CHAPTER XX. P. I.

HOW TO MAKE GOLD.

L' Alchimista non travaglia a voto; Ei cerca l' oro, ei cerca l' oro, io dico Ch' ei cerca l' oro; e s' ei giungesse in porto Fora ben per se stesso e per altrui. L' oro e somma posanza infra mortali; Chiedine a Cavalier, chiedine a Dame, Chiedine a tutto il Mondo.                                                    CHIABRERA.

William had heard so much about experiments that it is not surprising he should have been for making some himself. It was well indeed for his family that the speculative mind, which lay covered rather than concealed under the elder Daniel's ruminating manners, and quiet contented course of life, was not quickened by his acquaintance with the schoolmaster into an experimental and dangerous activity, instead of being satisfied with theoretical dreams. For Guy had found a book in that little collection which might have produced more serious consequences to the father than the imitation of Gargantua had done to the son.

This book was the Exposition of Eirenæus Philalethes upon Sir George Ripley's Hermetico-Poetical works. Daniel had formerly set as little value upon it as upon Rabelais. He knew indeed what its purport was, thus much he had gathered from it: but although it professed to contain “the plainest and most excellent discoveries of the most hidden secrets of the Ancient Philosophers that were ever yet published,” it was to him as unintelligible as the mysteries of Pantagruelism. He could make nothing of the work that was to ascend in Bus and Nubi from the Moon up to the Sun, though the Expositor had expounded that this was in Nubibus; nor of the Lake which was to be boiled with the ashes of Hermes's Tree, night and day without ceasing, till the Heavenly Nature should ascend and the Earthly descend: nor of the Crow's bill, the White Dove, the Sparkling Cherubim, and the Soul of the Green Lion. But he took those cautions simply and honestly as cautions, which were in fact the lures whereby so many infatuated persons had been drawn on to their own undoing. The author had said that his work was not written for the information of the illiterate, and illiterate Daniel knew himself to be. “Our writings,” says the dark Expositor, “shall prove as a curious edged knife; to some they shall carve out dainties, and to others it shall serve only to cut their fingers. Yet we are not to be blamed; for we do seriously profess to any that shall attempt the work, that he attempts the highest piece of Philosophy that is in Nature; and though we write in English, yet our matter will be as hard as Greek to some, who will think they understand us well, when they misconstrue our meaning most perversely; for is it imaginable that they who are fools in Nature should be wise in our Books, which are testimonies unto Nature?” And again, “make sure of thy true matter, which is no small thing to know; and though we have named it yet we have done it so cunningly, that thou mayest sooner stumble at our Books than at any thou ever didst read in thy life.—Be not deceived either with receipt or discourse; for we verily do not intend to deceive you; but if you will be deceived, be deceived!—Our way which is an easy way, and in which no man may err,—our broad way, our linear way, we have vowed never to reveal it but in metaphor. I, being moved with pity, will hint it to you. Take that which is not yet perfect, nor yet wholly imperfect, but in a way to perfection, and out of it make what is most noble and most perfect. This you may conceive to be an easier receipt than to take that which is already perfect and extract out of it what is imperfect and make it perfect, and after out of that perfection to draw a plusquam perfection; and yet this is true, and we have wrought it. But this last discovery which I hinted in few words is it which no man ever did so plainly lay open; nor may any make it more plain upon pain of an anathema.”

All this was heathen Greek to Daniel, except the admonition which it contained. But Guy had meddled with this perilous pseudo-science, and used to talk with him concerning its theory, which Daniel soon comprehended, and which like many other theories wanted nothing but a foundation to rest upon. That every thing had its own seed as well as its own form seemed a reasonable position; and that the fermental virtue, “which is the wonder of the world, and by which water becomes herbs, trees and plants, fruits, flesh, blood, stones, minerals and every thing, works only in kind. Was it not then absurd to allow that the fermentive and multiplicative power existed in almost all other things, and yet deny it to Gold, the most perfect of all sublunary things?”—The secret lay in extracting from Gold its hidden seed.

Ben Jonson has with his wonted ability presented the theory of this delusive art. His knavish Alchemist asks of an unbeliever

Why, what have you observed Sir, in our art             Seems so impossible?                          Surly. But your whole work, no more!             That you should hatch gold in a furnace, Sir,             As they do eggs in Egypt.                          Subtle. Sir, do you             Believe that eggs are hatch'd so?                          Surly. If I should? Subtle. Why I think that the greater miracle.             No egg but differs from a chicken more             Than metals in themselves.                          Surly. That cannot be.             The egg's ordained by nature to that end,             And is a chicken in potentiâ. Subtle. The same we say of lead and other metals,             Which would be gold if they had time.                                       Mammon. And that             Our art doth further.                          Subtle. Aye, for 'twere absurd             To think that nature in the earth bred gold             Perfect in the instant: something went before.             There must be remote matter.                                       Surly. Ay, what is that? Subtle. Marry we say—                          Mammon. Ay, now it heats; stand father;             Pound him to dust.                          Subtle. It is, of the one part,             A humid exhalation, which we call             Materia liquida, or the unctuous water;             On the other part a certain crass and viscous             Portion of earth; both which concorporate             Do make the elementary matter of gold;             Which is not yet propria materia,             But common to all metals and all stones;             For where it is forsaken of that moisture,             And hath more dryness, it becomes a stone;             Where it retains more of the humid fatness,             It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver,             Who are the parents of all other metals.             Nor can this remote matter suddenly             Progress so from extreme unto extreme,             As to grow gold, and leap o'er all the means.             Nature doth first beget the imperfect, then             Proceeds she to the perfect. Of that airy             And oily water, mercury is engendered;             Sulphur of the fat and earthy part; the one,             Which is the last, supplying the place of male,             The other of the female in all metals.             Some so believe hermaphrodeity,             That both do act and suffer. But these too             Make the rest ductile, malleable, extensive.             And even in gold they are; for we do find             Seeds of them, by our fire, and gold in them;             And can produce the species of each metal             More perfect thence than nature doth in earth.

I have no cause to say here with Sheik Mohammed Ali Hazin that “taste for poetical and elegant composition has turned the reins of my ink-dropping pen away from the road which lay before it:” For this passage of learned Ben lay directly in the way; and no where, Reader, couldst thou find the theory of the Alchemists more ably epitomized.

“Father,” said the boy Daniel one day, after listening to a conversation upon this subject, “I should like to learn to make gold.”

“And what wouldst thou do, Daniel, if thou couldst make it?” was the reply.

“Why I would build a great house, and fill it with books; and have as much money as the King, and be as great a man as the Squire.”

“Mayhap, Daniel, in that case thou wouldst care for books as little as the Squire, and have as little time for them as the King. Learning is better than house or land. As for money, enough is enough; no man can enjoy more; and the less he can be contented with the wiser and better he is likely to be. What, Daniel, does our good poet tell us in the great verse-book?

Nature's with little pleased; enough's a feast: A sober life but a small charge requires: But man, the author of his own unrest, The more he hath, the more he still desires.

No, boy, thou canst never be as rich as the King, nor as great as the Squire; but thou mayest be a Philosopher, and that is being as happy as either.”

“A great deal happier,” said Guy. “The Squire is as far from being the happiest man in the neighbourhood, as he is from being the wisest or the best. And the King, God bless him! has care enough upon his head to bring on early grey hairs.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

“But what does a Philosopher do?” rejoined the boy. “The Squire hunts and shoots and smokes, and drinks punch and goes to Justice-Meetings. And the King goes to fight for us against the French, and governs the Parliament, and makes laws. But I cannot tell what a Philosopher's business is. Do they do any thing else besides making Almanacks and gold?”

“Yes,” said William, “they read the stars.”

“And what do they read there?”

“What neither thou nor I can understand, Daniel,” replied the father, “however nearly it may concern us!”