“Now thou hast conqueryd the twelve Gates,
And all the Castell thou holdyst at wyll,
Keep thy Secretts in store unto thy selve;
And the commaundements of God looke thou fulfull:
In fyer conteinue thy glas styll,
And Multeply thy Medcyns ay more and more,
For wyse men done say store ys no sore.”[59]
[59] Sir George Ripley: The Compound of Alchemy (see Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, edited by Elias Ashmole, 1652, p. 186).
At the conclusion of the work he tells us that in all that he wrote before he was mistaken; he says:—
“I made Solucyons full many a one,
Of Spyrytts, Ferments, Salts, Yerne and Steele;
Wenyng so to make the Phylosophers Stone:
But fynally I lost eche dele,
After my Boks yet wrought I well;
Whych evermore untrue I provyd,
That made me oft full sore agrevyd.”[60]
[60] Ibid. p. 189.
Ripley did much to popularise the works of Raymond Lully in England, but does not appear to have added to the knowledge of practical chemistry. His Bosom Book, which contains an alleged method for preparing the Stone, will be found in the Collectanea Chemica (1893).