“In the third leaf, and in all the writings that followed, he taught them, in plain words, the transmutation of metals, to the end that he might help and assist his dispersed people to pay their tribute to the Roman Emperors, and some other things not needful here to be repeated.
“He painted the vessels by the side or margin of the leaves, and discovered all the colours as they should arise or appear, with all the rest of the work.
“But of the prima materia or first matter, or agent, he spake not so much as one word; but only he told them that in the fourth and fifth leaves he had entirely painted or decyphered it, and depicted or figured it, with a desirable dexterity and workmanship.
“Now though it was singularly well and materially or intelligibly figured and painted, yet by that could no man ever have been able to understand it without having been well skilled in their Cabala, which is a series of old traditions, and also to have been well studied in their books.
“The fourth and fifth leaf thereof was without any writing, but full of fair figures, bright and shining, or, as it were, enlightened, and very exquisitely depicted.
“First, there was a young man painted, with wings at his ankles, having in his hand a caducean rod, writhen about with two serpents, wherewith he stroke upon an helmet covering his head.
“This seemed in my mean apprehension to be one of the heathen gods, namely, Mercury. Against him there came running and flying with open wings, a great old man with an hour-glass fixed upon his head, and a scythe in his hands, like Death, with which he would (as it were in indignation) have cut off the feet of Mercury.
“On the other side of the fourth leaf he painted a fair flower, on the top of a very high mountain, which was very much shaken by the north wind. Its footstalk was blue, its flowers white and red, and its leaves shining like fine gold, and round about it the dragons and griffins of the north made their nests and habitations.
“On the fifth leaf was a fair rose-tree, flowered, in the midst of a garden, growing up against a hollow oak, at the foot whereof bubbled forth a fountain of pure white water, which ran headlong down into the depths below.
“Yet it passed through the hands of a great number of people who digged in the earth, seeking after it, but, by reason of their blindness, none of them knew it, except a very few, who considered its weight.