258 MODERN SCIENCE READER 



inal chemistry. 1 Even about the philosopher's stone he was 

 comparatively explicit, and his dicta were received as ora- 

 cles. Yet their connection with Basilius Valentinus appeared 

 to many uncertain. Whence, it might be asked, did the 

 manuscripts edited by Tholde come from? The question 

 was answered in a singular fashion. Toward the middle 

 of the century, stories coming from nowhere in particular 

 began to be circulated to the effect that the doubtful 

 writings had been found, according to one version, under 

 the high altar of the Benedictine convent at Erfurt, accord- 

 ing to another, inside one of its columns, which a flash of 

 lightning had split open. Then, in 1675, J. M. Gudenus 

 announced, as the upshot of inquiries made on the spot, 

 that Basilius Valentinus, the champion of antimony, and 

 the inventor of the trinal constitution of matter, had worn 

 the cowl at Erfurt in 1413, and had there surreptitiously 

 bequeathed his mysterious fame to posterity. There is lit- 

 tle doubt that he was mistaken; but the solution of the 

 problem offered by identifying Johannes Tholde with 

 Basilius Valentinus is not the most probable. The suppo- 

 sition of multiple authorship is to be preferred. Tholde, 

 one may believe, collected scattered writings already par- 

 tially known. He gave, in a manner, epic importance to 

 detached lays. 



They could scarcely have been known, except by report, 

 to John Dee of Mortlake, crystal-gazer and alchemist. 

 Deluded himself, and the cause of manifold delusions to 

 others, he submerged his originally fine faculties in a quag- 

 mire of baneful figments. Queen Elizabeth wished to make 

 him a bishop, and invoked his aid to avert harmful effects 

 from malicious injury done with a pin to a waxen image of 

 her royal person, found in Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1577. 

 The appearance, about the same time, of a great comet 

 further excited her alarm; which having allayed, he trav- 

 eled abroad in quest of remedies for her tooth-ache and 

 rheumatic pains. Later he became the dupe of Edward 

 *E. von Meyer, History of Chemistry, page 36. 



