metals are compounds of sulphur and mercury. But he seems first to have introduced those hieroglyphical figures or symbols, which appear in such profusion in the English translation of his Last Will and Testament, and which he doubtless intended to illustrate his positions. Though what other purpose they could serve, than to induce the reader to consider his statements as allegorical, it is not easy to conjecture. Perhaps they may have been designed to impose upon his contemporaries by an air of something very profound and inexplicable. For that he possessed a good deal of charlatanry is pretty evident, from the slightest glance at his performances.
He was acquainted with cream of tartar, which he distilled: the residue he burnt, and observed that the alkali extracted deliquesced when exposed to the air. He was acquainted with nitric acid, which he obtained by distilling a mixture of saltpetre and green vitriol. He mentions its power of dissolving, not merely mercury, but likewise other metals. He could form aqua regia by adding sal ammoniac or common salt to nitric acid, and he was aware of the property which it had of dissolving gold.
Spirit of wine was well known to him, and distinguished by him by the names of aqua vitæ ardens and argentum vivum vegetabile. He knew the method of rendering it stronger by an admixture of dry carbonate of potash, and of preparing vegetable tinctures by means of it. He mentions alum from Rocca, marcasite, white and red mercurial precipitate. He knew the volatile alkali and its coagulations by means of alcohol. He was acquainted with cupellated silver, and first obtained rosemary oil by distilling the plant with water. He employed a mixture of flour and white of egg spread upon a linen cloth to cement cracked glass vessels, and used other lutes for similar purposes.27
5. Arnoldus de Villa Nova is said to have been born at Villeneuve, a village of Provence, about the year 1240. Olaus Borrichius assures us, that in his time his posterity lived in the neighbourhood of Avignon; that he was acquainted with them, and that they were by no means destitute of chemical knowledge. He is said to have been educated at Barcelona, under John Casamila, a celebrated professor of medicine. This place he was obliged to leave, in consequence of foretelling the death of Peter of Arragon. He went to Paris, and likewise travelled through Italy. He afterwards taught publicly in the University of Montpelier. His reputation as a physician became so great, that his attendance was solicited in dangerous cases by several kings, and even by the pope himself. He was skilled in all the sciences of his time, and was besides a proficient in Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. When at Paris he studied astrology, and calculating the age of the world, he found that it was to terminate in the year 1335. The theologians of Paris exclaimed against this and several other of his opinions, and condemned our astrologer as a heretic. This obliged him to leave France; but the pope protected him. He died in the year 1313, on his way to visit Pope Clement V. who lay sick at Avignon. The following table exhibits a pretty full list of his works: 1. Antidotorium 2. De Vinis. 3. De Aquis Laxativis. 4. Rosarius Philosophorum. 5. Lumen Novum. 6. De Sigillis. 7. Flos Florum. 8. Epistolæ super Alchymia ad Regem Neapolitanum. 9. Liber Perfectionis Magisterii. 10. Succosa Carmina. 11. Questiones de Arte Transmutationis Metallorum. 12. Testamentum. 13. Lumen Luminum. 14. Practica. 15. Speculum Alchymiæ. 16. Carmen. 17. Questiones ad Bonifacium. 18. Semita Semitæ. 19. De Lapide Philosophorum. 20. De Sanguine Humano. 21. De Spiritu Vini, Vino Antimonii et Gemmorum Viribus.
Perhaps the most curious of all these works is the Rosarium, which is intended as a complete compend of all the alchymy of his time. The first part of it on the theory of the art is plain enough; but the second part on the practice, which is subdivided into thirty-two chapters, and which professes to teach the art of making the philosopher’s stone, is in many places quite unintelligible to me.
He considered, like his predecessors, mercury as a constituent of metals, and he professed a knowledge of the philosopher’s stone, which he could increase at pleasure. Gold and gold-water was, in his opinion, one of the most precious of medicines. He employed mercury in medicine. He seems to designate bismuth under the name marcasite. He was in the habit of preparing oil of turpentine, oil of rosemary, and spirit of rosemary, which afterwards became famous under the name of Hungary-water. These distillations were made in a glazed earthen vessel with a glass top and helm.
His works were published at Venice in a single folio volume, in the year 1505. There were seven subsequent editions, the last of which appeared at Strasburg in 1613.
6. John Isaac Hollandus and his countryman of the same name, were either two brothers or a father and son; it is uncertain which. For very few circumstances respecting these two laborious and meritorious men have been handed down to posterity. They were born in the village of Stolk in Holland, it is supposed in the 13th century. They certainly were after Arnoldus de Villa Nova, because they refer to him in their writings. They wrote many treatises on chemistry, remarkable, considering the time when they wrote, for clearness and precision, describing their processes with accuracy, and even giving figures of the instruments which they employed. This makes their books intelligible, and they deserve attention because they show that various processes, generally supposed of a more modern date were known to them. Their treatises are written partly in Latin and partly in German. The following list contains the names of most of them: 1. Opera Vegetabilia ad ejus alia Opera Intelligenda Necessaria. 2. Opera Mineralia seu de Lapide Philosophico Libri duo. 3. Tractat vom stein der Weisen. 4. Fragmenta Quædam Chemica. 5. De Triplice Ordine Elixiris et Lapidis Theorea. 6. Tractatus de Salibus et Oleis Metallorum. 7. Fragmentum de Opere Philosophorum. 8. Rariores Chemiæ Operationes. 9. Opus Saturni. 10. De Spiritu Urinæ. 11. Hand der Philosopher.
Olaus Borrichius complains that their opera mineralia abound with processes; but that they are ambiguous, and such that nothing certain can be deduced from them even after much labour. Hence they draw on the unwary tyro from labour to labour. I am disposed myself to draw a different conclusion, from what I have read of that elaborate work. It is true that the processes which profess to make the philosopher’s stone, are fallacious, and do not lead to the manufacture of gold, as the author intended, and expected: but it is a great deal when alchymistical processes are delivered in such intelligible language that you know the substances employed. This enables us easily to see the results in almost every case, and to know the new compounds which were formed during a vain search for the philosopher’s stone. Had the other alchymists written as plainly, the absurdity of their researches would have been sooner discovered, and thus a useless or pernicious investigation would have sooner terminated.
7. Basil Valentine is said to have been born about the year 1394, and is, perhaps, the most celebrated of all the alchymists, if we except Paracelsus. He was a Benedictine monk, at Erford, in Saxony. If we believe Olaus Borrichius, his writings were enclosed in the wall of a church at Erford, and were discovered long after his death, in consequence of the wall having been driven down by a thunderbolt. But this story is not well authenticated, and is utterly improbable. Much of his time seems to have been taken up in the preparation of chemical medicines. It was he that first introduced antimony into medicine; and it is said, though on no good authority, that he first tried the effects of antimonial medicines upon the monks of his convent, upon whom it acted with such violence that he was induced to distinguish the mineral from which these medicines had been extracted, by the name of antimoine (hostile to monks). What shows the improbability of this story is, that the works of Basil Valentine, and in particular his Currus triumphalis Antimonii, were written in the German language. Now the German name for antimony is not antimoine, but speissglass. The Currus triumphalis Antimonii was translated into Latin by Kerkringius, who published it, with an excellent commentary, at Amsterdam, in 1671.
Basil Valentine writes with almost as much virulence against the physicians of his time, as Paracelsus himself did afterwards. As no particulars of his life have been handed down to posterity, I shall satisfy myself with giving a catalogue of his writings, and then pointing out the most striking chemical substances with which he was acquainted.
The books which have appeared under the name of Basil Valentine, are very numerous; but how many of them were really written by him, and how many are supposititious, is extremely doubtful. The following are the principal: 1. Philosophia Occulta. 2. Tractat von naturlichen und
