than the common state of mortals exercised in the profane business of this World."
After thus introducing himself he proceeds to mingle chemistry, piety, and abuse of the physicians and apothecaries of his day with much repetition though with considerable shrewdness for about fifty pages. At last, after many false starts, he expounds the origin and nature of antimony, thus:—
"Antimony is a mineral made of the vapour of the Earth changed into water, which spiritual syderal Transmutation is the true Astrum of Antimony; which water, by the stars first, afterwards by the Element of Fire which resides in the Element of Air, is extracted from the Elementary Earth, and by coagulation formally changed into a tangible essence, in which tangible essence is found very much of Sulphur predominating, of Mercury not so much, and of Salt the least of the three. Yet it assumes so much Salt as it thence acquires an hard and unmalleable Mass. The principal quality of it is dry and hot, or rather burning; of cold and humidity it hath very little in it, as there is in common Mercury; in corporal Gold also is more heat than cold. These may suffice to be spoken of the matter, and three fundamental principles of Antimony, how by the Archeus in the Element of Earth it is brought to perfection."
It needs some practice in reading alchemical writings to make out the drift of this rhapsody, and no profit would be gained by a clear interpretation of the mysticism. It may, however, be noted that the Archeus was a sort of friendly demon who worked at the formation of metals in the bowels of the earth; that all metals were supposed to be compounds of sulphur, mercury, and salt in varying proportions, the sulphur
