some lodgers had found in the cellars several jars filled with a
dark-coloured ponderous matter. Upon the strength of the rumour, a
believer in all the wondrous tales told of Nicholas Flamel bought the
house, and nearly pulled it to pieces in ransacking the walls and
wainscotting for hidden gold. He got nothing for his pains, however,
and had a heavy bill to pay to restore his dilapidations.

GEORGE RIPLEY.

While alchymy was thus cultivated on the continent of Europe, it
was not neglected in the isles of Britain. Since the time of Roger
Bacon, it had fascinated the imagination of many ardent men in
England. In the year 1404, an act of parliament was passed, declaring
the making of gold and silver to be felony. Great alarm was felt at
that time lest any alchymist should succeed in his projects, and
perhaps bring ruin upon the state, by furnishing boundless wealth to
some designing tyrant, who would make use of it to enslave his
country. This alarm appears to have soon subsided; for, in the year
1455, King Henry VI, by advice of his council and parliament, granted
four successive patents and commissions to several knights, citizens
of London, chemists, monks, mass-priests, and others, to find out the
philosopher's stone and elixir, "to the great benefit," said the
patent, "of the realm, and the enabling of the King to pay all the
debts of the Crown in real gold and silver." Prinn, in his "Aurum
Reginae," observes, as a note to this passage, that the King's reason
for granting this patent to ecclesiastics was, that they were such
good artists in transubstantiating bread and wine in the Eucharist,
and therefore the more likely to be able to effect the transmutation
of baser metals into better. No gold, of course, was ever made; and,
next year, the King, doubting very much of the practicability of the