B. Amen.
A. I give unto you, for your courteous instruction, most hearty thanks, and remain obliged unto you all my whole Life. And thus with what hath been said, I commit both you and my self to Gods protection.
B. My dearest Friend, I have now performed the Promise I made unto you, and am not meanly delighted, in that you have understood the meaning of those things, which I have said unto you: But yet I cannot but admire, that you are not Covetously desirous of knowing yet more, and that you do not Crave an yet more prolix unfolding of more matters. For you well know, that you cannot every day have the Enjoyment of my Company.
A. For those things, which I at present received from you, do I return you most hearty thanks, another time God will vouchsafe more: The greatest desire I have at present, is to set about so great a Work, and to have the Fruition of the hoped for Fruit. If you are so minded, and bent upon doing Friendly Favours, I do request you, that you would oblige my Brother by your good turns, if he shall hap to come unto you, and Petition for ought at your hands, for you may assist him in some small, yet good, Arcanum: For he hath been stupid, or unapprehensive enough hitherto, and much needs some accurate instruction. But what shall I say? The sick looks after the Physician, he that is thorough Well has no need of him. Such things as are hard to be understood, exceed his Capacity: The more easie things are more commodious. And so again, Farewel.
The COROLLARY.
I have taught in this Dialogue, That the White Lac virginis (after its being extracted, by Distillation, out of the Black Magnesia, and after its Exaltation, in Virtue and Efficacy, by Rectification and Concentration,) is to be freed from its superfluous Humidity, and yet the dry Matter is to be made permanent in the Fire, by the gradual Operation of the Fire. Now for the more accurate Declaration sake; these things which follow shall be yet farther subjoyned.
That Fixation, if it be to be perfected by the [bare] help of the common Fire, requires a long and tedious time, so that there’s no reason for a Man to persuade himself, that he can finish the same in one years space. I speak by my own experience, for I my self have tryed, and find that it cannot be, that one year should suffice for the finishing of this Fixation, for indeed it requires a much longer time. For after that, I had so far advanced the Matter, that it had passed through all the Colours, as to flow when put upon a Red hot Plate, and to insinuate it self thereinto, like Oyls penetrating into a dry Hide, yet was it not fixt enough nor constant, nor served it for the tinging of the Metals, but when a vehement Fire was applyed thereunto, away it went in fume; but yet not without an evident Demonstration of the possibility of the same. For as much therefore, as it does not yield that satisfactory Fruit, [and Success] and seeing that such great Labours are not undertaken, without the expectation of some Profit, and that the hoped for Fruits cannot however be gathered, afore that the said matter is promoted to a perfect Maturity, and consequently dreads not any the most vehement Storms of the Fire any more; any one may easily conjecture, that there needs (as I said afore) a more tedious space of time for this Fixation, if it be to be done and perfected by the common Fire of Coals. But now, he that has the knowledge of the secret Fire, of the Ancient Philosophers, such an one will much easier, and speedier arrive unto the wished end of the Operation. The Nature of the vulgar and fugacious Minerals doth very difficultly and slowly admit of that Fixation, which is made with the Fire of Coals: And this I was unwilling to conceal from the diligent Searcher after the Secrets of Nature; yet farther adjoyning this Admonition, [viz.] that a very profitable Medicament may nevertheless be prepared in a shorter space of time, and an appearance made of the admirable, and highly delightful Variation of abundance of most delicate Colours. For the first Colour that appears is like the black head of a Crow, presenting it self to view like the Colour of black Glass. This blackness going off by little and little, gives place to the White, and pondrous Mass; which is called by the Philosophers, the White Swan, and not without reason, because that self same white Matter is not so compact and Stone-like, as that black Crows Head, but is porous, and not much unlike unto a kind of heap made of abundance of small and white Feathers. When this Whiteness is turned into a Yellow, those Feathers vanish, and the Mass returns to its former Compactness, and resembles the form of a yellow Stone: Of which if you put a little piece upon some Red hot Silver, or Copper-plate, it will at first stand like a Red blood, and afterwards penetrate the Copper-plate, and tinge it both within and without with a white Colour; but yet, somewhat brittle as yet, and yields in the Cineritium, or Cupel, some Silver, and operates in Medicine somewhat effectually, like the white Stone, but yet weaker. It likewise pierceth into a Silver-plate, like as Oyl into a Skin, and tingeth it with a yellow Colour, which being separated by the Cupel, and dissolved in Aqua Fortis, leaves excellent Gold in the bottom. I have not as yet made any farther Progress on the Operation, being quite tired, and weary of spending any longer, and more tedious time thereabouts, which however was necessarily requisite to the perfecting of this Tincture with the Fire of Coals. But yet I have by me all the Colours as they follow on after each other, which I can shew unto any one; whereby they may see with their Eyes the most evident possibility of Nature: To which end also I am minded to preserve those Tinctures by me, that they may be an everlasting Memorial of so great a thing?, unto my Posterity: But for my part, I will commend [to every one] that shorter way of bringing the work to the wished end, by the Mediation of the secret Fire of the Philosophers: Concerning which, the following Dialogue, and the little Book of Fires, treats. For the immature First Ens of Gold, cannot be excocted [or digested] into the desired Tincture by any thing more easily, than in its own proper secret Fire; and not by a Coal Fire.
And that it may clearly appear, that I have written the Truth, I will send unto some of my Friends (God willing) some of those white and yellow Stones, to be used not only in Medicine, but in Alchymy too; that so they may make tryal and experimentally find, that Tinctures have a Power of bettering, and amending Metals, afore they have arrived unto the half part of their Fixation.