The story seems to be a fanciful allusion to the various acquirements of Pietro d’Apono; but if intended at first as a kind of allegory, it came in due time to be accepted literally.

I pass on to the great Spanish alchemist and magician,

Raymond Lully

, or Lulli, who was scarcely inferior in fame, or the qualities which merited fame, even to Albertus Magnus. He was a man, not only of wide, but of accurate scholarship; and the two or three hundred treatises which proceeded from his pen traversed the entire circle of the learning of his age, dealing with almost every conceivable subject from medicine to morals, from astronomy to theology, and from alchemy to civil and canon law. His life had its romantic aspects, and his death (in 1315?) was invested with something of the glory of martyrdom; for while he was preaching to the Moslems at Bona, the mob fell upon him with a storm of stones, and though he was still alive when rescued by some Genoese merchants, and conveyed on board their vessel, he died of the injuries he had received before it arrived in a Spanish port.

There seems little reason to believe that Lulli visited England about 1312, on the invitation of Edward II. Dickenson, in his work on ‘The Quintessences of the Philosophers,’ asserts that his laboratory was established in Westminster Abbey – that is, in the cloisters – and that some time after his return to the Continent a large quantity of gold-dust was found in the cell he had occupied. Langlet du Fresnoy contends that it was through the intervention of John Cremer, Abbot of Westminster, a persevering seeker after the

lapis philosophorum

, that he came to England, Cremer having described him to King Edward as a man of extraordinary powers. Robert Constantine, in his ‘Nomenclator Scriptorum Medicorum’ (1515), professes to have discovered that Lulli resided for some time in London, and made gold in the Tower, and that he had seen some gold pieces of his making, which were known in England as the nobles of Raymond, or rose-nobles. But the great objections to these very precise statements rests on two facts pointed out by Mr. Waite, that the rose-noble, so called because a rose was stamped on each side of it, was first coined in 1465, in the reign of Edward IV., and that there never was an Abbot Cremer of Westminster.

Jean de Meung

is also included among the alchemists; but he bequeathed to posterity in his glorious poem of the ‘Roman de la Rose’ something very much more precious than would have been any formula for making gold. In one sense he was indeed an alchemist, and possessed the secret of the universal medicine; for in his poem his genius has transmuted into purest gold the base ore of popular traditions and legends.

Some of the stories which Langlet du Fresnoy tells of

Nicholas Flamel

were probably invented long after his death, or else we should have to brand him as a most audacious knave. One of those amazing narratives pretends that he bought for a couple of florins an old and curious volume, the leaves of which – three times seven (this sounds better than twenty-one) in number – were made from the bark of trees. Each seventh leaf bore an allegorical picture – the first representing a serpent swallowing rods, the second a cross with a serpent crucified upon it, and the third a fountain in a desert, surrounded by creeping serpents. Who, think you, was the author of this mysterious volume? No less illustrious a person than Abraham the patriarch, Hebrew, prince, philosopher, priest, Levite, and magian, who, as it was written in Latin, must have miraculously acquired his foreknowledge of a tongue which, in his time, had no existence. A perusal of its mystic pages convinced Flamel that he had had the good fortune to discover a complete manual on the art of transmutation of metals, in which all the necessary vessels were indicated, and the processes described. But there was one serious difficulty to be overcome: the book assumed, as a matter of course, that the student was already in possession of that all-important agent of transmutation, the philosopher’s stone.

Careful study led Flamel to the conclusion that the secret of the stone was hidden in certain allegorical drawings on the fourth and fifth leaves; but, then, to decipher these was beyond his powers. He submitted them to all the learned savants and alchemical adepts he could get hold of: they proved to be no wiser than himself, while some of them actually laughed at Abraham’s posthumous publication as worthless gibberish. Flamel, however, clung fast to his conviction of the inestimable value of his ‘find,’ and daily pondered over the two cryptic illustrations, which may thus be described: On the first page of the fourth leaf Mercury was contending with a figure, which might be either Saturn or Time – probably the latter, as he carried on his head the emblematical hour-glass, and in his hand the not less emblematical scythe. On the second stage a flower upon a mountain-top presented the unusual combination of a blue stalk, with red and white blossoms, and leaves of pure gold. The wind appeared to blow it about very harshly, and a gruesome company of dragons and griffins encompassed it.

Upon the study of these provokingly obscure designs Flamel fruitlessly expended the leisure time of thrice seven years: after which, on the advice of his wife, he repaired to Spain to seek the assistance of some erudite Jewish rabbi. He had been wandering from place to place for a couple of years, when he met, somewhere in Leon, a learned Hebrew physician, named Canches, who agreed to return with him to Paris, and there examine Abraham’s volume. Canches was deeply versed in all the lore of the Cabala, and Flamel hung with delight on the words of wisdom that dropped from his eloquent lips. But at Orleans Canches was taken ill with a malady of which he died, and Flamel found his way home, a sadder, if not a wiser, man. He resumed his study of the book, but for two more years could get no clue to its meaning. In the third year, recalling some deliverance of his departed friend, the rabbi, he perceived that all his experiments had hitherto proceeded upon erroneous principles. He repeated them upon a different basis, and in a few months brought them to a successful issue. On January 13, 1382, he converted mercury into silver, and on April 25 into gold. Well might he cry in triumph, ‘Eureka!’ The great secret, the sublime magistery was his: he had discovered the art of transmuting metals into gold and silver, and, so long as he kept it to himself, had at his command the source of inexhaustible wealth.

At this time Nicholas Flamel, it is said, was about eighty years old. His admirers assert that he also discovered the elixir of immortal life; but, as he died in 1419, at the age (it is alleged) of 116, he must have been content with the merest sip of it! Why did he not reveal its ingredients for the general benefit of our afflicted humanity? His immense wealth he bequeathed to churches and hospitals, thus making a better use of it after death than he had made of it in his lifetime. For it is said that Flamel was a usurer, and that his philosopher’s stone was ‘cent per cent.’ It is true enough that he dabbled in alchemy, and probably he made his alchemical experiments useful in connection with his usurious transactions.

BOOK I

THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS

CHAPTER I

ROGER BACON: THE TRUE AND THE LEGENDARY

It was in the early years of the fourteenth century that the two pseudo-sciences of alchemy and astrology, the supposititious sisters of chemistry and astronomy, made their way into England. At first their progress was by no means so rapid as it had been on the Continent; for in England, as yet, there was no educated class prepared to give their leisure to the work of experimental investigation. A solitary scholar here and there lighted his torch at the altar-fire which the Continental philosophers kept burning with so much diligence and curiosity, and was generally rewarded for his heterodox enthusiasm by the persecution of the Church and the prejudice of the vulgar. But by degrees the new sciences increased the number of their adherents, and the more active intellects of the time embraced the theory of astral influences, and were fascinated by the delusion of the philosopher’s stone. Many a secret furnace blazed day and night with the charmed flames which were to resolve the metals into their original elements, and place the pale student in possession of the coveted

magisterium

, or ‘universal medicine.’ At length the alchemists became a sufficiently numerous and important body to draw the attention of the Government, which regarded their proceedings with suspicion, from a fear that the result might injuriously affect the coinage. In 1434 the Legislature enacted that the making of gold or silver should be treated as a felony. But the Parliament was influenced by a very different motive from that of the King and his Council, its patriotic fears being awakened lest the Executive, enabled by the new science to increase without limit the pecuniary resources of the Crown, should be rendered independent of Parliamentary control.

In the course of a few years, however, broader and more enlightened views prevailed; and it came to be acknowledged that scientific research ought to be relieved from legislative interference. In 1455 Henry VI. issued four patents in succession to certain knights, London citizens, chemists, monks, mass-priests, and others, granting them leave and license to undertake the discovery of the philosopher’s stone, ‘to the great benefit of the realm, and the enabling the King to pay all the debts of the Crown in

real gold and silver

.’ On the remarkable fact that these patents were issued to ecclesiastics as well as laymen, Prynne afterwards remarked, with true theological acridity, that they were so included because they were ‘such good artists in transubstantiating bread and wine in the Eucharist, and were, therefore, the more likely to be able to effect the transmutation of base metals into better.’ Nothing came of the patents. The practical common-sense of Englishmen never took very kindly to the alchemical delusion, and Chaucer very faithfully describes the contempt with which it was generally regarded. Enthusiasts there were, no doubt, who firmly believed in it, and knaves who made a profit out of it, and dupes who were preyed upon by the knaves; and so it languished on through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It seems at one time to have amused the shrewd intellect of Queen Elizabeth, and at another to have caught the volatile fancy of the second Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. But alchemy was, in the main, the

modus vivendi

of quacks and cheats, of such impostors as Ben Jonson has drawn so powerfully in his great comedy – a Subtle, a Face, and a Doll Common, who, in the Sir Epicure Mammons of the time, found their appropriate victims. These creatures played on the greed and credulity of their dupes with successful audacity, and excited their imaginations by extravagant promises. Thus, Ben Jonson’s hero runs riot with glowing anticipations of what the alchemical

magisterium

can effect.

‘Do you think I fable with you? I assure you,

He that has once the flower of the sun,

The perfect ruby, which we call

Elixir

Not only can do that, but, by its virtue,

Can confer honour, love, respect, long life;

Give safety, valour, yes, and victory,

To whom he will. In eight-and-twenty days

I’ll make an old man of fourscore a child…

’Tis the secret

Of nature naturized ’gainst all infections,

Cures all diseases coming of all causes;

A month’s grief in a day, a year’s in twelve,

And of what age soever in a month.’

The English alchemists, however, with a few exceptions, depended for a livelihood chiefly on their sale of magic charms, love-philters, and even more dangerous potions, and on horoscope-casting, and fortune-telling by the hand or by cards. They acted, also, as agents in many a dark intrigue and unlawful project, being generally at the disposal of the highest bidder, and seldom shrinking from any crime.

The earliest name of note on the roll of the English magicians, necromancers and alchemists is that of

ROGER BACON

This great man has some claim to be considered the father of experimental philosophy, since it was he who first laid down the principles upon which physical investigation should be conducted. Speaking of science, he says, in language far in advance of his times: ‘There are two modes of knowing – by argument and by experiment. Argument winds up a question, but does not lead us to acquiesce in, or feel certain of, the contemplation of truth, unless the truth be proved and confirmed by experience.’ To Experimental Science he ascribed three differentiating characters: ‘First, she tests by experiment the grand conclusions of all other sciences. Next, she discovers, with reference to the ideas connected with other sciences, splendid truths, to which these sciences without assistance are unable to attain. Her third prerogative is, that, unaided by the other sciences, and of herself, she can investigate the secrets of nature.’ These truths, now accepted as trite and self-evident, ranked, in Roger Bacon’s day, as novel and important discoveries.

He was born at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, in 1214. Of his lineage, parentage, and early education we know nothing, except that he must have been very young when he went to Oxford, for he took orders there before he was twenty. Joining the Franciscan brotherhood, he applied himself to the study of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic; but his genius chiefly inclined towards the pursuit of the natural sciences, in which he obtained such a mastery that his contemporaries accorded to him the flattering title of ‘The Admirable Doctor.’ His lectures gathered round him a crowd of admiring disciples; until the boldness of their speculations aroused the suspicion of the ecclesiastical authorities, and in 1257 they were prohibited by the General of his Order. Then Pope Innocent IV. interfered, interdicting him from the publication of his writings, and placing him under close supervision. He remained in this state of tutelage until Clement IV., a man of more liberal views, assumed the triple tiara, who not only released him from his irksome restraints, but desired him to compose a treatise on the sciences. This was the origin of Bacon’s ‘Opus Majus,’ ‘Opus Minus’ and ‘Opus Tertius,’ which he completed in a year and a half, and despatched to Rome. In 1267 he was allowed to return to Oxford, where he wrote his ‘Compendium Studii Philosophiæ.’ His vigorous advocacy of new methods of scientific investigation, or, perhaps, his unsparing exposure of the ignorance and vices of the monks and the clergy, again brought down upon him the heavy arm of the ecclesiastical tyranny. His works were condemned by the General of his Order, and in 1278, during the pontificate of Nicholas III., he was thrown into prison, where he was detained for several years. It is said that he was not released until 1292, the year in which he published his latest production, the ‘Compendium Studii Theologiæ.’ Two years afterwards he died.

In many respects Bacon was greatly in advance of his contemporaries, but his general repute ignores his real and important services to philosophy, and builds up a glittering fabric upon mechanical discoveries and inventions to which, it is to be feared, he cannot lay claim. As Professor Adamson puts it, he certainly describes a method of constructing a telescope, but not so as to justify the conclusion that he himself was in possession of that instrument. The invention of gunpowder has been attributed to him on the strength of a passage in one of his works, which, if fairly interpreted, disposes at once of the pretension; besides, it was already known to the Arabs. Burning-glasses were in common use; and there is no proof that he made spectacles, although he was probably acquainted with the principle of their construction. It is not to be denied, however, that in his interesting treatise on ‘The Secrets of Nature and Art,’

Epistola Fratris Rogerii Baconis de Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturæ et de Nullitate Magiæ.

he exhibits every sign of a far-seeing and lively intelligence, and foreshadows the possibility of some of our great modern inventions. But, like so many master-minds of the Middle Ages, he was unable wholly to resist the fascinations of alchemy and astrology. He believed that various parts of the human body were influenced by the stars, and that the mind was thus stimulated to particular acts, without any relaxation or interruption of free will. His ‘Mirror of Alchemy,’ of which a translation into French was executed by ‘a Gentleman of Dauphiné,’ and printed in 1507, absolutely bristles with crude and unfounded theories – as, for instance, that Nature, in the formation of metallic veins, tends constantly to the production of gold, but is impeded by various accidents, and in this way creates metals in which impurities mingle with the fundamental substances. The main elements, he says, are quicksilver and sulphur; and from these all metals and minerals are compounded. Gold he describes as a perfect metal, produced from a pure, fixed, clear, and red quicksilver; and from a sulphur also pure, fixed, and red, not incandescent and unalloyed. Iron is unclean and imperfect, because engendered of a quicksilver which is impure, too much congealed, earthy, incandescent, white and red, and of a similar variety of sulphur. The ‘stone,’ or substance, by which the transmutation of the imperfect into the perfect metals was to be effected must be made, in the main, he said, of sulphur and mercury.

It is not easy to determine how soon an atmosphere of legend gathered around the figure of ‘the Admirable Doctor;’ but undoubtedly it originated quite as much in his astrological errors as in his scientific experiments. Some of the myths of which he is the traditional hero belong to a very much earlier period, as, for instance, that of his Brazen Head, which appears in the old romance of ‘Valentine and Orson,’ as well as in the history of Albertus Magnus. Gower, too, in his ‘Confessio Amantis,’ relates how a Brazen Head was fabricated by Bishop Grosseteste. It was customary in those days to ascribe all kinds of marvels to men who obtained a repute for exceptional learning, and Bishop Grosseteste’s Brazen Head was as purely a fiction as Roger Bacon’s. This is Gower’s account:

‘For of the gretè clerk Grostest

I rede how busy that he was

Upon the clergie an head of brass

To forgè; and make it fortelle

Of suchè thingès as befelle.

And seven yerès besinesse

He laidè, but for the lachèsse

Laches

, oversight.

Of half a minute of an hour …

He lostè all that he hadde do.’

Stow tells a story of a Head of Clay, made at Oxford in the reign of Edward II., which, at an appointed time, spoke the mysterious words, ‘Caput decidetur – caput elevabitur. Pedes elevabuntur supra caput.’ Returning to Roger Bacon’s supposed invention, we find an ingenious though improbable explanation suggested by Sir Thomas Browne, in his ‘Vulgar Errors’:

‘Every one,’ he says, ‘is filled with the story of Friar Bacon, that made a Brazen Head to speak these words, “

Time is

.” Which, though there went not the like relations, is surely too literally received, and was but a mystical fable concerning the philosopher’s great work, wherein he eminently laboured: implying no more by the copper head, than the vessel wherein it was wrought; and by the words it spake, than the opportunity to be watched, about the

tempus ortus

, or birth of the magical child, or “philosophical King” of Lullius, the rising of the “terra foliata” of Arnoldus; when the earth, sufficiently impregnated with the water, ascendeth white and splendent. Which not observed, the work is irrecoverably lost… Now letting slip the critical opportunity, he missed the intended treasure: which had he obtained, he might have made out the tradition of making a brazen wall about England: that is, the most powerful defence or strongest fortification which gold could have effected.’

An interpretation of the popular myth which is about as ingenious and far-fetched as Lord Bacon’s expositions of the ‘Fables of the Ancients,’ of which it may be said that they possess every merit but that of probability!

Bacon’s Brazen Head, however, took hold of the popular fancy. It survived for centuries, and the allusions to it in our literature are sufficiently numerous. Cob, in Ben Jonson’s comedy of ‘Every Man in his Humour,’ exclaims: ‘Oh, an my house were the Brazen Head now! ’Faith, it would e’en speak

Mo’ fools yet

!’ And we read in Greene’s ‘Tu Quoque’:

‘Look to yourself, sir;

The brazen head has spoke, and I must have you.’

Lord Bacon used it happily in his ‘Apology to the Queen,’ when Elizabeth would have punished the Earl of Essex for his misconduct in Ireland: – ‘Whereunto I said (to the end utterly to divert her), “Madam, if you will have me speak to you in this argument, I must speak to you as Friar Bacon’s head spake, that said first, ‘

Time is

,’ and then, ‘

Time was

,’ and ‘

Time would never be

,’ for certainly” (said I) “it is now far too late; the matter is cold, and hath taken too much wind.”’ Butler introduces it in his ‘Hudibras’: – ‘Quoth he, “My head’s not made of brass, as Friar Bacon’s noddle was.”’ And Pope, in ‘The Dunciad,’ writes: – ‘Bacon trembled for his brazen head.’ A William Terite, in 1604, gave to the world some verse, entitled ‘A Piece of Friar Bacon’s Brazen-head’s Prophecie.’ And, in our own time, William Blackworth Praed has written ‘The Chaunt of the Brazen Head,’ which, in his prose motto, he (in the person of Friar Bacon) addresses as ‘the brazen companion of his solitary hours.’

‘THE FAMOUS HISTORIE OF FRIAR BACON.’

Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the various legends which had taken Friar Bacon as their central figure were brought together in a connected form, and wrought, along with other stories of magic and sorcery, into a continuous narrative, which became immensely popular. It was entitled, ‘The Famous Historie of Friar Bacon: Conteyning the Wonderful Thinges that he Did in his Life; also the Manner of his Death; with the Lives and Deaths of the Two Conjurers, Bungye and Vandermast,’ and has been reprinted by Mr. Thoms, in his ‘Early English Romances.’

According to this entertaining authority, the Friar was ‘born in the West part of England, and was sonne to a wealthy farmer, who put him to the schoole to the parson of the towne where he was borne; not with intent that hee should turne fryer (as hee did), but to get so much understanding, that he might manage the better the wealth hee was to leave him. But young Bacon took his learning so fast, that the priest could not teach him any more, which made him desire his master that he would speake to his father to put him to Oxford, that he might not lose that little learning that he had gained… The father affected to doubt his son’s capacity, and designed him still to follow the same calling as himself; but the student had no inclination to drive fat oxen or consort with unlettered hinds, and stole away to “a cloister” some twenty miles off, where the monks cordially welcomed him. Continuing the pursuit of knowledge with great avidity, he attained to such repute that the authorities of Oxford University invited him to repair thither. He accepted the invitation, and grew so excellent in the secrets of Art and Nature, that not England only, but all Christendom, admired him.’

There, in the seclusion of his cell, he made the Brazen Head on which rests his legendary fame.

‘Reading one day of the many conquests of England, he bethought himselfe how he might keepe it hereafter from the like conquests, and so make himselfe famous hereafter to all posterities. This, after great study, hee found could be no way so well done as one; which was to make a head of brasse, and if he could make this head to speake, and heare it when it speakes, then might hee be able to wall all England about with brasse.

This patriotic sentiment would seem to show that the book was written or published about the time of the Spanish Armada.

To this purpose he got one Fryer Bungey to assist him, who was a great scholar and a magician, but not to bee compared to Fryer Bacon: these two with great study and paines so framed a head of brasse, that in the inward parts thereof there was all things like as in a naturall man’s head. This being done, they were as farre from perfection of the worke as they were before, for they knew not how to give those parts that they had made motion, without which it was impossible that it should speake: many bookes they read, but yet coulde not finde out any hope of what they sought, that at the last they concluded to raise a spirit, and to know of him that which they coulde not attaine to by their owne studies. To do this they prepared all things ready, and went one evening to a wood thereby, and after many ceremonies used, they spake the words of conjuration; which the Devill straight obeyed, and appeared unto them, asking what they would? “Know,” said Fryer Bacon, “that wee have made an artificiall head of brasse, which we would have to speake, to the furtherance of which wee have raised thee; and being raised, wee will here keepe thee, unlesse thou tell to us the way and manner how to make this head to speake.” The Devill told him that he had not that power of himselfe. “Beginner of lyes,” said Fryer Bacon, “I know that thou dost dissemble, and therefore tell it us quickly, or else wee will here bind thee to remaine during our pleasures.” At these threatenings the Devill consented to doe it, and told them, that with a continual fume of the six hottest simples it should have motion, and in one month space speak; the time of the moneth or day hee knew not: also hee told them, that if they heard it not before it had done speaking, all their labour should be lost. They being satisfied, licensed the spirit for to depart.

‘Then went these two learned fryers home againe, and prepared the simples ready, and made the fume, and with continuall watching attended when this Brazen Head would speake. Thus watched they for three weekes without any rest, so that they were so weary and sleepy that they could not any longer refraine from rest. Then called Fryer Bacon his man Miles, and told him that it was not unknown to him what paines Fryer Bungey and himselfe had taken for three weekes space, onely to make and to heare the Brazen Head speake, which if they did not, then had they lost all their labour, and all England had a great losse thereby; therefore hee intreated Miles that he would watch whilst that they slept, and call them if the head speake. “Fear not, good master,” said Miles, “I will not sleepe, but harken and attend upon the head, and if it doe chance to speake, I will call you; therefore I pray take you both your rests and let mee alone for watching this head.” After Fryer Bacon had given him a great charge the second time, Fryer Bungey and he went to sleepe, and Miles was lefte alone to watch the Brazen Head. Miles, to keepe him from sleeping, got a tabor and pipe, and being merry disposed, with his owne musicke kept from sleeping at last. After some noyse the head spake these two words, “Time is.” Miles, hearing it to speake no more, thought his master would be angry if hee waked him for that, and therefore he let them both sleepe, and began to mocke the head in this manner: “Thou brazen-faced Head, hath my master tooke all these paines about thee, and now dost thou requite him with two words, Time is? Had hee watched with a lawyer so long as hee hath watched with thee, he would have given him more and better words than thou hast yet. If thou canst speake no wiser, they shal sleepe till doomes day for me: Time is! I know Time is, and that you shall heare, Goodman Brazen-face.

‘“Time is for some to eate,

Time is for some to sleepe,

Time is for some to laugh,

Time is for some to weepe.

‘“Time is for some to sing,

Time is for some to pray,

Time is for some to creepe,

That have drunken all the day.

‘“Do you tell us, copper-nose, when Time is? I hope we schollers know our times, when to drink drunke, when to kiss our hostess, when to goe on her score, and when to pay it – that time comes seldome.” After halfe an houre had passed, the Head did speake againe, two words, which were these, “Time was.” Miles respected these words as little as he did the former, and would not wake them, but still scoffed at the Brazen Head that it had learned no better words, and have such a tutor as his master: and in scorne of it sung this song:

‘“Time was when thou, a kettle,

wert filled with better matter;

But Fryer Bacon did thee spoyle

when he thy sides did batter.

‘“Time was when conscience dwelled

with men of occupation;

Time was when lawyers did not thrive

so well by men’s vexation.

‘“Time was when kings and beggars

of one poore stuff had being;

Time was when office kept no knaves —

that time it was worth seeing.

‘“Time was a bowle of water

did give the face reflection;

Time was when women knew no paint,

which now they call complexion.

‘“Time was! I know that, brazen-face, without your telling; I know Time was, and I know what things there was when Time was; and if you speake no wiser, no master shall be waked for mee.” Thus Miles talked and sung till another halfe-houre was gone: then the Brazen Head spake again these words, “Time is past;” and therewith fell downe, and presently followed a terrible noyse, with strange flashes of fire, so that Miles was halfe dead with feare. At this noyse the two Fryers awaked, and wondred to see the whole roome so full of smoak