PART II.--PROGRESS OF THE INFATUATION DURING THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.

AUGURELLO.--CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.--PARACELSUS.--GEORGE

AGRICOLA.--DENYS ZACHAIRE.--DR. DEE AND EDWARD KELLY.--THE

COSMOPOLITE.--SENDIVOGIUS.--THE ROSICRUCIANS.--MICHAEL MAYER.--ROBERT

FLUDD.--JACOB BOHMEN.--JOHN HEYDN.--JOSEPH FRANCIS BORRI.--ALCHYMICAL

WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--DE LISLE.--ALBERT ALUYS.--COUNT DE

ST. GERMAINS.--CAGLIOSTRO.--PRESENT STATE OF THE SCIENCE.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the search for the

philosopher's stone was continued by thousands of the enthusiastic and

the credulous; but a great change was introduced during this period.

The eminent men who devoted themselves to the study, totally changed

its aspect, and referred to the possession of their wondrous stone and

elixir, not only the conversion of the base into the precious metals,

but the solution of all the difficulties of other sciences. They

pretended that by its means man would be brought into closer communion

with his Maker; that disease and sorrow would be banished from the

world; and that "the millions of spiritual beings who walk the earth

unseen" would be rendered visible, and become the friends, companions,

and instructors of mankind. In the seventeenth century more especially,

these poetical and fantastic doctrines excited the notice of Europe;

and from Germany, where they had been first disseminated by Rosencreutz,

spread into France and England, and ran away with the sound judgment of

many clever, but too enthusiastic, searchers for the truth. Paracelsus,

Dee, and many others of less note, were captivated by the grace and

beauty of the new mythology, which was arising to adorn the literature

of Europe. Most of the alchymists of the sixteenth century, although

ignorant of the Rosicrucians as a sect, were, in some degree, tinctured

with their fanciful tenets: but before we speak more fully of these

poetical visionaries, it will be necessary to resume the history of the

hermetic folly where we left off in the former chapter, and trace the

gradual change that stole over the dreams of the adepts. It will be seen

that the infatuation increased rather than diminished as the world grew

older.

AUGURELLO.

Among the alchymists who were born in the fifteenth, and distinguished

themselves in the sixteenth century, the first, in point of date,

is John Aurelio Augurello. He was born at Rimini in 1441, and became

Professor of the belles lettres at Venice and Trevisa. He was early

convinced of the truth of the hermetic science, and used to pray to God

that he might be happy enough to discover the philosopher's stone.

He was continually surrounded by the paraphernalia of chemistry, and

expended all his wealth in the purchase of drugs and metals. He was also

a poet, but of less merit than pretensions. His "Chrysopeia," in which

lie pretended to teach the art of making gold, he dedicated to Pope

Leo X, in the hope that the Pontiff would reward him handsomely for the

compliment; but the Pope was too good a judge of poetry to be pleased

with the worse than mediocrity of his poem, and too good a philosopher

to approve of the strange doctrines which it inculcated: he was,

therefore, far from gratified at the dedication. It is said, that when

Augurello applied to him for a reward, the Pope, with great ceremony

and much apparent kindness and cordiality, drew an empty purse from his

pocket, and presented it to the alchymist, saying, that since he was

able to make gold, the most appropriate present that could be made

him, was a purse to put it in. This scurvy reward was all that the poor

alchymist ever got either for his poetry or his alchymy. He died in a

state of extreme poverty, in the eighty-third year of his age.

CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.

This alchymist has left a more distinguished reputation. The most

extraordinary tales were told and believed of his powers. He could turn

iron into gold by his mere word. All the spirits of the air, and

demons of the earth, were under his command, and bound to obey him in

everything. He could raise from the dead the forms of the great men of

other days, and make them appear "in their habit as they lived," to the

gaze of the curious who had courage enough to abide their presence.

He was born at Cologne in 1486, and began, at an early age, the study of

chemistry and philosophy. By some means or other which have never been

very clearly explained, he managed to impress his contemporaries with a

great idea of his wonderful attainments. At the early age of twenty, so

great was his reputation as an alchymist, that the principal adepts of

Paris wrote to Cologne, inviting him to settle in France, and aid them

with his experience in discovering the philosopher's stone. Honours

poured upon him in thick succession; and he was highly esteemed by all

the learned men of his time. Melancthon speaks of him with respect

and commendation. Erasmus also bears testimony in his favour; and the

general voice of his age proclaimed him a light of literature and an

ornament to philosophy. Some men, by dint of excessive egotism, manage

to persuade their contemporaries that they are very great men indeed:

they publish their acquirements so loudly in people's ears, and keep up

their own praises so incessantly, that the world's applause is actually

taken by storm. Such seems to have been the case with Agrippa. He

called himself a sublime theologian, an excellent jurisconsult, an able

physician, a great philosopher, and a successful alchymist. The world,

at last, took him at his word; and thought that a man who talked so

big, must have some merit to recommend him--that it was, indeed, a great

trumpet which sounded so obstreperous a blast. He was made secretary to

the Emperor Maximilian, who conferred upon him the title of Chevalier,

and gave him the honorary command of a regiment. He afterwards became

Professor of Hebrew and the belles lettres, at the University of Dole,

in France; but quarrelling with the Franciscan monks upon some knotty

point of divinity, he was obliged to quit the town. He took refuge in

London, where he taught Hebrew and cast nativities, for about a year.

From London he proceeded to Pavia, and gave lectures upon the writings,

real or supposed, of Hermes Trismegistus; and might have lived there in

peace and honour, had he not again quarrelled with the clergy. By their

means his position became so disagreeable, that he was glad to accept

an offer made him by the magistracy of Metz, to become their Syndic and

Advocate-General. Here, again, his love of disputation made him enemies:

the theological wiseacres of that city asserted, that St. Anne had three

husbands, in which opinion they were confirmed by the popular belief of

the day. Agrippa needlessly ran foul of this opinion, or prejudice as he

called it, and thereby lost much of his influence. Another dispute, more

creditable to his character, occurred soon after, and sank him for ever

in the estimation of the Metzians. Humanely taking the part of a young

girl who was accused of witchcraft, his enemies asserted, that he was

himself a sorcerer, and raised such a storm over his head, that he was

forced to fly the city. After this, he became physician to Louisa de

Savoy, mother of King Francis I. This lady was curious to know the

future, and required her physician to cast her nativity. Agrippa

replied, that he would not encourage such idle curiosity. The result

was, he lost her confidence, and was forthwith dismissed. If it had been

through his belief in the worthlessness of astrology, that he had made

his answer, we might admire his honest and fearless independence; but,

when it is known that, at the very same time, he was in the constant

habit of divination and fortunetelling; and that he was predicting

splendid success, in all his undertakings, to the Constable of Bourbon,

we can only wonder at his thus estranging a powerful friend through mere

petulance and perversity.

He was, about this time, invited both by Henry VIII. of England,

and Margaret of Austria, Governess of the Low Countries, to fix his

residence in their dominions. He chose the service of the latter, by

whose influence he was made historiographer to the Emperor Charles V.

Unfortunately for Agrippa, he never had stability enough to remain

long in one position, and offended his patrons by his restlessness and

presumption. After the death of Margaret, he was imprisoned at Brussels,

on a charge of sorcery. He was released after a year; and, quitting

the country, experienced many vicissitudes. He died in great poverty in

1534, aged forty-eight years.

While in the service of Margaret of Austria, he resided principally

at Louvain, in which city he wrote his famous work on the Vanity and

Nothingness of human Knowledge. He also wrote, to please his Royal

Mistress, a treatise upon the Superiority of the Female Sex, which he

dedicated to her, in token of his gratitude for the favours she had

heaped upon him. The reputation he left behind him in these provinces

was anything but favourable. A great number of the marvellous tales that

are told of him, relate to this period of his life. It was said, that

the gold which he paid to the traders with whom he dealt, always looked

remarkably bright, but invariably turned into pieces of slate and stone

in the course of four-and-twenty hours. Of this spurious gold he was

believed to have made large quantities by the aid of the devil, who, it

would appear from this, had but a very superficial knowledge of alchymy,

and much less than the Marechal de Rays gave him credit for. The

Jesuit Delrio, in his book on Magic and Sorcery, relates a still more

extraordinary story of him. One day, Agrippa left his house, at Louvain;

and, intending to be absent for some time, gave the key of his study

to his wife, with strict orders that no one should enter it during his

absence. The lady herself, strange as it may appear, had no curiosity to

pry into her husband's secrets, and never once thought of entering the

forbidden room: but a young student, who had been accommodated with an

attic in the philosopher's house, burned with a fierce desire to

examine the study; hoping, perchance, that he might purloin some book or

implement which would instruct him in the art of transmuting metals. The

youth, being handsome, eloquent, and, above all, highly complimentary to

the charms of the lady, she was persuaded, without much difficulty, to

lend him the key, but gave him strict orders not to remove anything. The

student promised implicit obedience, and entered Agrippa's study. The

first object that caught his attention, was a large grimoire, or book

of spells, which lay open on the philosopher's desk. He sat himself down

immediately, and began to read. At the first word he uttered, he fancied

he heard a knock at the door. He listened; but all was silent. Thinking

that his imagination had deceived him, he read on, when immediately a

louder knock was heard, which so terrified him, that he started to his

feet. He tried to say, "come in;" but his tongue refused its office, and

he could not articulate a sound. He fixed his eyes upon the door, which,

slowly opening, disclosed a stranger of majestic form, but scowling

features, who demanded sternly, why he was summoned? "I did not

summon you," said the trembling student. "You did!" said the stranger,

advancing, angrily; "and the demons are not to be invoked in vain."

The student could make no reply; and the demon, enraged that one of the

uninitiated should have summoned him out of mere presumption, seized

him by the throat and strangled him. When Agrippa returned, a few days

afterwards, he found his house beset with devils. Some of them were

sitting on the chimneypots, kicking up their legs in the air; while

others were playing at leapfrog, on the very edge of the parapet. His

study was so filled with them that he found it difficult to make his

way to his desk. When, at last, he had elbowed his way through them, he

found his book open, and the student lying dead upon the floor. He saw

immediately how the mischief had been done; and, dismissing all the

inferior imps, asked the principal demon how he could have been so rash

as to kill the young man. The demon replied, that he had been needlessly

invoked by an insulting youth, and could do no less than kill him for

his presumption. Agrippa reprimanded him severely, and ordered him

immediately to reanimate the dead body, and walk about with it in the

market-place for the whole of the afternoon. The demon did so: the

student revived; and, putting his arm through that of his unearthly

murderer, walked very lovingly with him, in sight of all the people. At

sunset, the body fell down again, cold and lifeless as before, and was

carried by the crowd to the hospital, it being the general opinion

that he had expired in a fit of apoplexy. His conductor immediately

disappeared. When the body was examined, marks of strangulation were

found on the neck, and prints of the long claws of the demon on various

parts of it. These appearances, together with a story, which soon

obtained currency, that the companion of the young man had vanished in

a cloud of flame and smoke, opened people's eyes to the truth. The

magistrates of Louvain instituted inquiries; and the result was, that

Agrippa was obliged to quit the town.

Other authors besides Delrio relate similar stories of this philosopher.

The world in those days was always willing enough to believe in tales of

magic and sorcery; and when, as in Agrippa's case, the alleged magician

gave himself out for such, and claimed credit for the wonders he worked,

it is not surprising that the age should have allowed his pretensions.

It was dangerous boasting, which sometimes led to the stake or the

gallows, and therefore was thought to be not without foundation. Paulus

Jovius, in his "Eulogia Doctorum Virorum," says, that the devil, in the

shape of a large black dog, attended Agrippa wherever he went. Thomas

Nash, in his adventures of Jack Wilton, relates, that at the request of

Lord Surrey, Erasmus, and some other learned men, Agrippa called up from

the grave many of the great philosophers of antiquity; among others,

Tully, whom he caused to re-deliver his celebrated oration for Roscius.

He also showed Lord Surrey, when in Germany, an exact resemblance in

a glass of his mistress the fair Geraldine. She was represented on her

couch weeping for the absence of her lover. Lord Surrey made a note of

the exact time at which he saw this vision, and ascertained afterwards

that his mistress was actually so employed at the very minute. To Thomas

Lord Cromwell, Agrippa represented King Henry VIII. hunting in Windsor

Park, with the principal lords of his court; and to please the Emperor

Charles V. he summoned King David and King Solomon from the tomb.

Naude, in his "Apology for the Great Men who have been falsely suspected

of Magic," takes a great deal of pains to clear Agrippa from the

imputations cast upon him by Delrio, Paulus Jovius, and other such

ignorant and prejudiced scribblers. Such stories demanded refutation in

the days of Naude, but they may now be safely left to decay in their own

absurdity. That they should have attached, however, to the memory of a

man, who claimed the power of making iron obey him when he told it to

become gold, and who wrote such a work as that upon magic, which goes by

his name, is not at all surprising.

PARACELSUS.

This philosopher, called by Naude, "the zenith and rising sun of all the

alchymists," was born at Einsiedeln, near Zurich, in the year 1493.

His true name was Hohenheim; to which, as he himself informs us,

were prefixed the baptismal names of Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastes

Paracelsus. The last of these he chose for his common designation while

he was yet a boy; and rendered it, before he died, one of the most

famous in the annals of his time. His father, who was a physician,

educated his son for the same pursuit. The latter was an apt scholar,

and made great progress. By chance the work of Isaac Hollandus fell into

his hands, and from that time he became smitten with the mania of

the philosopher's stone. All his thoughts henceforth were devoted to

metallurgy; and he travelled into Sweden that he might visit the mines

of that country, and examine the ores while they yet lay in the bowels

of the earth. He also visited Trithemius at the monastery of Spannheim,

and obtained instructions from him in the science of alchymy. Continuing

his travels, he proceeded through Prussia and Austria into Turkey,

Egypt, and Tatary, and thence returning to Constantinople, learned, as

he boasted, the art of transmutation, and became possessed of the

elixir vitae. He then established himself as a physician in his native

Switzerland at Zurich, and commenced writing works upon alchymy and

medicine, which immediately fixed the attention of Europe. Their great

obscurity was no impediment to their fame; for the less the author

was understood, the more the demonologists, fanatics, and

philosopher's-stone-hunters seemed to appreciate him. His fame as a

physician kept pace with that which he enjoyed as an alchymist, owing

to his having effected some happy cures by means of mercury and opium;

drugs unceremoniously condemned by his professional brethren. In the

year 1526, he was chosen Professor of Physics and Natural Philosophy in

the University of Basle, where his lectures attracted vast numbers of

students. He denounced the writings of all former physicians as tending

to mislead; and publicly burned the works of Galen and Avicenna, as

quacks and impostors. He exclaimed, in presence of the admiring and

half-bewildered crowd, who assembled to witness the ceremony, that there

was more knowledge in his shoestrings than in the writings of these

physicians. Continuing in the same strain, he said all the universities

in the world were full of ignorant quacks; but that he, Paracelsus, over

flowed with wisdom. "You will all follow my new system," said he, with

furious gesticulations, "Avicenna, Galen, Rhazis, Montagnana, Meme--you

will all follow me, ye professors of Paris, Montpellier, Germany,

Cologne, and Vienna! and all ye that dwell on the Rhine and the

Danube--ye that inhabit the isles of the sea; and ye also, Italians,

Dalmatians, Athenians, Arabians, Jews--ye will all follow my doctrines,

for I am the monarch of medicine!"

But he did not long enjoy the esteem of the good citizens of Basle. It

is said that he indulged in wine so freely, as not unfrequently to be

seen in the streets in a state of intoxication. This was ruinous for a

physician, and his good fame decreased rapidly. His ill fame increased

in still greater proportion, especially when he assumed the airs of a

sorcerer. He boasted of the legions of spirits at his command; and

of one especially, which he kept imprisoned in the hilt of his sword.

Wetterus, who lived twenty-seven months in his service, relates that

he often threatened to invoke a whole army of demons, and show him

the great authority which he could exercise over them. He let it be

believed, that the spirit in his sword had custody of the elixir of

life, by means of which he could make any one live to be as old as the

antediluvians. He also boasted that he had a spirit at his command,

called "Azoth," whom he kept imprisoned in a jewel; and in many of the

old portraits he is represented with a jewel, inscribed with the word

"Azoth," in his hand.

If a sober prophet has little honour in his own country, a drunken one

has still less. Paracelsus found it at last convenient to quit Basle,

and establish himself at Strasbourg. The immediate cause of this change

of residence was as follows:--A citizen lay at the point of death, and

was given over by all the physicians of the town. As a last resource

Paracelsus was called in, to whom the sick man promised a magnificent

recompence, if by his means he were cured. Paracelsus gave him two small

pills, which the man took and rapidly recovered. When he was quite well,

Paracelsus sent for his fee; but the citizen had no great opinion of the

value of a cure which had been so speedily effected. He had no notion

of paying a handful of gold for two pills, although they had saved his

life, and he refused to pay more than the usual fee for a single visit.

Paracelsus brought an action against him, and lost it. This result so

exasperated him, that he left Basle in high dudgeon. He resumed his

wandering life, and travelled in Germany and Hungary, supporting himself

as he went on the credulity and infatuation of all classes of society.

He cast nativities--told fortunes--aided those who had money to throw

away upon the experiment, to find the philosopher's stone--prescribed

remedies for cows and pigs, and aided in the recovery of stolen

goods. After residing successively at Nuremburg, Augsburg, Vienna, and

Mindelheim, he retired in the year 1541 to Saltzbourg, and died in a

state of abject poverty in the hospital of that town.

If this strange charlatan found hundreds of admirers during his life,

he found thousands after his death. A sect of Paracelsists sprang up

in France and Germany, to perpetuate the extravagant doctrines of their

founder upon all the sciences, and upon alchymy in particular. The chief

leaders were Bodenstein and Dorneus. The following is a summary of his

doctrine, founded upon supposed existence of the philosopher's stone; it

is worth preserving from its very absurdity, and altogether unparalleled

in the history of philosophy:--

First of all, he maintained that the contemplation of the perfection of

the Deity sufficed to procure all wisdom and knowledge; that the Bible

was the key to the theory of all diseases, and that it was necessary to

search into the Apocalypse to know the signification of magic medicine.

The man who blindly obeyed the will of God, and who succeeded in

identifying himself with the celestial intelligences, possessed the

philosopher's stone--he could cure all diseases, and prolong life to as

many centuries as he pleased; it being by the very same means that Adam

and the antediluvian patriarchs prolonged theirs. Life was an emanation

from the stars--the sun governed the heart, and the moon the brain.

Jupiter governed the liver, Saturn the gall, Mercury the lungs, Mars the

bile, and Venus the loins. In the stomach of every human being there

dwelt a demon, or intelligence, that was a sort of alchymist in his way,

and mixed, in their due proportions, in his crucible, the various

aliments that were sent into that grand laboratory the belly.[See the

article "Paracelsus," by the learned Renaudin, in the "Biographie

Universelle."] He was proud of the title of magician, and boasted that

he kept up a regular correspondence with Galen from hell; and that he

often summoned Avicenna from the same regions to dispute with him on the

false notions he had promulgated respecting alchymy, and especially

regarding potable gold and the elixir of life. He imagined that gold

could cure ossification of the heart, and, in fact, all diseases, if it

were gold which had been transmuted from an inferior metal by means of

the philosopher's stone, and if it were applied under certain

conjunctions of the planets. The mere list of the works in which he

advances these frantic imaginings, which he called a doctrine, would

occupy several pages.

GEORGE AGRICOLA.

This alchymist was born in the province of Misnia, in 1494. His real

name was Bauer, meaning a husbandman, which, in accordance with the

common fashion of his age, he Latinized into Agricola. From his early

youth, he delighted in the visions of the hermetic science. Ere he was

sixteen, he longed for the great elixir which was to make him live for

seven hundred years, and for the stone which was to procure him wealth

to cheer him in his multiplicity of days. He published a small treatise

upon the subject at Cologne, in 1531, which obtained him the patronage

of the celebrated Maurice, Duke of Saxony. After practising for some

years as a physician at Joachimsthal, in Bohemia, he was employed by

Maurice as superintendent of the silver mines of Chemnitz. He led a

happy life among the miners, making various experiments in alchymy

while deep in the bowels of the earth. He acquired a great knowledge

of metals, and gradually got rid of his extravagant notions about

the philosopher's stone. The miners had no faith in alchymy; and they

converted him to their way of thinking, not only in that but in other

respects. From their legends, he became firmly convinced that the bowels

of the earth were inhabited by good and evil spirits, and that firedamp

and other explosions sprang from no other causes than the mischievous

propensities of the latter. He died in the year 1555, leaving behind him

the reputation of a very able and intelligent man.

DENIS ZACHAIRE.

Autobiography, written by a wise man who was once a fool, is not

only the most instructive, but the most delightful of reading. Denis

Zachaire, an alchymist of the sixteenth century, has performed this

task, and left a record of his folly and infatuation in pursuit of the

philosopher's stone, which well repays perusal. He was born in the

year 1510, of an ancient family in Guienne, and was early sent to the

university of Bordeaux, under the care of a tutor to direct his studies.

Unfortunately, his tutor was a searcher for the grand elixir, and

soon rendered his pupil as mad as himself upon the subject. With this

introduction, we will allow Denis Zachaire to speak for himself, and

continue his narrative in his own words:--

"I received from home," says he, "the sum of two hundred crowns for the

expenses of myself and master; but before the end of the year, all our

money went away in the smoke of our furnaces. My master, at the same

time, died of a fever, brought on by the parching heat of our

laboratory, from which he seldom or never stirred, and which was

scarcely less hot than the arsenal of Venice. His death was the more

unfortunate for me, as my parents took the opportunity of reducing my

allowance, and sending me only sufficient for my board and lodging,

instead of the sum I required to continue my operations in alchymy.

"To meet this difficulty and get out of leading-strings, I returned home

at the age of twenty-five, and mortgaged part of my property for four

hundred crowns. This sum was necessary to perform an operation of the

science, which had been communicated to me by an Italian at Toulouse,

and who, as he said, had proved its efficacy. I retained this man in my

service, that we might see the end of the experiment. I then, by means

of strong distillations, tried to calcinate gold and silver; but all my

labour was in vain. The weight of the gold I drew out of my furnace was

diminished by one-half since I put it in, and my four hundred crowns

were very soon reduced to two hundred and thirty. I gave twenty of these

to my Italian, in order that he might travel to Milan, where the author

of the receipt resided, and ask him the explanation of some passages

which we thought obscure. I remained at Toulouse all the winter, in the

hope of his return; but I might have remained there till this day if I

had waited for him, for I never saw his face again.

"In the succeeding summer there was a great plague, which forced me

to quit the town. I did not, however, lose sight of my work. I went to

Cahors, where I remained six months, and made the acquaintance of an old

man, who was commonly known to the people as 'the Philosopher;' a name

which, in country places, is often bestowed upon people whose only merit

is, that they are less ignorant than their neighbours. I showed him my

collection of alchymical receipts, and asked his opinion upon them. He

picked out ten or twelve of them, merely saying that they were better

than the others. When the plague ceased, I returned to Toulouse, and

recommenced my experiments in search of the stone. I worked to such

effect that my four hundred crowns were reduced to one hundred and

seventy.

"That I might continue my work on a safer method, I made acquaintance,

in 1537, with a certain Abbe, who resided in the neighbourhood. He

was smitten with the same mania as myself, and told me that one of

his friends, who had followed to Rome in the retinue of the Cardinal

d'Armagnac, had sent him from that city a new receipt, which could not

fail to transmute iron and copper, but which would cost two hundred

crowns. I provided half this money, and the Abbe the rest; and we began

to operate at our joint expense. As we required spirits of wine for our

experiment, I bought a tun of excellent vin de Gaillac. I extracted the

spirit, and rectified it several times. We took a quantity of this,

into which we put four marks of silver, and one of gold, that had been

undergoing the process of calcination for a month. We put this mixture

cleverly into a sort of horn-shaped vessel, with another to serve as

a retort; and placed the whole apparatus upon our furnace, to produce

congelation. This experiment lasted a year; but, not to remain idle,

we amused ourselves with many other less important operations. We drew

quite as much profit from these as from our great work.

"The whole of the year 1537 passed over without producing any change

whatever: in fact, we might have waited till doomsday for the

congelation of our spirits of wine. However, we made a projection with

it upon some heated quicksilver; but all was in vain. Judge of our

chagrin, especially of that of the Abbe, who had already boasted to all

the monks of his monastery, that they had only to bring the large pump

which stood in a corner of the cloister, and he would convert it into

gold; but this ill luck did not prevent us from persevering. I once more

mortgaged my paternal lands for four hundred crowns, the whole of which

I determined to devote to a renewal of my search for the great secret.

The Abbe contributed the same sum; and, with these eight hundred crowns,

I proceeded to Paris, a city more abounding with alchymists than any

other in the world, resolved never to leave it until I had either found

the philosopher's stone, or spent all my money. This journey gave the

greatest offence to all my relations and friends, who, imagining that

I was fitted to be a great lawyer, were anxious that I should establish

myself in that profession. For the sake of quietness, I pretended, at

last, that such was my object.

"After travelling for fifteen days, I arrived in Paris, on the 9th

of January 1539. I remained for a month, almost unknown; but I had no

sooner begun to frequent the amateurs of the science, and visited the

shops of the furnace-makers, than I had the acquaintance of more than a

hundred operative alchymists, each of whom had a different theory and

a different mode of working. Some of them preferred cementation; others

sought the universal alkahest, or dissolvent; and some of them boasted

the great efficacy of the essence of emery. Some of them endeavoured to

extract mercury from other metals to fix it afterwards; and, in order

that each of us should be thoroughly acquainted with the proceedings

of the others, we agreed to meet somewhere every night, and report

progress. We met sometimes at the house of one, and sometimes in the

garret of another; not only on week days, but on Sundays, and the great

festivals of the Church. 'Ah!' one used to say, 'if I had the means

of recommencing this experiment, I should do something.' 'Yes,' said

another, 'if my crucible had not cracked, I should have succeeded before

now:' while a third exclaimed, with a sigh, 'If I had but had a round

copper vessel of sufficient strength, I would have fixed mercury with

silver.' There was not one among them who had not some excuse for his

failure; but I was deaf to all their speeches. I did not want to part

with my money to any of them, remembering how often I had been the dupe

of such promises.

"A Greek at last presented himself; and with him I worked a long

time uselessly upon nails, made of cinabar, or vermilion. I was also

acquainted with a foreign gentleman newly arrived in Paris, and often

accompanied him to the shops of the goldsmiths, to sell pieces of gold

and silver, the produce, as he said, of his experiments. I stuck closely

to him for a long time, in the hope that he would impart his secret. He

refused for a long time, but acceded, at last, on my earnest entreaty,

and I found that it was nothing more than an ingenious trick. I did not

fail to inform my friend, the Abbe, whom I had left at Toulouse, of

all my adventures; and sent him, among other matters, a relation of the

trick by which this gentleman pretended to turn lead into gold. The Abbe

still imagined that I should succeed at last, and advised me to remain

another year in Paris, where I had made so good a beginning. I remained

there three years; but, notwithstanding all my efforts, I had no more

success than I had had elsewhere.

"I had just got to the end of my money, when I received a letter from

the Abbe, telling me to leave everything, and join him immediately at

Toulouse. I went accordingly, and found that he had received letters

from the King of Navarre (grandfather of Henry IV). This Prince was a

great lover of philosophy, full of curiosity, and had written to the

Abbe, that I should visit him at Pau; and that he would give me three

or four thousand crowns, if I would communicate the secret I had learned

from the foreign gentleman. The Abbe's ears were so tickled with the

four thousand crowns, that he let me have no peace, night or day, until

he had fairly seen me on the road to Pau. I arrived at that place in

the month of May 1542. I worked away, and succeeded, according to the

receipt I had obtained. When I had finished, to the satisfaction of the

King, he gave me the reward that I expected. Although he was willing

enough to do me further service, he was dissuaded from it by the lords

of his court; even by many of those who had been most anxious that

I should come. He sent me then about my business, with many thanks;

saying, that if there was anything in his kingdom which he could give

me--such as the produce of confiscations, or the like--he should be

most happy. I thought I might stay long enough for these prospective

confiscations, and never get them at last; and I therefore determined to

go back to my friend, the Abbe.

"I learned, that on the road between Pau and Toulouse, there resided a

monk, who was very skilful in all matters of natural philosophy. On my

return, I paid him a visit. He pitied me very much, and advised me, with

much warmth and kindness of expression, not to amuse myself any longer

with such experiments as these, which were all false and sophistical;

but that I should read the good books of the old philosophers, where I

might not only find the true matter of the science of alchymy, but learn

also the exact order of operations which ought to be followed. I very

much approved of this wise advice; but, before I acted upon it, I

went back to my Abbe, of Toulouse, to give him an account of the eight

hundred crowns, which we had had in common; and, at the same time, share

with him such reward as I had received from the King of Navarre. If he

was little satisfied with the relation of my adventures since our first

separation, he appeared still less satisfied when I told him I had

formed a resolution to renounce the search for the philosopher's stone.

The reason was, that he thought me a good artist. Of our eight hundred

crowns, there remained but one hundred and seventy-six. When I quitted

the Abbe, I went to my own house, with the intention of remaining there,

till I had read all the old philosophers, and of then proceeding to

Paris.

"I arrived in Paris on the day after All Saints, of the year 1546, and

devoted another year to the assiduous study of great authors. Among

others, the 'Turba Philosophorum' of the 'Good Trevisan,' 'The

Remonstance of Nature to the wandering Alchymist,' by Jean de Meung; and

several others of the best books: but, as I had no right' principles, I

did not well know what course to follow.

"At last I left my solitude; not to see my former acquaintances, the

adepts and operators, but to frequent the society of true philosophers.

Among them I fell into still greater uncertainties; being, in fact,

completely bewildered by the variety of operations which they showed me.

Spurred on, nevertheless, by a sort of frenzy or inspiration, I threw

myself into the works of Raymond Lulli and of Arnold de Villeneuve. The

reading of these, and the reflections I made upon them, occupied me for

another year, when I finally determined on the course I should adopt.

I was obliged to wait, however, until I had mortgaged another very

considerable portion of my patrimony. This business was not settled

until the beginning of Lent, 1549, when I commenced my operations. I

laid in a stock of all that was necessary, and began to work the

day after Easter. It was not, however, without some disquietude and

opposition from my friends who came about me; one asking me what I was

going to do, and whether I had not already spent money enough upon such

follies. Another assured me that, if I bought so much charcoal, I should

strengthen the suspicion already existing, that I was a coiner of base

money. Another advised me to purchase some place in the magistracy, as

I was already a Doctor of Laws. My relations spoke in terms still more

annoying to me, and even threatened that, if I continued to make such

a fool of myself, they would send a posse of police-officers into my

house, and break all my furnaces and crucibles into atoms. I was wearied

almost to death by this continued persecution; but I found comfort in

my work and in the progress of my experiment, to which I was very

attentive, and which went on bravely from day to day. About this time,

there was a dreadful plague in Paris, which interrupted all intercourse

between man and man, and left me as much to myself as I could desire. I

soon had the satisfaction to remark the progress and succession of the

three colours which, according to the philosophers, always prognosticate

the approaching perfection of the work. I observed them distinctly, one

after the other; and next year, being Easter Sunday, 1550, I made the

great trial. Some common quicksilver, which I put into a small crucible

on the fire, was, in less than an hour, converted into very good gold.

You may judge how great was my joy, but I took care not to boast of it.

I returned thanks to God for the favour he had shown me, and prayed that

I might only be permitted to make such use of it as would redound to his

glory.

"On the following day, I went towards Toulouse to find the Abbe,

in accordance with a mutual promise that we should communicate our

discoveries to each other. On my way, I called in to see the sage monk

who had assisted me with his counsels; but I had the sorrow to learn

that they were both dead. After this, I would not return to my own home,

but retired to another place, to await one of my relations whom I had

left in charge of my estate. I gave him orders to sell all that belonged

to me, as well movable as immovable--to pay my debts with the proceeds,

and divide all the rest among those in any way related to me who might

stand in need of it, in order that they might enjoy some share of the

good fortune which had befallen me. There was a great deal of talk

in the neighbourhood about my precipitate retreat; the wisest of my

acquaintance imagining that, broken down and ruined by my mad expenses,

I sold my little remaining property that I might go and hide my shame in

distant countries.

"My relative already spoken of rejoined me on the 1st of July, after

having performed all the business I had intrusted him with. We took

our departure together, to seek a land of liberty. We first retired to

Lausanne, in Switzerland, when, after remaining there for some time,

we resolved to pass the remainder of our days in some of the most

celebrated cities of Germany, living quietly and without splendour."

Thus ends the story of Denis Zachaire, as written by himself. He has not

been so candid at its conclusion as at its commencement, and has left

the 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 months 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.

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. [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.'"] This 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 spirits while he (Dee) sat in another part of the

room, and took down in writing the revelations which they made.

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 2nd 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."

[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 vitae, 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 show 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. [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 1585 he visited

England, when Queen Elizabeth received him with great distinction. The

honours which were shown 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."] 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.

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 show 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 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 pose 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 that 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 visiters. 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 where 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 for 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 waggons 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 anything 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 shown 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 postchariot 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 counsellors 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; and 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 everything 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 eight first 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.

[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 show 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 show 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 Comte. 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 pure

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 Abbe

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 Naude at that

conjuncture brought out his "Avis a la France sur les Freres 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 flourished in Germany, and drew many converts in England. The

latter countries produced two great masters, in the persons of Jacob

Bohmen 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 Roseae Crucis,

who devoted themselves to the wonders of this sublunary sphere; and the

brothers Aureae Crucis, who were wholly occupied in the contemplation

of things Divine. Fludd belonged to the first class, and Bohmen 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 practice as a physician in London.

He soon made himself conspicuous. He Latinized his name from Robert

Fludd into Robertus a 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

Infamiae 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.

a Fluctibus, as he preferred to be called, and showed the absurdity of

the brothers of the Rose-cross in general, and of Dr. a 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 Magiae, Cabalae, Alchimiae, Fratrum Roseae-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 show 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 show 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," [No. 574.

Friday, July 30th, 1714.] 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 everything 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."

JACOB BOHMEN.

It is now time to speak of Jacob Bohmen, 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 Gorlitz,

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 be

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 Gorlitz, 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."

Bohmen 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. Bohmen's works were translated into English, and published,

many years afterwards by an enthusiast, named William Law.

MORMIUS.