16 Loves Garland. 
high opinion of Gebir, and believed very 
firmly in the possibility of the baser metals 
being converted into gold. He had, he said, 
“great faith in the Elixir of Life,” which he 
considered to be potable gold, otherwise agua 
regia, viz. gold dissolved in nitro-chloric acid. 
He laughed while he told me how he had 
tried to convert Pope Nicholas IV. to his 
views, by telling him a story of a labourer in 
Sicily, who found one day on the island a 
golden phial full of yellow liquor, which he 
thought for the moment was dew, and drank, 
and became from that moment a hale and 
strong youth. I was desirous of learning 
more concerning this youth, but I regret to 
say Roger Bacon appeared to know very little 
about his subsequent career; he had heard, 
he said, that he was a great reader, and 
was to be constantly seen at the British 
Museum Library ; he was fond of old books, 
and ‘Ye Boke of ye Odd Volumes” 
had much delighted him, also ‘3. @.,a 
ee ee re” or 
