which contain doubtless many mysteries. He mentions the different planetary houses in which each process of alchemy is to be carried out, ending with the regal throne of love," from whence our most potent king shall receive a crown decked with most precious rubies."

The stone or golden fleece he describes as guarded by a three-headed dragon, whose first head proceeds from the water, the second from the earth, the third from the air; and these three heads ending in one most potent, which will devour all the other dragons, and leaves the way open to the fleece.

With his concluding sentence we sympathise, and wish that the Doctor himself had benefited by his own advice.

"Farewell diligent reader," he says; "in reading these things, invocate the spirit of Eternal Light, speak little, meditate much, and judge aright.”

The following is one of Dr. Dee's wildest and most mystic receipts: -"Take a red dragon, courageous, warlike, to whom no natural strength is wanting, and afterwards seven or nine noble eagles (virgins), whose eyes will not wax dull by the rays of the sun, cast the birds with the beast into a clean prison, and strongly shut up, and under which let a bath be placed, that they may be incensed to fight by the warm vapour. In a short time they will enter into a long and harsh contention,

until at length about the day forty-five or fifty, the eagles begin to prey upon and tear the beast to pieces; and his dying, it will infect the whole prison with its direful poison, whereby the eagles being wounded, they will also be constrained to give up the ghost. From the putrefaction of the dead carcases, a crow will be generated, which by little and little putting forth its head, the bath being somewhat increased, it will forthwith stretch out its wings and begin to fly; but seeking chinks from the winds and clouds, it will long hover about; take heed that it find not any. At length being made by a gentle and long rain, and with the dew of heaven, it will be changed into a white swan; but the new born crow is a sign of the departed dragon.

"In making the crow white, extract the elements and distil them according to the order prescribed, until they be so fixed in their earth, and end in snow-like and most subtile dust, which being finished, thou shalt enjoy thy first desire to the white work."

The latter alchemical works seem mere rhapsodies.

They contain doxologies.

"Soli deo laus et potentia,

Amen in Mercurio qui pedibus licet currum decurrit,
Aqua

Et metallice universalites, speratus." *

* Eugenius Philalethes de Lumine, 1651, p. 9.

They talk of a threefold chaos, and a threefold sapphire of chaos. In these six the influx of the metaphysical unity is sole monarch, and make up the seventh number of Sabaoth, in which at last, by the assistance of God, the body shall rest.

Soon after the time of which we write arose the Rosicrucians, a secret society, which, for a quarter of a century, astonished Germany, as the secret tribunal had done before. Philosophical societies, such as that founded by Baptista Porta at Naples in 1560; the severe inductive system of Bacon; public lectures on chemistry; the abandonment of much technical jargon; and, lastly, the shrewd investigations of the jesuit Kircher and the great Boerhaave finally completed the overthrow of an art, all of what was useful in which had long passed away into kindred sciences. The soul had gone forward into fresh worlds and new phases of being, the rotting body now was ready for the burial.

Let us not, however, join the foolish cry, and deride men who, however unsuccessful, however much associated with cheats and quacks, devoted their lives with such generous self-devotion, actuated by so noble an aspi

ration.

Just as the supposed fables of Herodotus have been found truths, and the legends of Marco Polo honest facts,

so may maturer science discover that the alchemist had some better foundation for his belief than we can now

understand. Who a few years since could have credited the almost universal presence of gold in Scotland, Wales, England, and Ireland, in Russia, California, and Australia?

CHAP. XII.

WITCHCRAFT.

"Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,
The time of night when Troy was set on fire,
The time when screech owls cry, and ban dogs howl,
And spirits walk, and ghosts break up their graves,
That time best fits the work we have in hand."

Henry VI. (Part II.), Act i. Sc. 4.

Vulgar Belief in Witches. Causes of the Belief. - Epilepsy. Hypochondria. Crimes they were charged with. - Manners. Spirits of the Age. - King James on Witchcraft.-A Witch Trial. - Mother Samuel and the Throckmorton Family. Spread of epidemic Fears.-Execution of Mother Samuel, her Husband, and Daughter. Puritan Divines. - Confession of the Witch. Sum mers of Nottingham. - Reginald Scott's Names of Devils. - How to exorcise.. How to shut a Spirit in a Ring. - Charms. The Elephant and Unicorn, &c.— Amulets. - Palmistry. Astrology.

Spells. Vulgar Errors.

Virtues of Precious Stones.

THERE was real vitality in Elizabethan superstition. The mariner who struck an old woman who railed at him, knew not but that she had power to sink his ship, make his children orphans, and his wife a widow. Old Reginald Scott says himself that the men of his time could endure no misfortune with patience as sent from the