242 Sj/mbola Aurea Mensa, S^-c* [Oct. 



the additional merit of being more intelligible and more enter- 

 taining than most books of the same class. 



According to the taste of his day, Maier has thrown his 

 defence of alchemy into the form of an allegorical narrative. 

 The virgin Chemia having been grossly and falsely slandered 

 by some adversary whom he names Pyrgopolynices, summons 

 to her defence twelve worthies of as many countries, who 

 assemble in solemn council round the Golden or Philosophic 

 Table. In agreement with the number of these sages, the work 

 is divided into twelve books or parts, each constructed pretty 

 much upon the same plan. In each, an account is first given of 

 the hero who acts as its Coryphaeus ; this is followed by brief 

 notices of such among his countrymen as have been eminent in 

 the same mysterious art ; and usually by some desultory remarks 

 as to the natural and other peculiarities of the country which 

 produced them. Lastly, Pyrgopolynices is introduced making a 

 syllogistic attack upon some one or more leading points of alche- 

 mical doctrine, which is readily answered by the aforesaid 

 Coryphseus with all due etiquette of major, minor, &)C. 



The first character thus brought upon the stage is Hermes 

 Trismegistus, whose pretensions to this eminence can hardly be 

 unknown to any of your chemical readers. Maier determines 

 seriously that Hermes lived 2000 years before the Christian era, 

 appears to acquiesce in the spuriousness of such decidedly 

 alchemical works as passed under his name, and rests his claim 

 to the title of Prorex Chemiae on a forced interpretation of some 

 passages in the Pimander and Asclepius, theosophical tracts 

 fathered upon Hermes by the forgers of the Alexandrian school, 

 and in two short tracts, the Smaragdine Table, and the Tracta- 

 tus 7 Capitulorum, of more dubious origin and signification. 

 Under this view, he of course regards the mythology and hiero- 

 glyphics of Egypt as concealing the arcana of the Hermetic art. 

 This opinion, however, is reasonable in comparison with one 

 which he states to have been entertained by some of his con- 

 temporaries, " that the whole Scripture, both of the Old and 

 New Testament, is nothing more than a body of chemical alle- 

 gories." This Maier, who does not appear to have been deficient 

 in piety, deservedly reprobates. The earliest authority which, 

 ■with all his research and erudition, he can produce for the che- 

 mical learning of the Egyptians, is the assertion of Paulus Dia- 

 conus (a writer of the eighth century), that Diocletian burnt the 

 library of Alexandria in order to prevent the Egyptians from 

 becoming learned in the art of producing at will those precious 

 metals which might be employed as the sinews of war against 

 himself. He misquotes Orosius as an evidence to the same 

 purpose. It is needless to say, that as far as chemistry is con- 

 cerned, the story is evidently a fiction. He attempts to press 

 Tacitus into the same service, on the presumption that the 



