2»'i S. No 56., Jan. 24. '67.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



63 



rose from his chair, staggered to the door, and made his 

 way down stairs without taking the slightest notice of 

 his companion. I retired to my college ; and next morn- 

 ing was informed by my friend, that he had been out 

 upon a search, the previous evening, for the Greek Pro- 

 fessor, whom he discovered near the outskirts of the 

 Town, leaning upon the arm of a dirty Bargeman, and 

 amusing him by the most humorous and laughable anec- 

 dotes. I never even saw Person after this day, but I 

 shall never cease to regret that I did not commit his 

 history to writing whilst it was fresh in my memory. 

 " I am, my dear Sir, 



" with great regard, yours sincerely; 



" T. S. Hughes. 

 « Camb., Oct. 1826." 



Thompson Coopeb. 

 Cambridge. 



"aurea catena homeri. 



Goethe mentions (D. und TF., b. vni.) that 

 during an illness he had he betook himself to 

 studying Hermetic lore ; he names in particular 

 six books, one of which bears the attractive title 

 of Aurea Catena Homeri. I was more or less 

 acquainted with the other books mentioned, but 

 this last has been till recently a mythical book to 

 me, and for years I could get no information about 

 it. As, however, I have been fortunate enough, 

 lately, to come into possession of two editions of 

 this very rare and curious work, I shall make 

 some Notes and Queries respecting it. 



The A. C. H. is an anonymous work, and was 

 published originally in German. Here I must 

 ask, what is the date, &c,, o?t\xQ first edition? It 

 must have been printed after 1722, for the editor 

 of the edition of 1738 speaks of its being in MS. 

 in that year. Dr. Favrat, the Latin translator, 

 writing in 1762, speaks of three German editions; 

 of these I possess one, probably the second. It is 

 thus entitled : 



" Aurea Catena Homeki. Das ist : Eine Beschrei- 

 bung von dem Ursprung der Nattlr und nattirlichen 

 Dinge, VVie und woraus sie gebohren und gezeuget, auch 

 wie sie erhalten und wiederum in ihr uranfilngliches 

 Wesen zerstoret werden, auch was das Ding sey, welches 

 alles gebahret und wieder zerstoret, Gantz simpliciter 

 nach der Natur selbst eigner Anleitung und Ordnung mit 

 seinen schonsten naturlichen rationibus und Ursachen 

 ilberall illustriret. Neue Auflage, Welche nach einem ac- 

 curaten und Vollstandigen Manuscript fast auf alien 

 Slattern verbessert, und an sehr vielen Orten um ein 

 grosses Theil vermehret. Leipzig, Verlegts Samuel Ben- 

 jamin VValther, 1738, pp. 406, sm. 8vo." 



The motto on the verso of the title-page is, — 



" Wenn ihr nicht verstehet, was irdisch ist, Wie wollet 

 ihr verstehen was Hiramlisch ist." 



The editor thus commences his advertisement : 



" I herewith present the benevolent reader with a Phy- 

 sical and Chemical Work in two parts, of great value, the 

 like of which he has scarcely ever seen ; and concerning 

 which it is credibly reported that ere this, a thousand 

 Dollars have been paid for the MS. ; and a little while 

 ago, and even at the present time, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 



even 100 Dollars have been given for the loan of it, or for 

 information concerning it." 



He next tells us that he printed the work from 

 a collation of three MSS., and then apologises for 

 the bad Latin with which the author occasionally 

 interlards his work, by referring to p. 162., where 

 the writer describes himself as a poor persecuted 

 ploughman and peasant. The editor concludes by 

 noticing a third part of this work, treating De 

 Transmutatione Metallorum, which he does not 

 think it necessary to print, at least in the present 

 edition. Favrat, in his preface, speaks of this 

 Third Part as both trashy and spurious, and says 

 that it was printed with the other parts in the 

 ^rst German edition, but advisedly omitted in the 

 second and third editions. 



The Latin translation is thus entitled : 



" Aurea Catena Homeri. Id est Concatenata Naturae 

 Historia Physico-Chymica, Latina civitate donata notisque 

 illustrata a Ludovico Favrat, M.D. Sol veritads tenebras 

 fugat. Francofurti et Lipsice sumtu \_sic'] Knochii et Es- 

 lingeri. mdcclxii., pp. 630, sm. 8vo." 



In his preface Favrat speaks of " the anony- 

 mous Author, who lived in the 17th century." A 

 note in the fly-leaf of my German edition states 

 the name of this mysterious author to be Fuldang 

 Leopold Codrus.* 



There is but little to be observed about this 

 Latin version. Favrat gives at the beginning the 

 famous Smaragdine, or Emerald Table of Hermes, 

 as it is often referred to by the author.f He also 

 divides the work into numbered paragraphs. It 

 ends at p. 573. ; after that he gives some theses of 

 his own. The running title of the Latin version 

 is S. D. G., which is to me unintelligible. J 



There are two plates, the same in the original 

 and in the translation. The first is the Golden 

 Chain of Homer, as interpreted by our author, 

 and consists of ten rings, or links, depicted in red : 

 and there is a so-called Erklcirung A. C. H., in 

 German verse, to explain the diagram, but which 

 is too long for insertion. 



The other plate depicts a circle formed by two 

 serpents biting, each, the other's tail ; the upper 



* These are the words of the Note : " Der Author 

 dieses Buchs soil heissen Fuldanus Leopoldus Codrus, wie 

 solches auss einer charta des seel[igen] Herrn D. Grossen 

 wahrgenommen." 



t It was translated into Latin from the Arabic and 

 Greek copies by Kircher ; and may be found in English in 

 Taylor's Proclus on the Theology of Plato, vol. ii. p. 194. ; 

 in the Lives of the Alch. Phil., Lond. 1815, and in many 

 other places. 



t In a book entitled De la Philosophie de La Nature, ou 

 Traite de Morale pour L'Espece Humaine, 3^«ie ed., Lond. 

 1777, 6 vols. 8vo. ; in the second volume, pp. 437 — 445., 

 the writer treats of the doctrine of a graduated chain of 

 nature, as maintained by Pythagoras, Bonnet, Leibnitz, 

 BufFon, Le Cat, &c., refers to the A. C. IL, though in a 

 very general way, and speaks of it having been translated 

 into French several times. I should be glad to get accu- 

 rate information on this point. 



