Aedificans Sutrium dum vivit ibi dominatur,
Triticeum semen primus in urbe serens.’
2462 ff. For the seven bodies and four spirits of Alchemy cp. Chaucer, Cant. Tales, G 818 ff. Mercury, it will be noticed, is reckoned both as a body and as a spirit, but some authorities called this a spirit only and reckoned six metallic bodies.
2476. after the bok it calleth, ‘according as the book calls it.’
2488 ff. Cp. 2565 ff.
2501. The seven forms are those enumerated in 2513 ff., viz. distillation, congelation, solution, descension, sublimation, calcination, fixation.
2522. Cp. Chaucer, Cant. Tales, G 862 f.
2533. Thre Stones. According to some authors, as Hortulanus (MS. Ashmole 1478, iv.), there was but one stone, the Elixir, which had vegetable, animal and mineral qualities or functions; but in Lydgate, Secrees of the Philosophres, l. 530 (E.E.T.S.), we have,
‘And of stones, specially of three,
Oon mineral, another vegetatyff,’ &c.;