him of Bacon's great learning in every branch of knowledge,, 

 theology, medicine, mathematics, mechanics, optics and chem- 

 istry; and he spoke of his inventions, the magic-lantern, the 

 burning glass, the telescope and gunpowder, as well as of his 

 wonderful magical powers that enabled him to construct a 

 machine to rise in the air, statues having the power of loco- 

 motion, and a brazen head that emitted articulate speech. 

 Rudolph was of course acquainted with Bacon's Mirror of 

 Alchemy published a short time before at Lyons. Dee then 

 spoke of the skillful physician, Arnold of Villanova, and of the 

 transmutation he accomplished with the aid of Raymund 

 Lully at Rome in 1288; also of Sir George Ripley, who gained 

 such enormous wealth by the hermetic art that he presented 

 the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem with five hundred thou- 

 sand pounds of gold, as proved by documents at Malta. 



Passing to France, Dee reminded the Emperor of the 

 extraordinary history of the poor Parisian scrivener, Nicholas 

 Flamel, who had labored with crucibles, athanors and 

 alembics for twenty years before he gained the secret of the 

 Philosophers' stone ; and then, with the assistance of his 

 faithful wife Perrenelle, on January 17th 1382, about noon, 

 he made a successful projection on one pound and a half of 

 mercury, transmuting it into good gold, more pliable and 

 lustrous than the natural metal. As visible evidence of this 

 claim Dee assured Rudolph that he had seen the handsome 

 archway in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents erected at 

 Flamel's expense, on which were sculptured hieroglyphical 

 figures explaining the whole process ; and that when he, Dee, 

 fell ill during a visit to Paris in his youth, he had been kindly 

 treated in one of the hospitals endowed by the pious Flamel 

 with a portion of the wealth secured by spagyric skill. 



The learned Englishman delighted the Emperor with the 

 picturesque narrative of another French alchemist, Denis 



36 



