... "In his honde he bar 

 An holwe stikke (tak keep and be war!), 

 In thende of which an ounce, and namore 

 Was in his cole, and stopped with wex wel 

 For to kepe in his lymaille every del. 

 And whyl this preest was in his bisinesse, 

 This, chanoun with his stikke gan him dresse 

 To him anon, and his pouder caste in 

 As he did er." 



In the sixteenth century there was a division of opinion 

 among the men of learning; Melanchthon, for example, wrote 

 of alchemy as a work of imposture and fraud, while Martin 

 Luther in his "Canonica" said: "The art of alchemy is a true 

 and genuine philosophy of ancient sages, and pleases me very 

 well not only on account of its virtue and great usefulness 

 shown in the distillation and sublimation of metals, herbs, 

 waters, and oils, but also on account of its admirable and 

 beautiful analogy to the resurrection of the dead at the day 

 of judgement." The only serious attempt made in the six- 

 teenth century to break down the structure erected by the 

 chemists, was the publication in 1572 of a work by Thomas 

 Lieber, better known by his pen-name Erastus, Professor of 

 medicine in Basle.* His main attack was on the absurd 

 medical doctrines of Paracelsus, but he also exposed the 

 worthlessness of the theories of alchemy and the charlatanism 

 of its practitioners by citing instances of notorious frauds. 

 Neither earnest opposition nor ridicule as expressed in 

 facetious epigrams and verses disturbed the status of alchemy ; 

 the verses of the Jesuit Grethser of Ingolstadt are good ex- 

 amples of one form of attack : 



"Alchemia est scientia sine arte 



Cujus principium est pars cum parte, 



Medium strenue mentiri, 



Finis mendicatum ire 



Vel in cruce corvos nutrire, 



Quod Paracelsicis solet evenire." 



* Explicatio quaestionis famosae illius, ut utrum ex metallis ignobilis aurutn 

 verum et naturale arte conflari possit. Basiliae, 1572, 4to. 



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