OF HUMAN LIFE. £65 



" good intelligence with fome of thejews, and paffed with 

 " them for a man of tried integrity. On this account, 

 " a jew- merchant put into his hands his compting- 

 06 houfe books and the whole of his papers., in full af- 

 Ci furance that he would make no bad ufe of them, but 

 " preferve them from the general combuftion. Amongft 

 e< thefe papers were thofe of the fore- mentioned rabbi, 

 " and the books of our fage. It is probable that the 

 " merchant, whole head was full of his commercial 

 H affairs, paid no great attention to thefe matters. But 

 u Flamel examined them more accurately, and finding 

 " in them figures of furnaces, alembics, crucibles, and 

 " various forts of uteniils employed in chemiftry, he 

 " rightly judged, that the grand fecret of the wife 

 " might lay concealed therein ; full of this imagination, 

 " he got the firft leaf tran dated (for the books were in 

 " Hebrew) and being now llrengthen-ed in his opinion 

 " by the perufal of this, his prudence iuggelred to him 

 "the following method of getting into the myftery 

 "without fear of difcovery. He went into Spain, 

 a where jews were every where to be met with, and 

 f found means to get a leaf tramlated at every place 

 ? he came to. Having in this manner procured a tran- 



flation of the whole book, he returned to Paris. On 

 iC his way thither, he fell in with a man whom he made 

 " his friend, and took him with him, in the defign of 

 " difcovering to him his fecret, that he might be an 

 " afliftant to him in the great work : but to his deep 

 <c regret, a ficknefs deprived him of this friend before 



the time. Being now arrived at Paris, he determined 

 * to enter upon the work in company with his wife : 

 ,e the attempt fucceeded to their utrnoft wifhes, and 



