Here he contemns my way of extracting _Tartar_ from the lees of wine,
when yet it was a year since clearly and perspicuously describ’d and
published at _Norimberg_, which _Farnner_ cou’d never correct. But he
bragg’d that he had found by a certain position another compendium,
which indeed might be, since it is easier to add something to an Art
once found, than to find the Art it self, but it does not become him to
disswade men from this Art which is already described, and which may
be had gratis, and to despise it and bragge among all men of his own
inventing a better. What good men will think of these bold malignities
may be easily judg’d: but if I had writ nothing of these things, who
would have taught him that there was _Tartar_ in the lees of wine? But
I not only found and writ what was in them, but also largely taught how
they might be usefully extracted.
Yet this trifler dares as impudently, as falsly say, that he had
corrected it, and added to it, and therefore wou’d not let it go
without his price.
After the same manner he deals with my other secrets (which, tho he had
them of me, he braggs that they are his own) with which he proceeds, as
with the lees of wine, namely with my Alkahest, Panacæa, Melioration
of wine, compendious distillation of Corn, preparation of vinegar,
correction of beer and others in many places.
Whence cou’d he have known what was meant by my Alkahest and Panacæa,
or how small wines and and beers should be meliorated, how Corn without
adustion shou’d give plenty of burning spirit, and whether there was
_Tartar_ in the lees of wine or not, and how it might be extracted
thence, except he had seen and learn’d all these things of me? of which
also I had many years since publickly made mention in my writings,
which is so well known that he cannot deny it, how much soever he
opposes the truth.