TRANSMUTATION OF THE METALS 85 



for he was a lover of the Pyrotechnian art, and having 

 read my treatise against the sympathetic powder of Sir 

 Kenelm Digby, and observed my aoubt about the philo- 

 sophic mystery, induced him to ask me if I really was a 

 disbeliever as to the existence of an universal medicine 

 which would cure all diseases, unless the principal parts 

 were perished, or the predestinated time of death come. 

 I replied, I never met with an adept, or saw such a medi- 

 cine, though I had fervently prayed for it. Then I said, 

 4 Surely you are a learned physician.' ' No,' said he, ' I am a 

 brass-founder, and a lover of chemistry. 1 He then took 

 from his bosom-pouch a neat ivory box, and out of it three 

 ponderous lumps of stone, each about the bigness of a 

 walnut. I greedily saw and handled for a quarter of an 

 hour this most noble substance, the value of which might 

 be somewhere about twenty tons of gold; and having 

 drawn from the owner many rare secrets of its admirable 

 effects, I returned him this treasure of treasures with a 

 most sorrowful mind, humbly beseeching him to bestow a 

 fragment of it upon me in perpetual memory of him, though 

 but the size of a coriander seed. 'No, no,' said he, 'that is 

 not lawful, though thou wouldest give me as many golden 

 ducats as would fill this room; for it would have particular 

 consequences, and if fire could be burned of fire, I would 

 at this instant rather cast it all into the fiercest flames.' 

 He then asked if I had a private chamber whose prospect 

 was from the public street; so I presently conducted him 

 to my best furnished room backwards, which he entered, 

 says Helvetius (in the true spirit of Dutch cleanliness), 

 without wiping his shoes, which were full of snow and 

 dirt. I now expected he would bestow some great secret 

 upon me ; but in vain. He asked for a piece of gold, and 

 opening his doublet showed me five pieces of that precious 

 metal which he wore upon a green riband, and which very 

 much excelled mine in flexibility and color, each being 

 the size of a small trencher. I now earnestly again craved 

 a crumb of the stone, and at last, out of his philosophical 

 commiseration, he gave me a morsel as large as a rape- 

 seed ; but I said, ' This scanty portion will scarcely trans- 

 mute four grains of lead.' 'Then,' said he, 'Deliver it me 

 back : ' which I did, in hopes of a greater parcel ; but lie, 

 cutting off half with his nail, said : ' Even this is sufficient 



