Ben Jonson has with his wonted ability presented the theory of this delusive art. His knavish Alchemist asks of an unbeliever
| Why, what have you observed Sir, in our art Seems so impossible? Surly. But your whole work, no more! That you should hatch gold in a furnace, Sir, As they do eggs in Egypt. Subtle. Sir, do you Believe that eggs are hatch'd so? Surly. If I should? Subtle. Why I think that the greater miracle. No egg but differs from a chicken more Than metals in themselves. Surly. That cannot be. The egg's ordained by nature to that end, And is a chicken in potentiâ. Subtle. The same we say of lead and other metals, Which would be gold if they had time. Mammon. And that Our art doth further. Subtle. Aye, for 'twere absurd To think that nature in the earth bred gold Perfect in the instant: something went before. There must be remote matter. Surly. Ay, what is that? Subtle. Marry we say— Mammon. Ay, now it heats; stand father; Pound him to dust. Subtle. It is, of the one part, A humid exhalation, which we call Materia liquida, or the unctuous water; On the other part a certain crass and viscous Portion of earth; both which concorporate Do make the elementary matter of gold; Which is not yet propria materia, But common to all metals and all stones; For where it is forsaken of that moisture, And hath more dryness, it becomes a stone; Where it retains more of the humid fatness, It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver, Who are the parents of all other metals. Nor can this remote matter suddenly Progress so from extreme unto extreme, As to grow gold, and leap o'er all the means. Nature doth first beget the imperfect, then Proceeds she to the perfect. Of that airy And oily water, mercury is engendered; Sulphur of the fat and earthy part; the one, Which is the last, supplying the place of male, The other of the female in all metals. Some so believe hermaphrodeity, That both do act and suffer. But these too Make the rest ductile, malleable, extensive. And even in gold they are; for we do find Seeds of them, by our fire, and gold in them; And can produce the species of each metal More perfect thence than nature doth in earth. |
I have no cause to say here with Sheik Mohammed Ali Hazin that “taste for poetical and elegant composition has turned the reins of my ink-dropping pen away from the road which lay before it:” For this passage of learned Ben lay directly in the way; and no where, Reader, couldst thou find the theory of the Alchemists more ably epitomized.
“Father,” said the boy Daniel one day, after listening to a conversation upon this subject, “I should like to learn to make gold.”
“And what wouldst thou do, Daniel, if thou couldst make it?” was the reply.
“Why I would build a great house, and fill it with books; and have as much money as the King, and be as great a man as the Squire.”
“Mayhap, Daniel, in that case thou wouldst care for books as little as the Squire, and have as little time for them as the King. Learning is better than house or land. As for money, enough is enough; no man can enjoy more; and the less he can be contented with the wiser and better he is likely to be. What, Daniel, does our good poet tell us in the great verse-book?
| Nature's with little pleased; enough's a feast: A sober life but a small charge requires: But man, the author of his own unrest, The more he hath, the more he still desires. |
No, boy, thou canst never be as rich as the King, nor as great as the Squire; but thou mayest be a Philosopher, and that is being as happy as either.”
“A great deal happier,” said Guy. “The Squire is as far from being the happiest man in the neighbourhood, as he is from being the wisest or the best. And the King, God bless him! has care enough upon his head to bring on early grey hairs.