they had a volume in which they could read all that ever was or
ever would be written in other books till the end of time; that they could
force to, and retain in their service the most powerful spirits and
demons; that, by the virtue of their songs, they could attract pearls and
precious stones from the depths of the sea or the bowels of the earth;
that God had covered them with a thick cloud, by means of which they could
shelter themselves from the malignity of their enemies, and that they
could thus render themselves invisible from all eyes; that the first eight
brethren of the 'Rose-cross' had power to cure all maladies; that, by
means of the fraternity, the triple diadem of the pope would be reduced
into dust; that they only admitted two sacraments, with the ceremonies of
the primitive Church, renewed by them; that they recognised the Fourth
Monarchy and the Emperor of the Romans as their chief and the chief of all
Christians; that they would provide him with more gold, their treasures
being inexhaustible, than the King of Spain had ever drawn from the golden
regions of Eastern and Western Ind." This was their confession of faith.
Their rules of conduct were six in number, and as follow:

First. That, in their travels, they should gratuitously cure all diseases.

Secondly. That they should always dress in conformity to the fashion of
the country in which they resided.

Thirdly. That they should, once every year, meet together in the place
appointed by the fraternity, or send in writing an available excuse.

Fourthly. That every brother, whenever he felt inclined to die, should
choose a person worthy to succeed him.

Fifthly. That the words "Rose-cross" should be the marks by which they
should recognise each other.

Sixthly. That their fraternity should be kept secret for six times twenty
years.

They asserted that these laws had been found inscribed in a golden book in
the tomb of Rosencreutz, and that the six times twenty years from his
death expired in 1604. They were consequently called upon from that time
forth to promulgate their doctrine for the welfare of mankind[44].

    [44] The following legend of the tomb of Rosencreutz, written by
         Eustace Budgell, appears in No. 379 of the _Spectator_:--"A
         certain person, having occasion to dig somewhat deep in the
         ground where this philosopher lay interred, met with a small
         door, having a wall on each side of it. His curiosity, and
         the hope of finding some hidden treasure, soon prompted him
         to force open the door. He was immediately surprised by a
         sudden blaze of light, and discovered a very fair vault. At
         the upper end of it was a statue of a man in armour, sitting
         by a table, and leaning on his left arm. He held a truncheon
         in his right hand, and had a lamp burning before him. The man
         had no sooner set one foot within the vault, than the statue,
         erecting itself from its leaning posture, stood bolt upright;
         and, upon the fellow's advancing another step, lifted up the
         truncheon in his right hand. The man still ventured a third
         step; when the statue, with a furious blow, broke the lamp
         into a thousand pieces, and left his guest in sudden
         darkness. Upon the report of this adventure, the country
         people came with lights to the sepulchre, and discovered that
         the statue, which was made of brass, was nothing more than a
         piece of clock-work; that the floor of the vault was all
         loose, and underlaid with several springs, which, upon any
         man's entering, naturally produced that which had happened.

         "Rosicreucius, say his disciples, made use of this method to
         shew the world that he had re-invented the ever-burning lamps
         of the ancients, though he was resolved no one should reap
         any advantage from the discovery."

For eight years these enthusiasts made converts in Germany, but they
excited little or no attention in other parts of Europe. At last they made
their appearance in Paris, and threw all the learned, all the credulous,
and all the lovers of the marvellous into commotion. In the beginning of
March 1623, the good folks of that city, when they arose one morning, were
surprised to find all their walls placarded with the following singular
manifesto:

"_We, the deputies of the principal College of the Brethren of the
Rose-cross, have taken up our abode, visible and invisible, in this city,
by the grace of the Most High, towards whom are turned the hearts of the
just. We shew and teach without books or signs, and speak all sorts of
languages in the countries where we dwell, to draw mankind, our fellows,
from error and from death_."

For a long time this strange placard was the sole topic of conversation in
all public places. Some few wondered, but the greater number only laughed
at it. In the course of a few weeks two books were published, which raised
the first alarm respecting this mysterious society, whose dwelling-place
no one knew, and no members of which had ever been seen. The first was
called a history of _The frightful Compacts entered into between the Devil
and the pretended 'Invisibles;' with their damnable Instructions, the
deplorable Ruin of their Disciples, and their miserable end_. The other
was called an _Examination of the new and unknown Cabala of the Brethren
of the Rose-cross, who have lately inhabited the City of Paris; with the
History of their Manners, the Wonders worked by them, and many other
particulars_.

These books sold rapidly. Every one was anxious to know something of this
dreadful and secret brotherhood. The _badauds_ of Paris were so alarmed
that they daily expected to see the arch-enemy walking _in propria
persona_ among them. It was said in these volumes that the Rosicrucian
society consisted of six-and-thirty persons in all, who had renounced
their baptism and hope of resurrection. That it was not by means of good
angels, as they pretended, that they worked their prodigies; but that it
was the devil who gave them power to transport themselves from one end of
the world to the other with the rapidity of thought; to speak all
languages; to have their purses always full of money, however much they
might spend; to be invisible, and penetrate into the most secret places,
in spite of fastenings of bolts and bars; and to be able to tell the past
and future. These thirty-six brethren were divided into bands or
companies: six of them only had been sent on the mission to Paris, six to
Italy, six to Spain, six to Germany, four to Sweden, and two into
Switzerland, two into Flanders, two into Lorraine, and two into Franche
Comté. It was generally believed that the missionaries to France resided
somewhere in the Marais du Temple. That quarter of Paris soon acquired a
bad name, and people were afraid to take houses in it, lest they should be
turned out by the six invisibles of the Rose-cross. It was believed by the
populace, and by many others whose education should have taught them
better, that persons of a mysterious aspect used to visit the inns and
hotels of Paris, and eat of the best meats and drink of the best wines,
and then suddenly melt away into thin air when the landlord came with the
reckoning. That gentle maidens, who went to bed alone, often awoke in the
night and found men in bed with them, of shape more beautiful than the
Grecian Apollo, who immediately became invisible when an alarm was raised.
It was also said that many persons found large heaps of gold in their
houses without knowing from whence they came. All Paris was in alarm. No
man thought himself secure of his goods, no maiden of her virginity, or
wife of her chastity, while these Rosicrucians were abroad. In the midst
of the commotion, a second placard was issued to the following effect:

"_If any one desires to see the brethren of the Rose-cross from curiosity
only, he will never communicate with us. But if his_ will _really induces
him to inscribe his name in the register of our brotherhood, we, who can
judge of the thoughts of all men, will convince him of the truth of our
promises. For this reason we do not publish to the world the place of our
abode. Thought alone, in unison with the sincere_ will _of those who
desire to know us, is sufficient to make us known to them, and them to
us._"

Though the existence of such a society as that of the Rose-cross was
problematical, it was quite evident that somebody or other was concerned
in the promulgation of these placards, which were stuck up on every wall
in Paris. The police endeavoured in vain to find out the offenders, and
their want of success only served to increase the perplexity of the
public. The Church very soon took up the question; and the Abbé Gaultier,
a Jesuit, wrote a book to prove that, by their enmity to the pope, they
could be no other than disciples of Luther, sent to promulgate his heresy.
Their very name, he added, proved that they were heretics; a _cross_
surmounted by a _rose_ being the heraldic device of the arch-heretic
Luther. One Garasse said they were a confraternity of drunken impostors;
and that their name was derived from the garland of roses, in the form of
a cross, hung over the tables of taverns in Germany as the emblem of
secrecy, and from whence was derived the common saying, when one man
communicated a secret to another, that it was said "under the rose."
Others interpreted the letters F.R.C. to mean, not Brethren of the
Rose-cross, but _Fratres Roris Cocti_, or Brothers of Boiled Dew; and
explained this appellation by alleging that they collected large
quantities of morning dew, and boiled it, in order to extract a very
valuable ingredient in the composition of the philosopher's stone and the
water of life.

The fraternity thus attacked defended themselves as well as they were
able. They denied that they used magic of any kind, or that they consulted
the devil. They said they were all happy; that they had lived more than a
century, and expected to live many centuries more; and that the intimate
knowledge which they possessed of all nature was communicated to them by
God himself as a reward for their piety and utter devotion to his service.
Those were in error who derived their name from a cross of roses, or
called them drunkards. To set the world right on the first point, they
reiterated that they derived their name from Christian Rosencreutz, their
founder; and to answer the latter charge, they repeated that they knew not
what thirst was, and had higher pleasures than those of the palate. They
did not desire to meddle with the politics or religion of any man or set
of men, although they could not help denying the supremacy of the pope,
and looking upon him as a tyrant. Many slanders, they said, had been
repeated respecting them, the most unjust of which was, that they indulged
in carnal appetites, and, under the cloak of their invisibility, crept
into the chambers of beautiful maidens. They asserted, on the contrary,
that the first vow they took on entering the society was a vow of
chastity, and that any one among them who transgressed in that particular
would immediately lose all the advantages he enjoyed, and be exposed once
more to hunger, woe, disease, and death, like other men. So strongly did
they feel on the subject of chastity, that they attributed the fall of
Adam solely to his want of this virtue. Besides defending themselves in
this manner, they entered into a further confession of their faith. They
discarded for ever all the old tales of sorcery and witchcraft, and
communion with the devil. They said there were no such horrid, unnatural,
and disgusting beings as the incubi and succubi, and the innumerable
grotesque imps that men had believed in for so many ages. Man was not
surrounded with enemies like these, but with myriads of beautiful and
beneficent beings, all anxious to do him service. The air was peopled with
sylphs, the water with undines or naiads, the bowels of the earth with
gnomes, and the fire with salamanders. All these beings were the friends
of man, and desired nothing so much as that men should purge themselves of
all uncleanness, and thus be enabled to see and converse with them. They
possessed great power, and were unrestrained by the barriers of space or
the obstructions of matter. But man was in one particular their superior.
He had an immortal soul, and they had not. They might, however, become
sharers in man's immortality if they could inspire one of that race with
the passion of love towards them. Hence it was the constant endeavour of
the female spirits to captivate the admiration of men, and of the male
gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and undines to be beloved by a woman. The
object of this passion, in returning their love, imparted a portion of
that celestial fire, the soul; and from that time forth the beloved became
equal to the lover, and both, when their allotted course was run, entered
together into the mansions of felicity. These spirits, they said, watched
constantly over mankind by night and day. Dreams, omens, and presentiments
were all their works, and the means by which they gave warning of the
approach of danger. But though so well inclined to befriend man for their
own sakes, the want of a soul rendered them at times capricious and
revengeful; they took offence on slight causes, and heaped injuries
instead of benefits on the heads of those who extinguished the light of
reason that was in them by gluttony, debauchery, and other appetites of
the body.

The excitement produced in Paris by the placards of the brotherhood and
the attacks of the clergy wore itself away after a few months. The stories
circulated about them became at last too absurd even for that age of
absurdity, and men began to laugh once more at those invisible gentlemen
and their fantastic doctrines. Gabriel Naudé at that conjuncture brought
out his _Avis à la France sur les Frères de la Rose-croix_, in which he
very successfully exposed the folly of the new sect. This work, though not
well written, was well timed. It quite extinguished the Rosicrucians of
France; and after that year little more was heard of them. Swindlers in
different parts of the country assumed the name at times to cloak their
depredations; and now and then one of them was caught and hanged for his
too great ingenuity in enticing pearls and precious stones from the
pockets of other people into his own, or for passing off lumps of gilded
brass for pure gold, made by the agency of the philosopher's stone. With
these exceptions, oblivion shrouded them.

The doctrine was not confined to a sphere so narrow as France alone; it
still nourished in Germany, and drew many converts in England. The latter
countries produced two great masters in the persons of Jacob Böhmen and
Robert Fludd--pretended philosophers, of whom it is difficult to say which
was the more absurd and extravagant. It would appear that the sect was
divided into two classes--the brothers _Roseæ Crucis_, who devoted
themselves to the wonders of this sublunary sphere, and the brothers
_Aureæ Crucis_, who were wholly occupied in the contemplation of things
divine. Fludd belonged to the first class, and Böhmen to the second. Fludd
may be called the father of the English Rosicrucians, and as such merits a
conspicuous niche in the temple of Folly.

He was born in the year 1574 at Milgate, in Kent, and was the son of Sir
Thomas Fludd, Treasurer of War to Queen Elizabeth. He was originally
intended for the army; but he was too fond of study, and of a disposition
too quiet and retiring, to shine in that sphere. His father would not
therefore press him to adopt a course of life for which he was unsuited,
and encouraged him in the study of medicine, for which he early manifested
a partiality. At the age of twenty-five he proceeded to the continent; and
being fond of the abstruse, the marvellous, and the incomprehensible, he
became an ardent disciple of the school of Paracelsus, whom he looked upon
as the regenerator not only of medicine, but of philosophy. He remained
six years in Italy, France, and Germany, storing his mind with fantastic
notions, and seeking the society of enthusiasts and visionaries. On his
return to England in 1605, he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine
from the University of Oxford, and began to practise as a physician in
London.

He soon made himself conspicuous. He latinised his name from Robert Fludd
into Robertus à Fluctibus, and began the promulgation of many strange
doctrines. He avowed his belief in the philosopher's stone, the water of
life, and the universal alkahest; and maintained that there were but two
principles of all things,--which were, condensation, the boreal or
northern virtue; and rarefaction, the southern or austral virtue. A number
of demons, he said, ruled over the human frame, whom he arranged in their
places in a rhomboid. Every disease had its peculiar demon who produced
it, which demon could only be combated by the aid of the demon whose place
was directly opposite to his in the rhomboidal figure. Of his medical
notions we shall have further occasion to speak in another part of this
book, when we consider him in his character as one of the first founders
of the magnetic delusion, and its offshoot, animal magnetism, which has
created so much sensation in our own day.

As if the doctrines already mentioned were not wild enough, he joined the
Rosicrucians as soon as they began to make a sensation in Europe, and
succeeded in raising himself to high consideration among them. The
fraternity having been violently attacked by several German authors, and
among others by Libavius, Fludd volunteered a reply, and published, in
1616, his defence of the Rosicrucian philosophy, under the title of the
_Apologia compendiaria Fraternitatem de Rosea-cruce suspicionis et infamiæ
maculis aspersam abluens_. This work immediately procured him great renown
upon the Continent, and he was henceforth looked upon as one of the
high-priests of the sect. Of so much importance was he considered, that
Keppler and Gassendi thought it necessary to refute him; and the latter
wrote a complete examination of his doctrine. Mersenne also, the friend of
Descartes, and who had defended that philosopher when accused of having
joined the Rosicrucians, attacked Dr. à Fluctibus, as he preferred to be
called, and shewed the absurdity of the brothers of the Rose-cross in
general, and of Dr. à Fluctibus in particular. Fluctibus wrote a long
reply, in which he called Mersenne an ignorant calumniator, and reiterated
that alchymy was a profitable science, and the Rosicrucians worthy to be
the regenerators of the world. This book was published at Frankfort, and
was entitled _Summum Bonum, quod est Magiæ, Cabalæ, Alchimiæ, Fratrum,
Roseæ-Crucis verorum, et adversus Mersenium Calumniatorem_. Besides this,
he wrote several other works upon alchymy, a second answer to Libavius
upon the Rosicrucians, and many medical works. He died in London in 1637.

After his time there was some diminution of the sect in England. They
excited but little attention, and made no effort to bring themselves into
notice. Occasionally some obscure and almost incomprehensible work made
its appearance, to shew the world that the folly was not extinguished.
Eugenius Philalethes, a noted alchymist, who has veiled his real name
under this assumed one, translated _The Fame and Confession of the
Brethren of the Rosie Cross_, which was published in London in 1652. A few
years afterwards, another enthusiast, named John Heydon, wrote two works
on the subject: the one entitled _The Wise Man's Crown, or the Glory of
the Rosie Cross_; and the other, _The Holy Guide, leading the way to unite
Art and Nature with the Rosie Crosse uncovered_. Neither of these
attracted much notice. A third book was somewhat more successful; it was
called _A new Method of Rosicrucian Physic; by John Heydon, the servant of
God and the Secretary of Nature_. A few extracts will shew the ideas of
the English Rosicrucians about this period. Its author was an attorney,
"practising (to use his own words) at Westminster Hall all term times as
long as he lived, and in the vacations devoting himself to alchymical and
Rosicrucian meditation." In his preface, called by him an Apologue for an
Epilogue, he enlightens the public upon the true history and tenets of his
sect. Moses, Elias, and Ezekiel were, he says, the most ancient masters of
the Rosicrucian philosophy. Those few then existing in England and the
rest of Europe, were as the eyes and ears of the great king of the
universe, seeing and hearing all things; seraphically illuminated;
companions of the holy company of unbodied souls and immortal angels;
turning themselves, Proteus-like, into any shape, and having the power of
working miracles. The most pious and abstracted brethren could slack the
plague in cities, silence the violent winds and tempests, calm the rage of
the sea and rivers, walk in the air, frustrate the malicious aspect of
witches, cure all diseases, and turn all metals into gold. He had known in
his time two famous brethren of the Rosie Cross, named Walfourd and
Williams, who had worked miracles in his sight, and taught him many
excellent predictions of astrology and earthquakes. "I desired one of
these to tell me," says he, "whether my complexion were capable of the
society of my good genius. 'When I see you again,' said he (which was when
he pleased to come to me, for I knew not where to go to him), 'I will tell
you.' When I saw him afterwards, he said, 'You should pray to God; for a
good and holy man can offer no greater or more acceptable service to God
than the oblation of himself--his soul.' He said also, that the good genii
were the benign eyes of God, running to and fro in the world, and with
love and pity beholding the innocent endeavours of harmless and
single-hearted men, ever ready to do them good and to help them."

Heydon held devoutly true that dogma of the Rosicrucians which said that
neither eating nor drinking was necessary to men. He maintained that any
one might exist in the same manner as that singular people dwelling near
the source of the Ganges, of whom mention was made in the travels of his
namesake, Sir Christopher Heydon, who had no mouths, and therefore could
not eat, but lived by the breath of their nostrils; except when they took
a far journey, and then they mended their diet with the smell of flowers.
He said that in really pure air "there was a fine foreign fatness," with
which it was sprinkled by the sunbeams, and which was quite sufficient for
the nourishment of the generality of mankind. Those who had enormous
appetites, he had no objection to see take animal food, since they could
not do without it; but he obstinately insisted that there was no necessity
why they should _eat_ it. If they put a plaster of nicely-cooked meat upon
their epigastrium, it would be sufficient for the wants of the most robust
and voracious! They would by that means let in no diseases, as they did at
the broad and common gate, the mouth, as any one might see by example of
drink; for all the while a man sat in water, he was never athirst. He had
known, he said, many Rosicrucians, who by applying wine in this manner,
had fasted for years together. In fact, quoth Heydon, we may easily fast
all our life, though it be three hundred years, without any kind of meat,
and so cut off all danger of disease.

This "sage philosopher" further informed his wondering contemporaries that
the chiefs of the doctrine always carried about with them to their place
of meeting their symbol, called the R.C. which was an ebony cross,
flourished and decked with roses of gold; the cross typifying Christ's
sufferings upon the cross for our sins, and the roses of gold the glory
and beauty of his Resurrection. This symbol was carried alternately to
Mecca, Mount Calvary, Mount Sinai, Haran, and to three other places, which
must have been in mid-air, called _Cascle_, _Apamia_ and _Chaulateau
Virissa Caunuch_, where the Rosicrucian brethren met when they pleased,
and made resolution of all their actions. They always took their pleasures
in one of these places, where they resolved all questions of whatsoever
had been done, was done, or should be done in the world, from the
beginning to the end thereof. "And these," he concludes, "are the men
called Rosicrucians!"

Towards the end of the seventeenth century, more rational ideas took
possession of the sect, which still continued to boast of a few members.
They appear to have considered that contentment was the true philosopher's
stone, and to have abandoned the insane search for a mere phantom of the
imagination. Addison, in _The Spectator_,[45] gives an account of his
conversation with a Rosicrucian; from which it may be inferred that the
sect had grown wiser in their deeds, though in their talk they were as
foolish as ever. "I was once," says he, "engaged in discourse with a
Rosicrucian about the great secret. He talked of the secret as of a spirit
which lived within an emerald, and converted every thing that was near it
to the highest perfection that it was capable of. 'It gives a lustre,'
says he, 'to the sun, and water to the diamond. It irradiates every metal,
and enriches lead with all the properties of gold. It heightens smoke into
flame, flame into light, and light into glory.' He further added, 'that a
single ray of it dissipates pain and care and melancholy from the person
on whom it falls. In short,' says he, 'its presence naturally changes
every place into a kind of heaven.' After he had gone on for some time in
this unintelligible cant, I found that he jumbled natural and moral ideas
together into the same discourse, and that his great secret was nothing
else but content."

    [45] No. 574. Friday, July 30th, 1714.

JACOB BÖHMEN.

It is now time to speak of Jacob Böhmen, who thought he could discover the
secret of the transmutation of metals in the Bible, and who invented a
strange heterogeneous doctrine of mingled alchymy and religion, and
founded upon it the sect of the Aurea-crucians. He was born at Görlitz, in
Upper Lusatia, in 1575, and followed till his thirtieth year the
occupation of a shoemaker. In this obscurity he remained, with the
character of a visionary and a man of unsettled mind, until the
promulgation of the Rosicrucian philosophy in his part of Germany, toward
the year 1607 or 1608. From that time he began to neglect his leather, and
buried his brain under the rubbish of metaphysics. The works of Paracelsus
fell into his hands; and these, with the reveries of the Rosicrucians, so
completely engrossed his attention, that he abandoned his trade
altogether, sinking, at the same time, from a state of comparative
independence into poverty and destitution. But he was nothing daunted by
the miseries and privations of the flesh; his mind was fixed upon the
beings of another sphere, and in thought he was already the new apostle of
the human race. In the year 1612, after a meditation of four years, he
published his first work, entitled _Aurora, or the Rising of the Sun_;
embodying the ridiculous notions of Paracelsus, and worse confounding the
confusion of that writer. The philosopher's stone might, he contended, be
discovered by a diligent search of the Old and New Testaments, and more
especially of the Apocalypse, which alone contained all the secrets of
alchymy. He contended that the divine grace operated by the same rules,
and followed the same methods, that the divine providence observed in the
natural world; and that the minds of men were purged from their vices and
corruptions in the very same manner that metals were purified from their
dross, namely, by fire.

Besides the sylphs, gnomes, undines, and salamanders, he acknowledged
various ranks and orders of demons. He pretended to invisibility and
absolute chastity. He also said that, if it pleased him, he could abstain
for years from meat and drink, and all the necessities of the body. It is
needless, however, to pursue his follies any further. He was reprimanded
for writing this work by the magistrates of Görlitz, and commanded to
leave the pen alone and stick to his wax, that his family might not become
chargeable to the parish. He neglected this good advice, and continued his
studies; burning minerals and purifying metals one day, and mystifying the
Word of God on the next. He afterwards wrote three other works, as
sublimely ridiculous as the first. The one was entitled _Metallurgia_, and
has the slight merit of being the least obscure of his compositions.
Another was called _The Temporal Mirror of Eternity_; and the last his
_Theosophy revealed_, full of allegories and metaphors,

                "All strange and geason,
    Devoid of sense and ordinary reason."

Böhmen died in 1624, leaving behind him a considerable number of admiring
disciples. Many of them became, during the seventeenth century, as
distinguished for absurdity as their master; amongst whom may be mentioned
Gifftheil, Wendenhagen, John Jacob Zimmermann, and Abraham Frankenberg.
Their heresy rendered them obnoxious to the Church of Rome; and many of
them suffered long imprisonment and torture for their faith. One, named
Kuhlmann, was burned alive at Moscow, in 1684, on a charge of sorcery.
Böhmen's works were translated into English, and published, many years
afterwards, by an enthusiast named William Law.

MORMIUS.

Peter Mormius, a notorious alchymist and contemporary of Böhmen,
endeavoured, in 1630, to introduce the Rosicrucian philosophy into
Holland. He applied to the States-General to grant him a public audience,
that he might explain the tenets of the sect, and disclose a plan for
rendering Holland the happiest and richest country on the earth, by means
of the philosopher's stone and the service of the elementary spirits. The
States-General wisely resolved to have nothing to do with him. He
thereupon determined to shame them by printing his book, which he did at
Leyden the same year. It was entitled _The Book of the most Hidden Secrets
of Nature_, and was divided into three parts; the first treating of
"perpetual motion;" the second of the "transmutation of metals;" and the
third of the "universal medicine." He also published some German works
upon the Rosicrucian philosophy, at Frankfort, in 1617.

Poetry and romance are deeply indebted to the Rosicrucians for many a
graceful creation. The literature of England, France, and Germany contains
hundreds of sweet fictions, whose machinery has been borrowed from their
day-dreams. The "delicate Ariel" of Shakspeare stands pre-eminent among
the number. From the same source Pope drew the airy tenants of Belinda's
dressing-room, in his charming _Rape of the Lock_; and La Motte Fouqué,
the beautiful and capricious water-nymph Undine, around whom he has thrown
more grace and loveliness, and for whose imaginary woes he has excited
more sympathy, than ever were bestowed on a supernatural being. Sir Walter
Scott also endowed the White Lady of Avenel with many of the attributes of
the undines or water-sprites. German romance and lyrical poetry teem with
allusions to sylphs, gnomes, undines, and salamanders; and the French have
not been behind in substituting them, in works of fiction, for the more
cumbrous mythology of Greece and Rome. The sylphs, more especially, have
been the favourites of the bards, and have become so familiar to the
popular mind as to be, in a manner, confounded with that other race of
ideal beings, the fairies, who can boast of an antiquity much more
venerable in the annals of superstition. Having these obligations to the
Rosicrucians, no lover of poetry can wish, however absurd they were, that
such a sect of philosophers had never existed.

BORRI.

Just at the time that Michael Mayer was making known to the world the
existence of such a body as the Rosicrucians, there was born in Italy a
man who was afterwards destined to become the most conspicuous member of
the fraternity. The alchymic mania never called forth the ingenuity of a
more consummate or more successful impostor than Joseph Francis Borri. He
was born in 1616, according to some authorities, and in 1627 according to
others, at Milan; where his father, the Signor Branda Borri, practised as
a physician. At the age of sixteen Joseph was sent to finish his education
at the Jesuits' college in Rome, where he distinguished himself by his
extraordinary memory. He learned every thing to which he applied himself
with the utmost ease. In the most voluminous works no fact was too minute
for his retention, and no study was so abstruse but that he could master
it; but any advantages he might have derived from this facility were
neutralised by his ungovernable passions and his love of turmoil and
debauchery. He was involved in continual difficulty, as well with the
heads of the college as with the police of Rome, and acquired so bad a
character that years could not remove it. By the aid of his friends he
established himself as a physician in Rome, and also obtained some
situation in the pope's household. In one of his fits of studiousness he
grew enamoured of alchymy, and determined to devote his energies to the
discovery of the philosopher's stone. Of unfortunate propensities he had
quite sufficient, besides this, to bring him to poverty. His pleasures
were as expensive as his studies, and both were of a nature to destroy his
health and ruin his fair fame. At the age of thirty-seven he found that he
could not live by the practice of medicine, and began to look about for
some other employment. He became, in 1653, private secretary to the
Marquis di Mirogli, the minister of the Archduke of Innsprück at the court
of Rome. He continued in this capacity for two years; leading, however,
the same abandoned life as heretofore, frequenting the society of
gamesters, debauchees, and loose women, involving himself in disgraceful
street quarrels, and alienating the patrons who were desirous to befriend
him.

All at once a sudden change was observed in his conduct. The abandoned
rake put on the outward sedateness of a philosopher; the scoffing sinner
proclaimed that he had forsaken his evil ways, and would live thenceforth
a model of virtue. To his friends this reformation was as pleasing as it
was unexpected; and Borri gave obscure hints that it had been brought
about by some miraculous manifestation of a superior power. He pretended
that he held converse with beneficent spirits; that the secrets of God and
nature were revealed to him; and that he had obtained possession of the
philosopher's stone. Like his predecessor, Jacob Böhmen, he mixed up
religious questions with his philosophical jargon, and took measures for
declaring himself the founder of a new sect. This, at Rome itself, and in
the very palace of the pope, was a hazardous proceeding; and Borri just
awoke to a sense of it in time to save himself from the dungeons of the
Castle of St. Angelo. He fled to Innsprück, where he remained about a
year, and then returned to his native city of Milan.

[Illustration: INNSPRUCK.]

The reputation of his great sanctity had gone before him; and he found
many persons ready to attach themselves to his fortunes. All who were
desirous of entering into the new communion took an oath of poverty, and
relinquished their possessions for the general good of the fraternity.
Borri told them that he had received from the archangel Michael a heavenly
sword, upon the hilt of which were engraven the names of the seven
celestial intelligences. "Whoever shall refuse," said he, "to enter into
my new sheepfold shall be destroyed by the papal armies, of whom God has
predestined me to be the chief. To those who follow me all joy shall be
granted. I shall soon bring my chemical studies to a happy conclusion, by
the discovery of the philosopher's stone, and by this means we shall all
have as much gold as we desire. I am assured of the aid of the angelic
hosts, and more especially of the archangel Michael's. When I began to
walk in the way of the spirit, I had a vision of the night, and was
assured by an angelic voice that I should become a prophet. In sign of it
I saw a palm-tree, surrounded with all the glory of paradise. The angels
come to me whenever I call, and reveal to me all the secrets of the
universe. The sylphs and elementary spirits obey me, and fly to the
uttermost ends of the world to serve me, and those whom I delight to
honour." By force of continually repeating such stories as these, Borri
soon found himself at the head of a very considerable number of adherents.
As he figures in these pages as an alchymist, and not as a religious
sectarian, it will be unnecessary to repeat the doctrines which he taught
with regard to some of the dogmas of the Church of Rome, and which exposed
him to the fierce resentment of the papal authority. They were to the full
as ridiculous as his philosophical pretensions. As the number of his
followers increased, he appears to have cherished the idea of becoming one
day a new Mahomet, and of founding, in his native city of Milan, a
monarchy and religion of which he should be the king and the prophet. He
had taken measures, in the year 1658, for seizing the guards at all the
gates of that city, and formally declaring himself the monarch of the
Milanese. Just as he thought the plan ripe for execution, it was
discovered. Twenty of his followers were arrested, and he himself managed,
with the utmost difficulty, to escape to the neutral territory of
Switzerland, where the papal displeasure could not reach him.

The trial of his followers commenced forthwith, and the whole of them were
sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. Borri's trial proceeded in his
absence, and lasted for upwards of two years. He was condemned to death as
a heretic and sorcerer in 1661, and was burned in effigy in Rome by the
common hangman.

Borri, in the mean time, lived quietly in Switzerland, indulging himself
in railing at the Inquisition and its proceedings. He afterwards went to
Strasbourg, intending to fix his residence in that town. He was received
with great cordiality, as a man persecuted for his religious opinions, and
withal a great alchymist. He found that sphere too narrow for his aspiring
genius, and retired in the same year to the more wealthy city of
Amsterdam. He there hired a magnificent house, established an equipage
which eclipsed in brilliancy those of the richest merchants, and assumed
the title of Excellency. Where he got the money to live in this expensive
style was long a secret: the adepts in alchymy easily explained it, after
their fashion. Sensible people were of opinion that he had come by it in a
less wonderful manner; for it was remembered that among his unfortunate
disciples in Milan, there were many rich men, who, in conformity with one
of the fundamental rules of the sect, had given up all their earthly
wealth into the hands of their founder. In whatever manner the money was
obtained, Borri spent it in Holland with an unsparing hand, and was looked
up to by the people with no little respect and veneration. He performed
several able cures, and increased his reputation so much that he was
vaunted as a prodigy. He continued diligently the operations of alchymy,
and was in daily expectation that he should succeed in turning the
inferior metals into gold. This hope never abandoned him, even in the
worst extremity of his fortunes; and in his prosperity it led him into the
most foolish expenses: but he could not long continue to live so
magnificently upon the funds he had brought from Italy; and the
philosopher's stone, though it promised all for the wants of the morrow,
never brought any thing for the necessities of to-day. He was obliged in a
few months to retrench, by giving up his large house, his gilded coach and
valuable blood-horses, his liveried domestics, and his luxurious
entertainments. With this diminution of splendour came a diminution of
renown. His cures did not appear so miraculous, when he went out on foot
to perform them, as they had seemed when "his Excellency" had driven to a
poor man's door in his carriage with six horses. He sank from a prodigy
into an ordinary man. His great friends shewed him the cold shoulder, and
his humble flatterers carried their incense to some other shrine. Borri
now thought it high time to change his quarters. With this view he
borrowed money wherever he could get it, and succeeded in obtaining two
hundred thousand florins from a merchant named De Meer, to aid, as he
said, in discovering the water of life. He also obtained six diamonds of
great value, on pretence that he could remove the flaws from them without
diminishing their weight. With this booty he stole away secretly by night,
and proceeded to Hamburgh.

On his arrival in that city, he found the celebrated Christina, the
ex-queen of Sweden. He procured an introduction to her, and requested her
patronage in his endeavour to discover the philosopher's stone. She gave
him some encouragement; but Borri, fearing that the merchants of
Amsterdam, who had connexions in Hamburgh, might expose his delinquencies
if he remained in the latter city, passed over to Copenhagen, and sought
the protection of Frederick III., the king of Denmark.

This prince was a firm believer in the transmutation of metals. Being in
want of money, he readily listened to the plans of an adventurer who had
both eloquence and ability to recommend him. He provided Borri with the
means to make experiments, and took a great interest in the progress of
his operations. He expected every month to possess riches that would buy
Peru; and, when he was disappointed, accepted patiently the excuses of
Borri, who, upon every failure, was always ready with some plausible
explanation. He became in time much attached to him; and defended him from
the jealous attacks of his courtiers, and the indignation of those who
were grieved to see their monarch the easy dupe of a charlatan. Borri
endeavoured, by every means in his power, to find aliment for this good
opinion. His knowledge of medicine was useful to him in this respect, and
often stood between him and disgrace. He lived six years in this manner at
the court of Frederick; but that monarch dying in 1670 he was left without
a protector.

As he had made more enemies than friends in Copenhagen, and had nothing to
hope from the succeeding sovereign, he sought an asylum in another
country. He went first to Saxony; but met so little encouragement, and
encountered so much danger from the emissaries of the Inquisition, that he
did not remain there many months. Anticipating nothing but persecution in
every country that acknowledged the spiritual authority of the pope, he
appears to have taken the resolution to dwell in Turkey, and turn
Mussulman. On his arrival at the Hungarian frontier, on his way to
Constantinople, he was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the
conspiracy of the Counts Nadasdi and Frangipani, which had just been
discovered. In vain he protested his innocence, and divulged his real name
and profession. He was detained in prison, and a letter despatched to the
Emperor Leopold, to know what should be done with him. The star of his
fortunes was on the decline. The letter reached Leopold at an unlucky
moment. The pope's nuncio was closeted with his majesty; and he no sooner
heard the name of Joseph Francis Borri, than he demanded him as a prisoner
of the Holy See. The request was complied with; and Borri, closely
manacled, was sent under an escort of soldiers to the prison of the
Inquisition at Rome. He was too much of an impostor to be deeply tinged
with fanaticism, and was not unwilling to make a public recantation of his
heresies, if he could thereby save his life. When the proposition was made
to him, he accepted it with eagerness. His punishment was to be commuted
into the hardly less severe one of perpetual imprisonment; but he was too
happy to escape the clutch of the executioner at any price, and he made
the _amende honorable_ in face of the assembled multitudes of Rome on the
27th of October 1672. He was then transferred to the prisons of the Castle
of St. Angelo, where he remained till his death, twenty-three years
afterwards. It is said that, towards the close of his life, considerable
indulgence was granted him; that he was allowed to have a laboratory, and
to cheer the solitude of his dungeon by searching for the philosopher's
stone. Queen Christina, during her residence at Rome, frequently visited
the old man, to converse with him upon chemistry and the doctrines of the
Rosicrucians. She even obtained permission that he should leave his prison
occasionally for a day or two, and reside in her palace, she being
responsible for his return to captivity. She encouraged him to search for
the great secret of the alchymists, and provided him with money for the
purpose. It may well be supposed that Borri benefited most by this
acquaintance, and that Christina got nothing but experience. It is not
sure that she gained even that; for until her dying day she was convinced
of the possibility of finding the philosopher's stone, and ready to assist
any adventurer either zealous or impudent enough to pretend to it.

After Borri had been about eleven years in confinement, a small volume was
published at Cologne, entitled _The Key of the Cabinet of the Chevalier
Joseph Francis Borri, in which are contained many curious Letters upon
Chemistry and other Sciences, written by him, together with a Memoir of
his Life_. This book contained a complete exposition of the Rosicrucian
philosophy, and afforded materials to the Abbé de Villars for his
interesting _Count de Gabalis_, which excited so much attention at the
close of the seventeenth century.

Borri lingered in the prison of St. Angelo till 1695, when he died, in his
eightieth year. Besides _The Key of the Cabinet_, written originally in
Copenhagen, in 1666, for the edification of King Frederick III., he
published a work upon alchymy and the secret sciences, under the title of
_The Mission of Romulus to the Romans_.

INFERIOR ALCHYMISTS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Besides the pretenders to the philosopher's stone whose lives have been
already narrated, this and the preceding century produced a great number
of writers, who inundated literature with their books upon the subject. In
fact, most of the learned men of that age had some faith in it. Van
Helmont, Borrichius, Kircher, Boerhaave, and a score of others, though not
professed alchymists, were fond of the science, and countenanced its
professors. Helvetius, the grandfather of the celebrated philosopher of
the same name, asserts that he saw an inferior metal turned into gold by a
stranger, at the Hague, in 1666. He says, that, sitting one day in his
study, a man, who was dressed as a respectable burgher of North Holland,
and very modest and simple in his appearance, called upon him, with the
intention of dispelling his doubts relative to the philosopher's stone. He
asked Helvetius if he thought he should know that rare gem if he saw it.
To which Helvetius replied, that he certainly should not. The burgher
immediately drew from his pocket a small ivory box, containing three
pieces of metal, of the colour of brimstone, and extremely heavy; and
assured Helvetius, that of them he could make as much as twenty tons of
gold. Helvetius informs us, that he examined them very attentively; and
seeing that they were very brittle, he took the opportunity to scrape off
a small portion with his thumb-nail. He then returned them to the
stranger, with an entreaty that he would perform the process of
transmutation before him. The stranger replied, that he was not allowed to
do so, and went away. After his departure, Helvetius procured a crucible
and a portion of lead, into which, when in a state of fusion, he threw the
stolen grain from the philosopher's stone. He was disappointed to find
that the grain evaporated altogether, leaving the lead in its original
state.

Some weeks afterwards, when he had almost forgotten the subject, he
received another visit from the stranger. He again entreated him to
explain the processes by which he pretended to transmute lead. The
stranger at last consented, and informed him, that one grain was
sufficient; but that it was necessary to envelope it in a ball of wax
before throwing it on the molten metal; otherwise its extreme volatility
would cause it to go off in vapour. They tried the experiment, and
succeeded to their heart's content. Helvetius repeated the experiment
alone, and converted six ounces of lead into very pure gold.

The fame of this event spread all over the Hague, and all the notable
persons of the town flocked to the study of Helvetius to convince
themselves of the fact. Helvetius performed the experiment again, in the
presence of the Prince of Orange, and several times afterwards, until he
exhausted the whole of the powder he had received from the stranger, from
whom it is necessary to state, he never received another visit; nor did he
ever discover his name or condition. In the following year, Helvetius
published his _Golden Calf_,[46] in which he detailed the above
circumstances.

    [46] "Vitulus Aureus quem Mundus adorat et orat, in quo tractatur
         de naturæ miraculo transmutandi metalla." _Hagæ_, 1667.

About the same time, the celebrated Father Kircher published his
_Subterranean World_, in which he called the alchymists a congregation of
knaves and impostors, and their science a delusion. He admitted that he
had himself been a diligent labourer in the field, and had only come to
this conclusion after mature consideration and repeated fruitless
experiments. All the alchymists were in arms immediately, to refute this
formidable antagonist. One Solomon de Blauenstein was the first to grapple
with him, and attempted to convict him of wilful misrepresentation, by
recalling to his memory the transmutations by Sendivogius, before the
Emperor Frederick III. and the Elector of Mayence, all performed within a
recent period. Zwelfer and Glauber also entered into the dispute, and
attributed the enmity of Father Kircher to spite and jealousy against
adepts who had been more successful than himself.

It was also pretended that Gustavus Adolphus transmuted a quantity of
quicksilver into pure gold. The learned Borrichius relates, that he saw
coins which had been struck of this gold; and Lenglet du Fresnoy deposes
to the same circumstance. In the _Travels of Monconis_ the story is told
in the following manner: "A merchant of Lubeck, who carried on but little
trade, but who knew how to change lead into very good gold, gave the King
of Sweden a lingot which he had made, weighing at least one hundred
pounds. The king immediately caused it to be coined into ducats; and
because he knew positively that its origin was such as had been stated to
him, he had his own arms graven upon the one side, and emblematical
figures of Mercury and Venus on the other. I (continued Monconis) have one
of these ducats in my possession; and was credibly informed that, after
the death of the Lubeck merchant, who had never appeared very rich, a sum
of no less than one million seven hundred thousand crowns was found in his
coffers."[47]

    [47] _Voyages de Monconis_, tome ii. p. 379.

Such stories as these, confidently related by men high in station, tended
to keep up the infatuation of the alchymists in every country of Europe.
It is astonishing to see the number of works which were written upon the
subject during the seventeenth century alone, and the number of clever men
who sacrificed themselves to the delusion. Gabriel de Castaigne, a monk of
the order of St. Francis, attracted so much notice in the reign of Louis
XIII., that that monarch secured him in his household, and made him his
Grand Almoner. He pretended to find the elixir of life, and Louis expected
by his means to have enjoyed the crown for a century. Van Helmont also
pretended to have once performed with success the process of transmuting
quicksilver, and was in consequence invited by the Emperor Rudolph II. to
fix his residence at the court of Vienna. Glauber, the inventor of the
salts which still bear his name, and who practised as a physician at
Amsterdam about the middle of the seventeenth century, established a
public school in that city for the study of alchymy, and gave lectures
himself upon the science. John Joachim Becher of Spire acquired great
reputation at the same period, and was convinced that much gold might be
made out of flint-stones by a peculiar process, and the aid of that grand
and incomprehensible substance the philosopher's stone. He made a
proposition to the Emperor Leopold of Austria to aid him in these
experiments; but the hope of success was too remote, and the present
expense too great, to tempt that monarch, and he therefore gave Becher
much of his praise, but none of his money. Becher afterwards tried the
States-General of Holland with no better success.

With regard to the innumerable tricks by which impostors persuaded the
world that they had succeeded in making gold, and of which so many stories
were current about this period, a very satisfactory report was read by M.
Geoffroy the elder, at the sitting of the Royal Academy of Sciences at
Paris, on the 15th of April, 1722. As it relates principally to the
alchymic cheats of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the following
abridgment of it may not be out of place in this portion of our history.
The instances of successful transmutation were so numerous, and apparently
so well authenticated, that nothing short of so able an exposure as that
of M. Geoffroy could disabuse the public mind. The trick to which they
oftenest had recourse was to use a double-bottomed crucible, the under
surface being of iron or copper, and the upper one of wax, painted to
resemble the same metal. Between the two they placed as much gold or
silver dust as was necessary for their purpose. They then put in their
lead, quicksilver, or other ingredients, and placed their pot upon the
fire. Of course, when the experiment was concluded, they never failed to
find a lump of gold at the bottom. The same result was produced in many
other ways. Some of them used a hollow wand, filled with gold or silver
dust, and stopped at the ends with wax or butter. With this they stirred
the boiling metal in their crucibles, taking care to accompany the
operation with many ceremonies, to divert attention from the real purpose
of the manoeuvre. They also drilled holes in lumps of lead, into which
they poured molten gold, and carefully closed the aperture with the
original metal. Sometimes they washed a piece of gold with quicksilver.
When in this state, they found no difficulty in palming it off upon the
uninitiated as an inferior metal, and very easily transmuted it into fine
sonorous gold again with the aid of a little aquafortis.

Others imposed by means of nails, half iron and half gold or silver. They
pretended that they really transmuted the precious half from iron, by
dipping it in a strong alcohol. M. Geoffroy produced several of these
nails to the Academy of Sciences, and shewed how nicely the two parts were
soldered together. The golden or silver half was painted black to resemble
iron, and the colour immediately disappeared when the nail was dipped into
aquafortis. A nail of this description was, for a long time, in the
cabinet of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Such also, said M. Geoffroy, was the
knife presented by a monk to Queen Elizabeth of England; the blade of
which was half gold and half steel. Nothing at one time was more common
than to see coins, half gold and half silver, which had been operated upon
by alchymists, for the same purposes of trickery. In fact, says M.
Geoffroy, in concluding his long report, there is every reason to believe
that all the famous histories which have been handed down to us about the
transmutation of metals into gold or silver, by means of the powder of
projection or philosophical elixirs, are founded upon some successful
deception of the kind above narrated. These pretended philosophers
invariably disappeared after the first or second experiment, or their
powders or elixirs have failed to produce their effect, either because
attention being excited they have found no opportunity to renew the trick
without being discovered, or because they have not had sufficient gold
dust for more than one trial.

The disinterestedness of these would-be philosophers looked, at first
sight, extremely imposing. Instances were not rare in which they
generously abandoned all the profits of their transmutations--even the
honour of the discovery. But this apparent disinterestedness was one of
the most cunning of their manoeuvres. It served to keep up the popular
expectation; it seemed to shew the possibility of discovering the
philosopher's stone, and provided the means of future advantages, which
they were never slow to lay hold of--such as entrances into royal
households, maintenance at the public expense, and gifts from ambitious
potentates, too greedy after the gold they so easily promised.

It now only remains to trace the progress of the delusion from the
commencement of the eighteenth century until the present day. It will be
seen that, until a very recent period, there were but slight signs of a
return to reason.

JEAN DELISLE.

In the year 1705, there was much talk in France of a blacksmith, named
Delisle, who had discovered the philosopher's stone, and who went about
the country turning lead into gold. He was a native of Provence, from
which place his fame soon spread to the capital. His early life is
involved in obscurity; but Lenglet du Fresnoy has industriously collected
some particulars of his later career, which possess considerable interest.
He was a man without any education, and had been servant in his youth to
an alchymist, from whom he learned many of the tricks of the fraternity.
The name of his master has never been discovered; but it is pretended that
he rendered himself in some manner obnoxious to the government of Louis
XIV., and was obliged, in consequence, to take refuge in Switzerland.
Delisle accompanied him as far as Savoy, and there, it is said, set upon
him in a solitary mountain-pass, and murdered and robbed him. He then
disguised himself as a pilgrim, and returned to France. At a lonely inn,
by the road-side, where he stopped for the night, he became acquainted
with a woman, named Aluys; and so sudden a passion was enkindled betwixt
them, that she consented to leave all, follow him, and share his good or
evil fortune wherever he went. They lived together for five or six years
in Provence, without exciting any attention, apparently possessed of a
decent independence. At last, in 1706, it was given out that he was the
possessor of the philosopher's stone; and people from far and near came
flocking to his residence, at the Château de la Palu, at Sylanez, near
Barjaumont, to witness the wealth he could make out of pumps and
fire-shovels. The following account of his operations is given in a letter
addressed by M. de Cerisy, the Prior of Châteauneuf, in the Diocese of
Riez, in Provence, to the Vicar of St. Jacques du Hautpas, at Paris, and
dated the 18th of November, 1706:

"I have something to relate to you, my dear cousin, which will be
interesting to you and your friends. The philosopher's stone, which so
many persons have looked upon as a chimera, is at last found. It is a man
named Delisle, of the parish of Sylanez, and residing within a quarter of
a league of me, that has discovered this great secret. He turns lead into
gold, and iron into silver, by merely heating these metals red hot, and
pouring upon them in that state some oil and powder he is possessed of; so
that it would not be impossible for any man to make a million a day, if he
had sufficient of this wondrous mixture. Some of the pale gold which he
had made in this manner, he sent to the jewellers of Lyons, to have their
opinion on its quality. He also sold twenty pounds weight of it to a
merchant of Digne, named Taxis. All the jewellers say they never saw such
fine gold in their lives. He makes nails, part gold, part iron, and part
silver. He promised to give me one of them, in a long conversation which I
had with him the other day, by order of the Bishop of Senés, who saw his
operations with his own eyes, and detailed all the circumstances to me.

"The Baron and Baroness de Rheinwald shewed me a lingot of gold made out
of pewter before their eyes by M. Delisle. My brother-in-law Sauveur, who
has wasted fifty years of his life in this great study, brought me the
other day a nail which he had seen changed into gold by Delisle, and fully
convinced me that all his previous experiments were founded on an
erroneous principle. This excellent workman received, a short time ago, a
very kind letter from the superintendent of the royal household, which I
read. He offered to use all his influence with the ministers to prevent
any attempts upon his liberty, which has twice been attacked by the agents
of government. It is believed that the oil he makes use of, is gold or
silver reduced to that state. He leaves it for a long time exposed to the
rays of the sun. He told me that it generally took him six months to make
all his preparations. I told him that, apparently, the king wanted to see
him. He replied that he could not exercise his art in every place, as a
certain climate and temperature were absolutely necessary to his success.
The truth is, that this man appears to have no ambition. He only keeps two
horses and two men-servants. Besides, he loves his liberty, has no
politeness, and speaks very bad French; but his judgment seems to be
solid. He was formerly no more than a blacksmith, but excelled in that
trade without having been taught it. All the great lords and seigneurs
from far and near come to visit him, and pay such court to him, that it
seems more like idolatry than any thing else. Happy would France be if
this man would discover his secret to the king, to whom the superintendent
has already sent some lingots! But the happiness is too great to be hoped
for; for I fear that the workman and his secret will expire together.
There is no doubt that this discovery will make a great noise in the
kingdom, unless the character of the man, which I have just depicted to
you, prevent it. At all events, posterity will hear of him."

In another letter to the same person, dated the 27th of January 1707, M.
de Cerisy says, "My dear cousin, I spoke to you in my last letter of the
famous alchymist of Provence, M. Delisle. A good deal of that was only
hearsay, but now I am enabled to speak from my own experience. I have in
my possession a nail, half iron and half silver, which I made myself. That
great and admirable workman also bestowed a still greater privilege upon
me--he allowed me turn a piece of lead which I had brought with me into
pure gold, by means of his wonderful oil and powder. All the country have
their eyes upon this gentleman; some deny loudly, others are incredulous;
but those who have seen acknowledge the truth. I have read the passport
that has been sent to him from court, with orders that he should present
himself at Paris early in the spring. He told me that he would go
willingly, and that it was himself who fixed the spring for his departure;
as he wanted to collect his materials, in order that, immediately on his
introduction to the king, he might make an experiment worthy of his
majesty, by converting a large quantity of lead into the finest gold. I
sincerely hope that he will not allow his secret to die with him, but that
he will communicate it to the king. As I had the honour to dine with him
on Thursday last, the 20th of this month, being seated at his side, I told
him in a whisper that he could, if he liked, humble all the enemies of
France. He did not deny it, but began to smile. In fact, this man is the
miracle of art. Sometimes he employs the oil and powder mixed, sometimes
the powder only; but in so small a quantity that, when the lingot which I
made was rubbed all over with it, it did not shew at all."

This soft-headed priest was by no means the only person in the
neighbourhood who lost his wits in hopes of the boundless wealth held out
by this clever impostor. Another priest, named De Lions, a chanter in the
cathedral of Grenoble, writing on the 30th January 1707, says: "M.
Mesnard, the curate of Montier, has written to me, stating that there is a
man, about thirty-five years of age, named Delisle, who turns lead and
iron into gold and silver; and that this transmutation is so veritable and
so true, that the goldsmiths affirm that his gold and silver are the
purest and finest they ever saw. For five years this man was looked upon
as a madman or a cheat; but the public mind is now disabused with respect
to him. He now resides with M. de la Palu, at the château of the same
name. M. de la Palu is not very easy in his circumstances, and wants money
to portion his daughters, who have remained single till middle age, no man
being willing to take them without a dowry. M. Delisle has promised to
make them the richest girls in the province before he goes to court,
having been sent for by the king. He has asked for a little time before
his departure, in order that he may collect powder enough to make several
quintals of gold before the eyes of his majesty, to whom he intends to
present them. The principal matter of his wonderful powder is composed of
simples, principally the herbs _Lunaria major_ and _minor_. There is a
good deal of the first planted by him in the gardens of La Palu; and he
gets the other from the mountains that stretch about two leagues from
Montier. What I tell you now is not a mere story invented for your
diversion: M. Mesnard can bring forward many witnesses to its truth; among
others, the Bishop of Senés, who saw these surprising operations
performed; and M. de Cerisy, whom you know well. Delisle transmutes his
metals in public. He rubs the lead or iron with his powder, and puts it
over burning charcoal. In a short time it changes colour; the lead becomes
yellow, and is found to be converted into excellent gold; the iron becomes
white, and is found to be pure silver. Delisle is altogether an illiterate
person. M. de St. Auban endeavoured to teach him to read and write, but he
profited very little by his lessons. He is unpolite, fantastic, and a
dreamer, and acts by fits and starts."

Delisle, it would appear, was afraid of venturing to Paris. He knew that
his sleight of hand would be too narrowly watched in the royal presence;
and upon some pretence or other he delayed the journey for more than two
years. Desmarets, the Minister of Finance to Louis XIV., thinking the
"philosopher" dreaded foul play, twice sent him a safe conduct under the
king's seal; but Delisle still refused. Upon this, Desmarets wrote to the
Bishop of Senés for his real opinion as to these famous transmutations.
The following was the answer of that prelate:

    "Copy of a report addressed to M. Desmarets, Comptroller-General
     of the Finances to His Majesty Louis XIV., by the Bishop of Senés,
     dated March 1709.

"SIR,--A twelvemonth ago, or a little more, I expressed to you my joy at
hearing of your elevation to the ministry; I have now the honour to write
you my opinion of the Sieur Delisle, who has been working at the
transmutation of metals in my diocese. I have, during the last two years,
spoken of him several times to the Count de Pontchartrain, because he
asked me; but I have not written to you, sir, or to M. de Chamillart,
because you neither of you requested my opinion upon the subject. Now,
however, that you have given me to understand that you wish to know my
sentiments on the matter, I will unfold myself to you in all sincerity,
for the interests of the king and the glory of your ministry.

"There are two things about the Sieur Delisle which, in my opinion, should
be examined without prejudice: the one relates to his secret; the other,
to his person; that is to say, whether his transmutations are real, and
whether his conduct has been regular. As regards the secret of the
philosopher's stone, I deemed it impossible, for a long time; and for more
than three years I was more mistrustful of the pretensions of this Sieur
Delisle than of any other person. During this period I afforded him no
countenance; I even aided a person, who was highly recommended to me by an
influential family of this province, to prosecute Delisle for some offence
or other which it was alleged he had committed. But this person, in his
anger against him, having told me that he had himself been several times
the bearer of gold and silver to the goldsmiths of Nice, Aix, and Avignon,
which had been transmuted by Delisle from lead and iron, I began to waver
a little in my opinions respecting him. I afterwards met Delisle at the
house of one of my friends. To please me, the family asked Delisle to
operate before me, to which he immediately consented. I offered him some
iron nails, which he changed into silver in the chimney-place before six
or seven credible witnesses. I took the nails thus transmuted, and sent
them by my almoner to Imbert, the jeweller of Aix, who, having subjected
them to the necessary trial, returned them to me, saying they were very
good silver. Still, however, I was not quite satisfied. M. de
Pontchartrain having hinted to me, two years previously, that I should do
a thing agreeable to his majesty if I examined into this business of
Delisle, I resolved to do so now. I therefore summoned the alchymist to
come to me at Castellane. He came; and I had him escorted by eight or ten
vigilant men, to whom I had given notice to watch his hands strictly.
Before all of us he changed two pieces of lead into gold and silver. I
sent them both to M. de Pontchartrain; and he afterwards informed me by a
letter, now lying before me, that he had shewn them to the most
experienced goldsmiths of Paris, who unanimously pronounced them to be
gold and silver of the very purest quality, and without alloy. My former
bad opinion of Delisle was now indeed shaken. It was much more so when he
performed transmutation five or six times before me at Senés, and made me
perform it myself before him without his putting his hand to any thing.
You have seen, sir, the letter of my nephew, the Père Berard, of the
Oratoire at Paris, on the experiment that he performed at Castellane, and
the truth of which I hereby attest. Another nephew of mine, the Sieur
Bourget, who was here three weeks ago, performed the same experiment in my
presence, and will detail all the circumstances to you personally at
Paris. A hundred persons in my diocese have been witnesses of these
things. I confess to you, sir, that, after the testimony of so many
spectators and so many goldsmiths, and after the repeatedly successful
experiments that I saw performed, all my prejudices vanished. My reason
was convinced by my eyes; and the phantoms of impossibility which I had
conjured up were dissipated by the work of my own hands.

"It now only remains for me to speak to you on the subject of his person
and conduct. Three suspicions have been excited against him: the first,
that he was implicated in some criminal proceeding at Cisteron, and that
he falsified the coin of the realm; the second, that the king sent him two
safe-conducts without effect; and the third, that he still delays going to
court to operate before the king. You may see, sir, that I do not hide or
avoid any thing. As regards the business at Cisteron, the Sieur Delisle
has repeatedly assured me that there was nothing against him which could
reasonably draw him within the pale of justice, and that he had never
carried on any calling injurious to the king's service. It was true that,
six or seven years ago, he had been to Cisteron to gather herbs necessary
for his powder, and that he had lodged at the house of one Pelouse, whom
he thought an honest man. Pelouse was accused of clipping Louis-d'ors; and
as he had lodged with him, he was suspected of being his accomplice. This
mere suspicion, without any proof whatever, had caused him to be condemned
for contumacy; a common case enough with judges, who always proceed with
much rigour against those who are absent. During my own sojourn at Aix, it
was well known that a man, named André Aluys, had spread about reports
injurious to the character of Delisle, because he hoped thereby to avoid
paying him a sum of forty _Louis_ that he owed him. But permit me, sir, to
go further, and to add that, even if there were well-founded suspicions
against Delisle, we should look with some little indulgence on the faults
of a man who possesses a secret so useful to the state. As regards the two
safe-conducts sent him by the king, I think I can answer certainly that it
was through no fault of his that he paid so little attention to them. His
year, strictly speaking, consists only of the four summer months; and when
by any means he is prevented from making the proper use of them, he loses
a whole year. Thus the first safe-conduct became useless by the irruption
of the Duke of Savoy in 1707 and the second had hardly been obtained, at
the end of June 1708, when the said Delisle was insulted by a party of
armed men, pretending to act under the authority of the Count de Grignan,
to whom he wrote several letters of complaint, without receiving any
answer, or promise that his safety would be attended to. What I have now
told you, sir, removes the third objection, and is the reason why, at the
present time, he cannot go to Paris to the king, in fulfilment of his
promises made two years ago. Two, or even three, summers have been lost to
him, owing to the continual inquietude he has laboured under. He has, in
consequence, been unable to work, and has not collected a sufficient
quantity of his oil and powder, or brought what he has got to the
necessary degree of perfection. For this reason also he could not give the
Sieur de Bourget the portion he promised him for your inspection. If the
other day he changed some lead into gold with a few grains of his powder,
they were assuredly all he had; for he told me that such was the fact long
before he knew my nephew was coming. Even if he had preserved this small
quantity to operate before the king, I am sure that, on second thoughts,
he would never have adventured with so little; because the slightest
obstacles in the metals (their being too hard or too soft, which is only
discovered in operating,) would have caused him to be looked upon as an
impostor, if, in case his first powder had proved ineffectual, he had not
been possessed of more to renew the experiment and surmount the
difficulty.

"Permit me, sir, in conclusion, to repeat, that such an artist as this
should not be driven to the last extremity, nor forced to seek an asylum
offered to him in other countries, but which he has despised, as much from
his own inclinations as from the advice I have given him. You risk nothing
in giving him a little time, and in hurrying him you may lose a great
deal. The genuineness of his gold can no longer be doubted, after the
testimony of so many jewellers of Aix, Lyons, and Paris in its favour. As
it is not his fault that the previous safe-conducts sent to him have been
of no service, it will be necessary to send him another; for the success
of which I will be answerable, if you will confide the matter to me, and
trust to my zeal for the service of his majesty, to whom I pray you to
communicate this letter, that I may be spared the just reproaches he might
one day heap upon me if he remained ignorant of the facts I have now
written to you. Assure him, if you please, that, if you send me such a
safe-conduct, I will oblige the Sieur Delisle to depose with me such
precious pledges of his fidelity as shall enable me to be responsible
myself to the king. These are my sentiments, and I submit them to your
superior knowledge; and have the honour to remain, with much respect, &c.

                                        "+ JOHN BISHOP OF SENES.

"To M. Desmarets, Minister of State, and Comptroller-General of the
Finances, at Paris."

That Delisle was no ordinary impostor, but a man of consummate cunning and
address, is very evident from this letter. The bishop was fairly taken in
by his clever legerdemain, and when once his first distrust was conquered,
appeared as anxious to deceive himself as even Delisle could have wished.
His faith was so abundant that he made the case of his _protégé_ his own,
and would not suffer the breath of suspicion to be directed against him.
Both Louis and his minister appear to have been dazzled by the brilliant
hopes he had excited, and a third pass, or safe-conduct, was immediately
sent to the alchymist, with a command from the king that he should
forthwith present himself at Versailles, and make public trial of his oil
and powder. But this did not suit the plans of Delisle. In the provinces
he was regarded as a man of no small importance; the servile flattery that
awaited him wherever he went was so grateful to his mind that he could not
willingly relinquish it, and run upon certain detection at the court of
the monarch. Upon one pretext or another he delayed his journey,
notwithstanding the earnest solicitations of his good friend the bishop.
The latter had given his word to the minister, and pledged his honour that
he would induce Delisle to go, and he began to be alarmed when he found he
could not subdue the obstinacy of that individual. For more than two years
he continued to remonstrate with him, and was always met by some excuse,
that there was not sufficient powder, or that it had not been long enough
exposed to the rays of the sun. At last his patience was exhausted; and
fearful that he might suffer in the royal estimation by longer delay, he
wrote to the king for a _lettre de cachet_, in virtue of which the
alchymist was seized at the castle of La Palu, in the month of June 1711,
and carried off to be imprisoned in the Bastille.

The gendarmes were aware that their prisoner was supposed to be the lucky
possessor of the philosopher's stone, and on the road they conspired to
rob and murder him. One of them pretended to be touched with pity for the
misfortunes of the philosopher, and offered to give him an opportunity of
escape whenever he could divert the attention of his companions. Delisle
was profuse in his thanks, little dreaming of the snare that was laid for
him. His treacherous friend gave notice of the success of the stratagem so
far; and it was agreed that Delisle should be allowed to struggle with and
overthrow one of them while the rest were at some distance. They were then
to pursue him and shoot him through the heart; and after robbing the
corpse of the philosopher's stone, convey it to Paris on a cart, and tell
M. Desmarets that the prisoner had attempted to escape, and would have
succeeded if they had not fired after him and shot him through the body.
At a convenient place the scheme was executed. On a given signal from the
friendly gendarme, Delisle fled, while another gendarme took aim and shot
him through the thigh. Some peasants arriving at the instant, they were
prevented from killing him as they intended, and he was transported to
Paris, maimed and bleeding. He was thrown into a dungeon in the Bastille,
and obstinately tore away the bandages which the surgeons applied to his
wound. He never afterwards rose from his bed.

The Bishop of Senés visited him in prison, and promised him his liberty if
he would transmute a certain quantity of lead into gold before the king.
The unhappy man had no longer the means of carrying on the deception; he
had no gold, and no double-bottomed crucible or hollow wand to conceal it
in, even if he had. He would not, however, confess that he was an
impostor; but merely said he did not know how to make the powder of
projection, but had received a quantity from an Italian philosopher, and
had used it all in his various transmutations in Provence. He lingered for
seven or eight months in the Bastille, and died from the effects of his
wound, in the forty-first year of his age.

ALBERT ALUYS.

This pretender to the philosopher's stone was the son, by a former
husband, of the woman Aluys, with whom Delisle became acquainted at the
commencement of his career, in the cabaret by the road-side, and whom he
afterwards married. Delisle performed the part of a father towards him,
and thought he could shew no stronger proof of his regard, than by giving
him the necessary instructions to carry on the deception which had raised
himself to such a pitch of greatness. The young Aluys was an apt scholar,
and soon mastered all the jargon of the alchymists. He discoursed
learnedly upon projections, cimentations, sublimations, the elixir of
life, and the universal alkahest; and on the death of Delisle gave out
that the secret of that great adept had been communicated to him, and to
him only. His mother aided in the fraud, with the hope they might both
fasten themselves, in the true alchymical fashion, upon some rich dupe,
who would entertain them magnificently while the operation was in