llistori/ uf A/chi/my. 237 



■ By one point of excess all your work is shent, 

 And one point too little is insufficient ; 

 Who can be sure to find its trew degree, 

 Magister magnus in igne shall he be. 

 All that hath pleasure in this booke to reade, 

 Pray for my soule, and all both quick and deade. 

 In this yeare of Christ 1477, 

 This work was begun, honour to God in heaven." j 



In later times we have had two or three beHevers in transr 

 mutation. In the year 1782, Dr. Price, of Guildford, by means 

 of a white and a red powder, professed to convert mercury into 

 silver and gold, and is said to have convinced many disbelievers 

 of the possibility of such change ; his experiments were to have 

 been repeated before an adequate tribunal, but he put a period 

 to his existence by swallowing laurel-water. 



Another true believer in the mysteries of art was Peter 

 WouLFE, of whom it is to be regretted that no biographical 

 memoir has been preserved. I have picked up a few anecdotes 

 respecting him from two or three friends who were his acquaint- 

 ance. He occupied chambers in Barnard's Inn while residing 

 in London, and usually spent the summer in Paris. His rooms 

 which were extensjive, were so filled with furnaces and apparatus 

 that it was difficult to reach his fire-side. Dr. Babington told me 

 that he once put down his hat, and never could find it again, 

 such was the confusion of boxes, packages, and parcels, that 

 lay about the chamber. His breakfast hour was four in the 

 morning ; a few of his select friends were occasionally invited 

 to this repast, to whom a secret signal was given by which they 

 gained entrance, knocking a certain number of times at the 

 inner door of his apartment. He had long vainly searched for 

 the elixir, and attributed his repeated failures to the want of 

 due preparation by pious and charitable acts. I understand 

 that some of his apparatus is still extant, upon which are sup- 

 plications for success, and for the welfare of the adepts. When- 

 ever he wished to break an acquaintance, or felt himself offended, 

 he resented the supposed injury by sending a present to the 

 offender and never seeing him afterwards. These presents 

 were sometimes of a curious description, and consisted usually 



