small crumb of his powder, sufficient to transmute a few grains of
lead to gold; and at last, out of his philosophical commiseration, he
gave me as much as a turnip seed in size, saying, ‘Receive this small
parcel of the greatest treasure of the world, which truly few kings or
princes have ever seen or known.’ ‘But,’ I said, ‘this perhaps will not
transmute four grains of lead,’ whereupon he bid me deliver it back
to him, which, in hopes of a greater parcel, I did; but he, cutting
half off with his nail, flung it into the fire, and gave me the rest
wrapped neatly up in blue paper, saying, ‘It is yet sufficient for
thee.’ I answered him, indeed with a most dejected countenance, ‘Sir,
what means this? The other being too little, you give me now less.’
He told me to put into the crucible half an ounce of lead, for there
ought to be no more lead put in than the medicine can transmute. I gave
him great thanks for my diminished treasure, concentrated truly in the
superlative degree, and put it charily up into my little box, saying I
meant to try it the next day, nor would I reveal it to any. ‘Not so,
not so,’ said he, ‘for we ought to divulge all things to the children
of art which may tend alone to the honour of God, that so they may
live in the theosophical truth.’ I now made a confession to him, that
while the mass of his medicine was in my hands, I endeavoured to scrape
away a little of it with my nail, and could not forbear; but scratched
off so very little, that, it being picked from my nail, wrapped in a
paper, and projected on melted lead, I found no transmutation, but
almost the whole mass of lead sublimed, while the remainder was a
glassy earth. At this unexpected account he immediately said, ‘You are
more dexterous to commit theft than to apply the medicine, for if you
had only wrapped up the stolen prey in yellow wax, to preserve it from
the fumes of the lead, it would have sunk to the bottom, and transmuted
it to gold; but having cast it into the fumes, the violence of the
vapour, partly by its sympathetic alliance, carried the medicine quite
away.’ I brought him the crucible, and he perceived a most beautiful
saffron-like tincture sticking to the sides. He promised to come next
morning at nine o’clock, to show me that this tincture would transmute
the lead into gold. Having taken his leave, I impatiently awaited his
return, but the next day he came not, nor ever since. He sent an excuse
at half-past nine that morning, and promised to come at three in the
afternoon, but I never heard of him since. I soon began to doubt the
whole matter. Late that night my wife, who was a most curious student
and inquirer after the art, came soliciting me to make an experiment
of that little grain of the stone, to be assured of the truth. ‘Unless
this be done,’ said she, ‘I shall have no rest or sleep this night.’
She being so earnest, I commanded a fire to be made, saying to myself,
‘I fear, I fear indeed, this man hath deluded me.’ My wife wrapped the
said matter in wax, and I cut half an ounce of lead, and put it into a
crucible in the fire. Being melted, my wife put in the medicine, made
into a small pill with the wax, which presently made a hissing noise,
and in a quarter of an hour the mass of lead was totally transmuted
into the best and finest gold, which amazed us exceedingly. We could
not sufficiently gaze upon this admirable and miraculous work of
nature, for the melted lead, after projection, showed on the fire the
rarest and most beautiful colours imaginable, settling in green, and
when poured forth into an ingot, it had the lively fresh colour of
blood. When cold it shined as the purest and most splendid gold. Truly
all those who were standing about me were exceedingly startled, and
I ran with this aurified lead, being yet hot, to the goldsmith, who
wondered at the fineness, and after a short trial by the test, said it
was the most excellent gold in the world.
“The next day a rumour of this prodigy went about the Hague and
spread abroad, so that many illustrious and learned persons gave me
their friendly visits for its sake. Amongst the rest, the general
Assay-master, examiner of coins of this province of Holland, Mr
Porelius, who with others earnestly besought me to pass some part of
the gold through all their customary trials, which I did, to gratify my
own curiosity. We went to Mr Brectel, a silversmith, who first mixed
four parts of silver with one part of the gold, then he filed it, put
_aquafortis_ to it, dissolved the silver, and let the gold precipitate
to the bottom; the solution being poured off and the calx of gold
washed with water, then reduced and melted, it appeared excellent gold,
and instead of a loss in weight, we found the gold was increased, and
had transmuted a scruple of the silver into gold by its abounding
tincture.
“Doubting whether the silver was now sufficiently separated from the
gold, we mingled it with seven parts of antimony, which we melted and
poured out into a cone, and blew off the regulus on a test, where we
missed eight grains of our gold; but after we blew away the red of the
antimony, or superfluous _scoria_, we found nine grains of gold for our
eight grains missing, yet it was pale and silver-like, but recovered
its full colour afterwards, so that in the best proof of fire we lost
nothing at all of this gold, but gained, as aforesaid. These tests I
repeated four times and found it still alike, and the silver remaining
out of the _aquafortis_ was of the very best flexible silver that could
be, so that in the total the said medicine or elixir had transmuted six
drams and two scruples of the lead and silver into most pure gold.”
GUISEPPE FRANCESCO BORRI.
“The Rape of the Lock” and the graceful romance of “Undine” have
familiarised every one with the doctrine of elementary spirits; but
the chief philosophical, or pseudo-philosophical, account of these
unseen but not extra-mundane intelligences has been the little book
of the Comte de Gabalis, a series of conversations on the secret
sciences. It is generally unknown that this work is little more than an
unacknowledged translation of “The Key to the Cabinet of the Chevalier
Borri, wherein may be found various epistles--curious, scientific,
and chemical--with politic instructions, matters which deserve well
of the curious, and a variety of magnificent secrets.”[AI] Borri, who
appears to have been a microcosmic precursor of Cagliostro, was born
at Milan in 1627. Some proceedings of an equivocal nature caused him,
in his earlier years, to seek sanctuary in a church, but subsequently,
like Joseph Balsamo, he underwent a complete transformation, announced
that he was inspired of Heaven, that he was elected by the omnipotent
God to accomplish the reformation of mankind, and to establish the
_Regnum Dei_. There should be henceforth but a single religion, with
the Pope as its head, and a vast army, with Borri as general, for the
extermination of all anti-catholics. He exhibited a miraculous sword
which St Michael had deigned to present him, declared that he had
beheld in the empyrean a luminous palm-branch reserved for his own
celestial triumph, announced that the Holy Virgin was divine by nature,
that she conceived by inspiration, that she was equal with her Son, and
was present in the Eucharist with him, that the Holy Spirit had taken
flesh in her person, that the second and third persons of the Trinity
are inferior to the Divine Father, that the fall of Lucifer involved
that of a vast number of angels, who now inhabit the regions of the
air, that it was by the intervention of these rebellious spirits that
God created the world and gave life to all beasts, but that men were
in possession of a Divine soul which God made in spite of himself.
Finally, with a contradiction more French than Italian, he gave out
that he was himself the Holy Spirit incarnate.
Needless to say, this novel gospel, according to mystical imposture,
brought him into conflict with hierarchic authority. He was arrested,
and, on the 3d of January 1661, he was condemned as a heretic, and
as guilty of various misdeeds. He managed to escape, took flight
northward, and by the expectation of the stone philosophical contrived
to cheat Christina, Queen of Sweden, out of a large sum of money.
He perambulated various parts of Germany, making many supposed
projections, visited the Low Countries, and in 1665 entered as a
professional alchemist into the service of the King of Denmark.
He announced that he was the master of a demon, who responded to
his magical evocations, and dictated the operations required for
the successful transmutation of metals. The name of this spook was
Homunculus, which, according to Paracelsus, signifies a minute human
being generated unnaturally without the assistance of the female
organism, from the sperm of a man or a boy.
The monarch, determined to monopolise the talents of his adept,
decided that the laboratory of Borri should be transferred to his own
palace. The alchemist, with an eye to his freedom, objected that the
power of his imp would be destroyed on the first attempt to divide
him from a certain vast iron furnace, which was the sulphureous abode
of Homunculus; but his royal patron was a man of resources, and the
furnace was also transported. Five years passed away, and Frederick
III. having died, his successor determined on a closer investigation
of the transmutatory secrets of Borri, who took flight at the rumour,
but was arrested on the frontiers of Hungary, and imprisoned at Vienna,
where he was claimed by the Papal Nuncio as a fugitive condemned for
his heresies. He was sent to Rome, and entombed in the Castle of St
Angelo. There he was permitted to continue his alchemical processes,
which were pursued unsuccessfully till his death in the year 1695.
“The Key to the Cabinet of the Chevalier Borri” has never been actually
translated; the adaptation by the Abbé de Villars is, of course,
of European celebrity. As to the chemical secrets contained in the
original letters, it may be safely concluded that they are few and
unimportant.
FOOTNOTES:
[AI] La Chiave del Gabinetto del Cavagliere G. F. Borri, col favor
della quella si vedono varie lettere scientifiche, chimice, e
curiosissime, con varie istruzioni politiche, ed altre cose degne da
curiosita e molti segreti bellissimi. Cologne (Genève), 1681, 12mo.
JOHN HEYDON.
This mountebank royalist mystic has no claim to be included among
alchemical philosophers, and is only noticed here to advise students
that everything relating to alchemy in the whole of his so-called works
was impudently stolen from Philalethes. He practised wholesale piracy
on his contemporaries and on ancient authors with equal effrontery.
The account of his voyage to the land of the Rosicrucians is a mangled
version of Bacon’s “Atlantis;” his apologues, epilogues, enigmas, &c.,
are also stolen goods; in short, whatever is of value in his books is
matter borrowed from the highways and byways of occultism, and heaped
indiscriminately together. Everything emanating from his own weakly
intelligence is utterly contemptible; he was grossly superstitious and
pitiably credulous, as may be seen by his medical recipes. He claimed a
familiar acquaintance with the most arcane Rosicrucian mysteries, and
pretended that he had visited the temples, holy houses, castles, and
invisible mountains of the Fraternity. Of all the alchemical liars and
of all mystical charlatans who have flourished in England since the
first days of Anglo-occultism, John Heydon is chief.
LASCARIS.
German writers have principally occupied themselves with the
transmutations of this singular personage, who so successfully shrouded
himself in mystery, that his name, his age, his birthplace, and
everything which concerns his private life are completely unknown.
He called himself Lascaris, but also adopted other appellations. He
claimed an Oriental origin, and as he spoke Greek fluently, he has
passed for a descendant of the royal house of Lascaris. He represented
himself as the archimandrite of a convent in the Island of Mytilena,
and bore letters from the Greek patriarch of Constantinople. His
mission in the West was the solicitation of alms for the ransom of
Christian prisoners in the East. He appeared for the first time in
Germany at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a man seemingly
some forty or fifty years old, of attractive mien, agreeable in
manner, and fluent in his conversation. Finding himself indisposed
at Berlin, he sent for a certain apothecary, who for some reason was
unable to attend, and on several occasions was represented by a pupil
at the bedside of the stranger. With this youth Lascaris fell into
conversation, and a sort of friendship sprung up between them. The
apothecary’s pupil had studied Basil Valentine, and had attempted
experiments on the principles of this adept. Lascaris recovered, and
at the moment of departing from Berlin he took the youth aside, and
presented him with a quantity of the transmuting powder, commanding him
to be silent as to whence he had derived it, and while forbidding him
to make use of it till some time after his departure, assured him that
when Berlin unbelievers beheld its amazing effects, no one would be
able to tax the alchemists with madness.
The name of this young man was John Frederick Bötticher. Intoxicated
at the possession of such an unexpected treasure, he determined to
devote himself entirely to alchemy. The apothecary, his master,
vainly endeavoured to dissuade him from a pursuit which he considered
chimerical, for he astonished both him and his friends by changing
silver into gold in their presence.
The experiment was repeated with mercury for the benefit of a friend of
Bötticher, the tale spread, and the apothecary’s pupil became the lion
of Berlin, more especially as he spread the report that he was able to
compose himself the philosophical tincture.
He was summoned before the King, Frederick William I., who wished to
witness his performances, but he fled to an uncle at Wittenburg. He
was claimed from the authorities of that town as a Prussian subject,
but he was now a prize of value, and the Elector of Saxony opposed a
counter claim for the possession of his person, and to him Bötticher
decided to proceed. He was warmly welcomed, and when his transmutations
had been witnessed, the title of baron was conferred on him. He took up
his residence at Dresden, living in a style of great magnificence and
prodigality, till every particle of his powder was expended, when his
extravagance involved him in debt. His servants, whom he was unable to
repay, spread the report that it was his intention to take flight, and
the purblind Elector, refusing to perceive in this sudden failure of
resources a proof that Bötticher was unable to compose or increase the
philosophers’ stone, surrounded his house with guards, and detained him
practically as a prisoner.
At this juncture, Lascaris, who was still wandering in Germany, took
pity on the misfortunes of his young neophyte, and endeavoured to
extricate him from his embarrassing position by means of a young doctor
named Pasch, who was a personal friend of the ennobled apothecary’s
boy. Their manœuvres resulted in the imprisonment of Pasch at the
fortress of Sonneinstein, while Bötticher was closely confined in
another castle at Kœnigstein.
Two years and a half passed away. At the end of that time Pasch
succeeded in escaping at the expense of his limbs, and died after a few
months, bitterly complaining of the treachery of the adept Lascaris,
who had deserted him completely in his danger.
Bötticher remained in confinement with every opportunity to manufacture
the philosophical stone, which, however he failed to accomplish; but
what with his apothecary’s training and his prison experiments, he had
become skilled in several departments of chemistry. He discovered the
process for the production of red porcelain, and afterwards that of
white, very superior in quality to the substances already known by that
name. These inventions proved as valuable to the tyrannical Elector as
the accomplishment of the _magnum opus_. Bötticher was restored to his
favour, and again enjoyed his baronial title, but in his liberty he
surrendered himself to an immoderately luxurious life, and died in 1719
at the age of thirty-seven years.
Bötticher was by no means the only apothecary’s boy who was enriched
with the powder of Lascaris, and despatched to preach the gospel of
alchemy with practical demonstrations. Godwin, Hermann, Braun, and
Martin of Fitzlar are mentioned among these half-initiated labourers,
who shone till their stock-in-trade was exhausted, and then disappeared
in succession.
In the meantime, Lascaris himself was not idle. On the 16th February
1609 he is believed to have changed mercury into gold and gold into
silver, a double transmutation, considered by alchemical connoisseurs
to be the evidence of an unparalleled adeptship. Liebkneck, counsellor
of Wertherbourg, was a witness of this transmutation.
In the same year a goldsmith of Leipsic was visited by a mysterious
stranger, who is unanimously identified with Lascaris, and who showed
him a lingot, which he declared was manufactured by art, and which
proved in assaying to be gold of twenty-two carats. It was purified by
the goldsmith with antimony, and part of it was presented to him by the
unknown as a memorial of the alleged transmutation.
Shortly after, a lieutenant-colonel in the Polish army, whose name was
Schmolz de Dierbach, and who had inherited from his father a belief
in alchemical science, was conversing on the subject at a café, when
he was accosted by a stranger, who presented him with some powder of
projection. It was of a red colour, and a microscopic examination
revealed its crystalline nature. It increased the weight of the
metals which it was supposed to transmute to an extent which chemical
authorities declare to be physically impossible. The recipient made
use of it generously, distributing to his friends and acquaintance the
gold it produced in projection. The unknown donor is identified in the
imagination of German historians with the mysterious Lascaris, who
is supposed, in the same anonymous and unaccountable manner, to have
enriched the Baron de Creux with a box of the precious powder, and to
have gratified the amateur Hermetic ambition of the Landgrave of Hesse
Darmstadt through the commonplace medium of the post. In a word, every
anonymous adept who appeared at this period in or about Germany is
supposed to be Lascaris.
The last of his debtors or victims was the son of a Neapolitan mason,
Domenico Manuel, who claims to have been mysteriously initiated into
the transmutatory art in the year 1695. He was put in possession of a
small quantity both of the white and red tinctures. Being insufficient
to really enrich himself, he determined to trade upon the wonders
they produced, and obtained large sums from wealthy amateurs for
the privilege of beholding the consummation of the great work. He
perambulated Spain, Belgium, and Austria, obtaining large sums,
under the pretence of preparing the tincture, not only from private
individuals, but from the Emperor Leopold and the Palatine Elector.
In different places he assumed names that were different. Now he was
Count Gaëtano, now Count de Ruggiero; at other times he called himself
Field Marshal to the Duke of Bavaria, Commandant of Munich, a Prussian
major-general, and by other titles. In 1705 he appeared at Berlin,
where he imposed on the King himself for a brief period, after which,
unable to ratify his transmutatory engagements, he was convicted of
treason and hanged. This occurred on the 29th of August 1709.
DELISLE.
This artist, whose Christian name is unmentioned by his biographers,
is included by Figuier among the emissaries or disciples of Lascaris,
and much information concerning him will be found in the _Histoire de
la Philosophic Hermétique_ by his contemporary, Langlet du Fresnoy.
He was a rustic of low birth in Provence, and he became acquainted
with alchemical experiments by entering the service of a gentleman
who was believed to be in possession of the stone. This gentleman is
supposed to have received the prize from Lascaris. His operations,
however, fell under suspicion, and he was forced to quit France. He
retired into Switzerland, accompanied by Delisle, who is said to have
assassinated him in the mountains, and to have thus got possession of
a considerable quantity of the transmuting powder. However this may
be, the servant, re-entered France in disguise, and about the year
1708 attracted general attention by changing lead and iron into silver
and gold. He perambulated Languedoc, the Dauphiné, and Provence. At
Sisteron he connected himself with the wife of a certain Alnys, who
eventually shared his fortunes for the space of three years. His renown
was increased by the apparent simplicity of his operations. He spread
powder and oil over iron, thrust it into the fire, and brought it
out a bar of gold. He distributed nails, knives, and rings partially
transmuted, and was particularly successful in his experiments with
common steel.
Cerisy, prior of New Castel, was employed by the Bishop of Senez
to collect evidence concerning the truth of these marvels. An old
gentleman offered Delisle a retreat at his castle of La Palud, where
the alchemist, surrounded by admirers, received the daily visits of
the curious. In Lenglet’s “History of Hermetic Philosophy,” there
is a letter from the Bishop of Senez to the Minister of State and
Comptroller-General of the Treasury at Paris, in which the prelate,
who at first was incredulous, professes his inability to resist the
evidence of actual transformation performed before himself and several
vigilant witnesses, who took every precaution against deception. There
is also the Report of M. de Saint-Maurice, President of the Mint at
Lyons, who testifies to the following facts. That he was accompanied
by Delisle into the grounds of the Chateau de Saint Auban in May 1710,
where he uncovered a basket that was sunk in the ground. In the middle
of this basket there was an iron wire, at the end of which he perceived
a piece of linen with some object tied up in it. He took possession
of this parcel, carried it into the dining-room of the Chateau, and
by the direction of Delisle he exposed its contents--a blackish earth
about half a pound in weight--to the rays of the sun. After a quarter
of an hour the earth was distilled in a retort of a portable furnace,
and when a yellow liquor was perceived to flow into the receiver,
Delisle recommended that the recipient should be removed before a
viscous oil then rising should flow into it. Two drops of this yellow
liquor, projected on hot quicksilver, produced in fusion three ounces
of gold, which were presented to the Master of the Mint. Afterwards
three ounces of pistol bullets were melted and purified with alum and
saltpetre. Delisle handed Saint-Maurice a small paper, desiring him to
throw in a pinch of the powder and two drops of the oil used in the
first experiment. This done, the matter was covered with saltpetre,
kept fifteen minutes in fusion, and then poured out on a piece of iron
armour, which reappeared pure gold, bearing all assays. The conversion
to silver was made in the same manner with white powder, and the
certificate which testifies to these occurrences was officially signed
on the 14th December 1760.
A part of the gold manufactured in this manner by Delisle was subjected
to refinement at Paris, where three medals were struck from it; one
of them was deposited in the king’s cabinet. It bore the inscription
_Aurum Arte Factum_.
With all his alchemical skill, Delisle was unable to read or write, and
in disposition he was untractable, rude, and fanatical. He was invited
to Court, but he pretended that the climate he lived in was necessary
to the success of his experiments, inasmuch as his preparations were
vegetable. The Bishop of Senez, suspecting him of unwillingness rather
than inability, obtained a _lettre de cachet_, after two years of
continual subterfuge on the part of the alchemist, who was thereupon
arrested and taken on the road to Paris. During the journey, his
guards, after endeavouring to extort his supposed riches, wounded him
severely on the head, in which state, on his arrival at the Bastille,
he was forced to begin his alchemical operations, but after a short
time he persistently refused to proceed, tore continually the bandages
from his wound in the frenzy of his desperation, and in the year
following his imprisonment he poisoned himself.
His illegitimate son, Alnys, by some means inherited a portion of
the powder from his mother. He wandered through Italy and Germany
performing transmutations. On one occasion he made projection before
the Duke of Richlieu, then French ambassador at Vienna, and who assured
the Abbé Langlet that he not only saw the operation performed, but
performed it himself, twice on gold and forty times on silver.