The day-dream of mankind has ever been the Unattainable. To sigh for
what is beyond our reach is from infancy to age, a fixed condition of
our nature. To it we owe all the improvement that distinguishes
civilised from savage life,—to it we are indebted for all the great
discoveries which, at long intervals, have rewarded thought.
Though the motives which stimulated the earliest inquiries were
frequently undefined, and, if curiously examined, would be found to be
sometimes questionable, it has rarely happened that the world has not
benefited by them in the end. Thus Astrology, which ascribed to the
stars an influence over the actions and destinies of man; Magic, which
attempted to reverse the laws of nature, and Alchemy, which aimed at
securing unlimited powers of self-reward; all tended to the final
establishment of useful science.
Of none of the sciences whose laws are fully understood, is this
description truer than of that now called Chemistry, which once was
Alchemy. That ‘knowledge of the substance or composition of bodies,’
which the Arabic root of both words implies, establishes a fact in place
of a chimera. Experimental philosophy has made Alchemy an impossible
belief, but the faith in it was natural in an age when reason was seldom
appealed to. The credulity which accepted witchcraft for a truth, was
not likely to reject the theory of the transmutation of metals, nor
strain at the dogma of perpetual youth and health;—the concomitants of
the Philosopher’s Stone.
The Alchemists claim for their science the remotest antiquity possible,
but it was not until three or four centuries after the Christian era
that the doctrine of transmutation began to spread. It was amongst the
Arabian physicians that it took root. Those learned men, through whom
was transmitted so much that was useful in astronomy, in mathematics,
and in medicine, were deeply tinctured with the belief in an universal
elixir, whose properties gave the power of multiplying gold, of
prolonging life indefinitely, and of making youth perpetual. The
discoveries which they made of the successful application of mercury in
many diseases, led them to suppose that this agent contained within
itself the germ of all curative influences, and was the basis of all
other metals. An Eastern imagination, ever prone to heighten the effects
of nature, was not slow to ascribe a preternatural force to this
medicine, but not finding it in its simple state, the practitioners of
the new science had recourse to combination, in the hope, by that means,
of attaining their object. To fix mercury became their first endeavour,
and this fixation they described as ‘catching the flying bird of
Hermes.’ Once embarked in the illusory experiment, it is easy to
perceive how far the Alchemists might be led; nor need it excite any
wonder that in pursuit of the ideal, they accidentally hit upon a good
deal that was real. The labours, therefore, of the Arabian physicians
were not thrown away, though they entangled the feet of science in
mazes, from which escape was only effected, after the lapse of centuries
of misdirected efforts.
From the period we have last spoken of, until the commencement of the
eleventh century, the only Alchemist of note is the Arabian Geber, who,
though he wrote on the perfections of metals, of the new found art of
making gold, in a word, on the philosopher’s stone, has only descended
to our times as the founder of that jargon, which passes under the name
of ‘gibberish.’ He was, however, a great authority in the middle ages,
and allusions to ‘Geber’s cooks,’ and ‘Geber’s kitchen,’ are frequent
amongst those who at length saw the error of their ways after wasting
their substance in the vain search for the elixir.
A longer interval might have elapsed but for the voice of Peter the
Hermit, whose fanatical scheme for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre
was the cause of that gradual absorption, by the nations of the West, of
the learning which had so long been buried in the East. The Crusaders,
or those, rather, who visited the shores of Syria under their
protection—the men whose skill in medicine and letters rendered them
useful to the invading armies—acquired a knowledge of the Arabian
languages, and of the sciences cultivated by Arabian philosophers, and
this knowledge they disseminated through Europe. Some part of it, it is
true, was derived from the Moors in Spain, but it was all conveyed in a
common tongue which began now to be understood. To this era belong the
names of Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile; of Isaac Beimiram, the son
of Solomon the physician; of Hali Abbas, the scholar of Abimeher Moyses,
the son of Sejar; of Aben Sina, better known as Avicenna, and sometimes
called Abohali; of Averroes of Cordova, surnamed the Commentator; of
Rasis, who is also called Almanzor and Albumasar; and of John of
Damascus, whose name has been latinised into Johannes Damascenus. All
these, physicians by profession, were more or less professors of
alchemy; and besides these were such as Artephius, who wrote alchemical
tracts about the year 1130, but who deserves rather to be remembered for
the cool assertion which he makes in his ‘Wisdom of Secrets’ that, at
the time he wrote he had reached the patriarchal—or fabulous—age of one
thousand and twenty-five years!
The thirteenth century came, and with it came two men who stand first,
as they then stood alone, in literary and scientific knowledge. One was
a German, the other an Englishman; the first was Albertus Magnus, the
last Roger Bacon.
Of the former, many wonderful stories are told:—such, for instance, as
his having given a banquet to the King of the Romans, in the gardens of
his cloister at Cologne, when he converted the intensity of winter into
a season of summer, full of flowers and fruits, which disappeared when
the banquet was over; and his having constructed a marvellous automaton,
called ‘Androïs,’ which, like the invention of his contemporary, Roger
Bacon, was said to be capable of auguring all questions, past, present,
and to come.
To know more than the rest of the world in any respect, but particularly
in natural philosophy, was a certain method by which to earn the name of
necromancer in the middle ages, and there are few whose occult fame has
stood higher than that of Roger Bacon. He was afraid, therefore, to
speak plainly—indeed, it was the custom of the early philosophers to
couch their knowledge in what Bacon himself calls the ‘tricks of
obscurity;’ and in his celebrated ‘_Epistola de Secretis_,’ he adverts
to the possibility of his being obliged to do the same thing, through
‘_the greatness of the secrets_ which he shall handle.’ With regard to
the invention of his greatest secret, we shall give the words in which
he speaks of the properties of gunpowder, and afterwards show in what
terms he concealed his knowledge. ‘_Noyses_,’ he says, ‘_may be made in
the aire like thunders_, yea, with greater horror than those that come
of nature; _for a little matter fitted to the quantity of a thimble,
maketh a horrible noise and wonderful lightning_. And this is done after
sundry fashions, _whereby any citie or armie may be destroyed_.’ A more
accurate description of the explosion of gunpowder could scarcely be
given, and it is not to be supposed that Bacon simply confined himself
to the theory of his art, when he knew so well the consequences arising
from a practical application of it. On this head there is a legend
extant, which has not, to our knowledge, been printed before, from which
we may clearly see why he contented himself with the cabalistic form in
which he conveyed his knowledge of what he deemed a fatal secret.
Attached to Roger Bacon’s laboratory, and a zealous assistant in the
manifold occupations with which the learned Franciscan occupied himself,
was a youthful student, whose name is stated to have been Hubert de
Dreux. He was a Norman, and many of the attributes of that people were
conspicuous in his character. He was of a quick intelligence and hasty
courage, fertile in invention, and prompt in action, eloquent of
discourse, and ready of hand; all excellent qualities, to which was
superadded an insatiable curiosity. Docile to receive instruction, and
apt to profit by it, Hubert became a great favourite with the
philosopher, and to him Bacon expounded many of the secrets—or supposed
secrets—of the art which he strove to bring to perfection. He instructed
him also in the composition of certain medicines, which Bacon himself
believed might be the means of prolonging life, though not to the
indefinite extent dreamt of by those who put their whole faith in the
Great Elixir.
But there never yet was an adept in any art or science who freely
communicated to his pupil the full amount of his own knowledge;
something for experience to gather, or for ingenuity to discover, is
always kept in reserve, and the instructions of Roger Bacon stopped
short at one point. He was himself engaged in the prosecution of that
chemical secret which he rightly judged to be a dangerous one, and,
while he experimented with the compound of sulphur, saltpetre and
charcoal, he kept himself apart from his general laboratory and wrought
in a separate cell, to which not even Hubert had access. To know that
the Friar had a mysterious occupation, which, more than the making of
gold or the universal medicine, engrossed him, was enough of itself to
rouse the young man’s curiosity; but when to this was added the fact,
that, from time to time, strange and mysterious noises were heard,
accompanied by bright corruscations and a new and singular odour,
penetrating through the chinks close to which his eyes were stealthily
rivetted, Hubert’s eagerness to know all that his master concealed had
no limit. He resolved to discover the secret, even though he should
perish in the attempt; he feared that there was good reason for the
accusation of dealing in the Black Art, which, more than all others the
monks of Bacon’s own convent countenanced; but this apprehension only
stimulated him the more. For some time Hubert waited without an
opportunity occurring for gratifying the secret longing of his heart; at
last it presented itself.
To afford medical assistance to the sick, was, perhaps, the most useful
practice of conventual life, and the monks had always amongst them
practitioners of the healing art, more or less skilful. Of this number,
Roger Bacon was the most eminent, not only in the monastery to which he
belonged, but in all Oxford.
It was about the hour of noon on a gloomy day towards the end of
November, in the year 1282, while the Friar and his pupil were severally
employed, the former in his secret cell, and the latter in the general
laboratory, that there arrived at the gate of the Franciscan convent a
messenger on horseback, the bearer of news from Abingdon that Walter de
Losely, the sheriff of Berkshire, had that morning met with a serious
accident by a hurt from a lance, and was then lying dangerously wounded
at the hostelry of the Chequers in Abingdon, whither he had been hastily
conveyed. The messenger added that the leech who had been called in was
most anxious for the assistance of the skilful Friar Roger Bacon, and
urgently prayed that he would lose no time in coming to the aid of the
wounded knight.
Great excitement prevailed amongst the monks on the receipt of this
intelligence, for Walter de Losely was not only a man of power and
influence, but moreover, a great benefactor to their order. Friar Bacon
was immediately sought and speedily made his appearance, the urgency of
the message admitting of no delay. He hastily enjoined Hubert to
continue the preparation of an amalgam which he was desirous of getting
into a forward state, and taking with him his case of instruments with
the bandages and salves which he thought needful, was soon mounted on an
easy, ambling palfrey on his way towards Abingdon, the impatient
messenger riding before him to announce his approach.
When he was gone, quiet again reigned in the convent, and Hubert de
Dreux resumed his occupation. But it did not attract him long. Suddenly
he raised his head from the work and his eyes were lit up with a gleam
in which joy and fear seemed equally blended. For the first time, for
months, he was quite alone. What if he could obtain access to his
master’s cell and penetrate the mystery in which his labours had been so
long enveloped! He cautiously stole to the door of the laboratory, and
peeped out into a long passage, at the further extremity of which a door
opened into a small court where, detached from the main edifice and
screened from all observation, was a small building which the Friar had
recently caused to be constructed. He looked about him timorously,
fearing lest he might be observed; but there was no cause for
apprehension, scarcely any inducement could have prevailed with the
superstitious Franciscans to turn their steps willingly in the direction
of Roger Bacon’s solitary cell.
Reassured by the silence, Hubert stole noiselessly onward, and
tremblingly approached the forbidden spot. His quick eye saw at a glance
that the key was not in the door, and his countenance fell. The Friar’s
treasure was locked up! He might see something, however, if he could not
enter the chamber. He knelt down, therefore, at the door, and peered
through the keyhole. As he pressed against the door, in doing so, it
yielded to his touch. In the haste with which Friar Bacon had closed the
entrance, the bolt had not been shot. Hubert rose hastily to his feet,
and the next moment he was in the cell, looking eagerly round upon the
crucibles and alembics, which bore witness to his master’s labours. But
beyond a general impression of work in hand, there was nothing to be
gleaned from this survey. An open parchment volume, in which the Friar
had recently been writing, next caught his attention. If the secret
should be there in any known language. Hubert knew something of the
Hebrew, but nothing yet of Arabic. He was reassured; the characters were
familiar to him; the language Latin. He seized the volume, and read the
few lines which the Friar had just traced on the last page.