[248] Edmund Halley (1656-1742), who succeeded Wallis (1703) as Savilian professor of mathematics at Oxford, and Flamsteed (1720) as head of the Greenwich observatory. It is of interest to note that he was instrumental in getting Newton's Principia printed.
[249] Shepherd (born in 1760) was one of the most famous lawyers of his day. He was knighted in 1814 and became Attorney General in 1817.
[250] This was William Hone (1780-1842), a book publisher, who wrote satires against the government, and who was tried three times because of his parodies on the catechism, creed, and litany (illustrated by Cruikshank). He was acquitted on all of the charges.
[251] Valentinus was a Benedictine monk and was still living at Erfurt in 1413. His Currus triumphalis antimonii appeared in 1624. Synesius was Bishop of Ptolemaide, who died about 430. His works were printed at Paris in 1605. Theodor Kirckring (1640-1693) was a fellow-student of Spinoza's. Besides the commentary on Valentine he left several works on anatomy. His commentary appeared at Amsterdam in 1671. There were several editions of the Chariot.
[252] The chief difficulty with this curious "monk-bane" etymology is its absurdity. The real origin of the word has given etymologists a good deal of trouble.
[253] Robert Boyle (1627-1691), son of "the Great Earl" (of Cork). Perhaps his best-known discovery is the law concerning the volume of gases.
[254] The real name of Eirenaeus Philalethes (born in 1622) is unknown. It may have been Childe. He claimed to have discovered the philosopher's stone in 1645. His tract in this work is The Secret of the Immortal Liquor Alkahest or Ignis-Aqua. See note [260], infra.
[255] Johann Baptist van Helmont, Herr von Merode, Royenborg etc. (1577-1644). His chemical discoveries appeared in his Ortus medicinae (1648), which went through many editions.
[256] De Morgan should have written up Francis Anthony (1550-1623), whose Panacea aurea sive tractatus duo de auro potabili (Hamburg, 1619) described a panacea that he gave for every ill. He was repeatedly imprisoned for practicing medicine without a license from the Royal College of Physicians.
[257] Bernardus Trevisanus (1406-1490), who traveled even through Barbary, Egypt, Palestine, and Persia in search of the philosopher's stone. He wrote several works on alchemy,—De Chemica (1567), De Chemico Miraculo (1583), Traité de la nature de l'oeuf des philosophes (1659), etc., all published long after his death.