OF HUMAN LIFE. 



is one of his mofl familiar friends, and it is fcarcely 

 three years fince he laft fpoke with him. — Yet more ! 

 — 'Flamel, in quality of one of the elect fages, who 

 are made partakers of the grand thrice-bleffed myftery 

 of the philofopher's ftone, contains in him the famous 

 fountain of youth (fontaine de jouvence) br the means 

 of preferring his life in a kind of protracted youth for 

 a thoufand years ; he is now, while I am writing, not 

 full five hundred years of age ; and, as the fages, his 

 equals, gradually purfue their courfe round the globe, 

 and from time to time hold their meetings now in one 

 place, and then in another : I can fee no reafon why 

 BruiTa Ihouid for this purpofe be preferable to Lon- 

 don ? and why the pleafure may not be in referve for 

 me of getting perfonally acquainted with the wife Fla- 

 mel and his difcreet wife Pernelle, and thereby be ra- 

 dically cured of my inveterate and unhappy unbelief 

 in the facred kabbala, the philofopher's ftone, the 

 feal of Solomon, and all the fountains of juvenefcence^ 

 Medea's kettles, Fortunatus's hats, and Oberon's 

 horns. 



In the mean time, and till that bleiTed day fhall 

 dawn, it is very natural, that one mould try to explain 

 in fome comprehenfible way, fo wonderful a matter, 

 as the account of the uibec dervife in the twelfth chap- 

 ter of the firft part of Paul Lucas's fecond voyage. 



The firft furmife that muft occur to a reader, whofe 

 reafon has once put it into his head, that all the mar- 

 vellous in the world is a natural procefs, is : Whether 

 Paul Lucas (with permiflion of his honour) might not 

 have invented this whole ftory by way of paftime, and 

 for putting the intellects of his reader to the trial ? 



It 



