430 Symbola Aurea Mertsa, ^c. [Dec. 



alchemist, Thomas Aquinas. Maier, however, defends his claim 

 to this title on the credit of some works circulated under his 

 name. They are probably forgeries, but a quotation from one 

 of them may serve to show how curiously the lovers of the 

 scholastic philosophy were misled by reasoning on the Aristotelic 

 qualities of the supposed elements. '* Inveni (says the writer 

 describing the result of his operations) quendam lapidem rubeum 

 clarissimum, diaphanum et lucidum, et in eo conspexi omnes 

 formas elementorum, et etiam eorum contrarietates in ilia materia 

 lapidis: Ex rubedine enim respexi formam ignis, ex diapha- 

 nitate formam aeris et ex luciditate formam aqu£e." Maier, 

 under this head, speaks more openly than usual of antimony 

 (terram nigram oculosam, Antim. Hispanicum, Stimmi Itali- 

 cum) as the chief ingredient prescribed by T. Aquinas and 

 others for the production of the wonderful stone. From anti- 

 mony one philosopher, he tells us, had produced mercury , lead, 

 copper, irojiy silver, gold, and hepar* Others (who seem to have 

 been somewhat more honest in their professions), Regulus, white, 

 yellow and red Jiowers, oil, glass, and salt. It is needless to 

 point out to your chemical readers the probability of the latter 

 assertion, or the modern synonymes of the substances thus 

 obtained. He proceeds to enumerate the various places where 

 antimony has been found ; but lest he should make his trea- 

 sure too common, quickly relapses into the alchemist; " Which, 

 you will ask, of these antimo7iies are we to choose ? 1 answer, the 

 philosophical.'* All varieties are not equally good for the work ; 

 and if any one fail, it is because he has chosen a wrong one, or 

 having (as Aquinas rightly advises) worked with the Spanish, 

 has not understood its preparation (" e viilgari nempe faciendum 

 est physicam.)" 



Among the followers of Aquinas, are enumerated the poets 

 J. A. Augurellus and M. Palingenius. Their alchemical strains, 

 if we may judge from the specimens adduced by Maier, are cer- 

 tainly far more classical and attractive than those of our own 

 ancestors, for the preservation of which we are indebted to the 

 ill-placed zeal and industry of Ashmole. Maier states that 

 Augurellus gives wise and cautious directions for the behaviour 

 and carriage which the adept should observe " in order to avoid 

 the suspicion of being an alchemist, a suspicion which might 

 involve him in many difficulties with the malevolent and 

 unworthy." 



Some statistical information is added ; and the arguments 

 which follow descend more to particulars than is usual with our 



• It is not impossible that a practised chemist even of those early days may, in oi)e- 

 rating on large quantities of an impure grey antimonial ore, have found traces at least 

 of lead, copper, iron, silver, and the sulphur at least of his hepar. The metallic anti- 

 mony (fusible at a very low heat) might itself be one variety of the philosophical 

 mercury. 



