are not free from his errors. The learned and distinguished Sennert,* while bitterly reproaching him for that he thought to overturn the ancient art of medicine, which he never thoroughly understood, yet allows he had done something in the transmutation of metals. With infinite gravity he relates, on the authority of a certain Franciscan, how Paracelsus made gold out of lead and quicksilver; and as the story may be of some use in the present age, when the precious metal is not too abundant, we shall give it in few words, hoping that whoever makes his fortune by the experiment will not forget from whom he

* Vide Sennerti Op. p. 192. Lugduni, 1676: which edition contains the whole six volumes compressed into one, but with considerable improvements. This eminent scholar and physician was born at Breslaw, the capital of Silesia, on the 25th of November, 1572. His father pursued the humble occupation of a shoemaker, but seems to have given him an excellent education, for we find him at the age of one-and-twenty studying medicine and philosophy at the university of Wittemberg, where he took his degree of Doctor of Physic, and at a year's end was made professor of the same faculty. It is said in his life prefixed to the folio, that he was the first who introduced the study of chemistry into that university, and throughout his works we find him almost as bold in denying the authority of the ancients as Paracelsus himself whom he censured. His heresy on this point gave great offence to the schoolmen, though their outcries do not appear to have diminished either his practice or his reputation. But he did not rest here: he wrote upon the Nature and Origin of Souls in Brutes-" De Origine et Natura animarum in Brutis;" p. 285,-and as this doctrine fairly led to the conclusion that an immortal spirit was not confined to man alone, he was in consequence accused of blasphemy and impiety, those vague words which have sent so many to the faggot. There is an excellent article in Bayle upon this subject which will save much time and labour to those who are too indolent to wade through Sennert's own defence of his creed, though it is well worth reading, if it were only to learn what strange fancies can possess themselves of the human brain. Amongst other things he maintained that metals and minerals were formed by intelligent and spiritual beings. He died of the plague at Wittemberg on the 21st of July, 1637.

acquired the recipe. Thus then it is :-Paracelsus being one day in want of money, a mishap very common to philosophers of all kinds, he gave a florin to one of his pupils, and desired him to fetch a pound of quicksilver from the chemist's. Having obtained what he required, he flung it into a crucible, and set it upon the fire; and when the mercury began to emit fumes, he gave a certain globule to the Franciscan, directing him to hold it immerged in the preparation by means of a pair of forceps, till such time as it should deliquesce. When this took place, he again placed them both upon the stove. They then all quitted the room; for it seems the devil of goldmaking is a modest devil, and objects to work before strangers; but upon their return, in about half an hour, they found he had faithfully done his duty: the crucible was broken, and the composition transmuted into nearly a pound of the precious metal, for which a neighbouring goldsmith did not hesitate to give an equivalent in coin. What was the precise nature of the globule, the Franciscan never could find out; nor whether his preceptor made it or bought it; but he describes it as being of moderate size, something like a filbert, and enclosed in red sealing-wax.

The birth and parentage of our learned doctor, like those of many other great personages, has been a subject of much controversy. He chose to call himself, or he duly inherited the name of, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombast von Hohenheim;* but there were not wanting unbelievers to call in question his claim to this constellation of titles, of which the Bombast seems to have been peculiarly applicable, considering the style of many

*

Properly Philip Bombast von Hohenheim; but he added Theophrastus and Paracelsus as if he were something more than celsus,— high, or lofty,-para being a favourite prefix of his to express preeminence of any quality.

of his writings. Haller quotes the authority of a certain Lorenz Zollweger, to prove that he was in reality called Höchener, and that he was born at Einsiedeln, two miles from Zurich, in the canton of Appenzell. Erastus, one of his most bitter opponents,* goes farther. He tells us that he won't believe Paracelsus was born in Helvetia "vix enim ea regio tale monstrum edidit,— that country could hardly have brought forth such a monster" -though he forgets to explain why Switzerland should not have its monsters as well as other places; in our days we have seen a Swiss giantess. So vehement is he in his wrath, that he will not even allow the Doctor had a human father:-"Terræ seu Tartari videtur filius instar Merlini cujusdam fuisse-he appears to have been the son of the earth, or of Tartarus, like a certain Merlin ;" a supposition, by the way, that must have been rather agreeable than otherwise to one who dealt in necromancy as well as physic. This, however, is not all: "vocat se Eremitam et nobilis vult videri; at in Eremo Helvetiorum nulli sunt Paracelsi, nulli Hohenhemii, nulli Bombasti--he calls himself a native of Einsiedeln, and wishes to be thought noble; but in Helvetic Einsiedeln there are no Paracelsuses, no Hohenheimers, no Bombastes." Now, here the anger of our friend Erastus gets the better of his discretion; for there certainly was a noble family of that name, as we find one of them recorded by Shenck.† We may therefore set it down with tolerable certainty that he was born where he himself said he was, in the year 1493; that his mother was the superintendent of

* Erastus, who was a professor of medicine in the university of Heidelberg, wrote sundry dissertations, to the amount of two quarto volumes, proving, or attempting to prove, that Paracelsus was no better than an impostor; but, as is evident from the quotations in the text, he was anything but an impartial judge.

+ Observ. lib. i. p. 15.

the abbey-hospital at Ensiedeln; that his father was called Wilhelm Bombast von Hohenheim, and was very nearly related to George Bombast von Hohenheim, the then grand-master of the order of St. John.

Worse than these debates respecting the Doctor's birth-place is the next tale that Erastus tells, and which, though it may be false in detail, is unfortunately too true in the principal point, as we know from other authorities" Hoc in loco narratum mihi est exectos ei testes fuisse a milite dum anseres pasceret. Eunuchum fuisse, cum alia multa, tum facies, indicant; et quod, Oporino teste, fœminas prorsus despexit."* By some † it is said that the accident here recorded, and which it is unnecessary to translate, arose from the bite of a swine; but the fact, however it may have happened, has not been disputed and dates from a time when he was only three years old. Of the early life of this extraordinary man-extraordinary at least in one sense of the word-we know but little. If any faith is to be given to his own assertions, he had studied for many years at German, Italian, and French, universities, ‡ after having been duly instructed in alchemy and astrology as well as medicine by his father, for in those days they had all equally the rank of a science ; we have Helmont's authority also as to his diligence under some of the first masters of the age.§ He says of himself, that he had from youth upwards applied him*For this, and the foregoing, quotation, see "Erasti Disputatio de Medicina nova P. Paracelsi," Pars Prima, p. 237. Basileæ.

+ Helmont says, "Non enim ille Veneri deditus, trivium nempe sus castraverat." Tartari, Hist. p. 222. And Gall, who examined his skull, found the organ of philoprogenitiveness undeveloped. See also Sprengel, vol. iii. p. 445.

Hab also die hohen Schulen erfahren lange Jahr, bei den Teutschen, bei den Italischen, bei den Frankreichischen. DIE G. WUNDARTZNEI-Vorred.

§ Tart. Hist. p. 222.

self to the study of medicine, with an eager desire to learn whether it did, or did not, merit the name of a science.

In this pursuit he seems to have been greatly disturbed by finding that the patients died in spite of physic; and he somewhat testily declares that there was not a single doctor who was able to cure a toothache, yet they all nevertheless went richly apparelled, and figured at the courts of princes with rings of gold and precious stones upon their fingers. Hereupon he took a disgust to medicine, becoming convinced that it was no more than a deception of the evil spirits to lead men astray-" ein betrugniss von Geistern den Menschen also zu verfuhren"*—and resolved to abandon the study of it, when, as good luck would have it, he chanced to stumble upon that passage of the New Testament, wherein Christ says, "they who are whole need not the physician, but they who are sick." By some odd process of reasoning-but Paracelsus was at all times a singular logician-he now became convinced that the medical art was neither deceptive nor diabolic, but on the contrary was a very necessary art to help people out of sickness. Having arrived at this conclusion, although by a rather round-about road, he again set to work in earnest; and indeed it must be acknowledged that he had an inquisitive mind, and a strong love of knowledge, though his enthusiastic and credulous nature was deeply tainted with the chimerical notions of his age. In that boundless spirit of enthusiasm, which formed so prominent a feature of his character, he now set out upon his travels, being no more than twenty years old when he journeyed through all the countries of Europe, east, west, north, and south, after the usual wont of students in those days, casting nativities, practising

* "Chirurgische Bucher und Schriften des P. Paracelsi." This is the general title of the whole volume, but the reference is to the preface to the Grosse Wundarznei.