high opinion of Gebir, and believed very firmly in the possibility of the baser metals being converted into gold. He had, he said, “great faith in the Elixir of Life,” which he considered to be potable gold, otherwise aqua regia, viz. gold dissolved in nitro-chloric acid. He laughed while he told me how he had tried to convert Pope Nicholas IV. to his views, by telling him a story of a labourer in Sicily, who found one day on the island a golden phial full of yellow liquor, which he thought for the moment was dew, and drank, and became from that moment a hale and strong youth. I was desirous of learning more concerning this youth, but I regret to say Roger Bacon appeared to know very little about his subsequent career; he had heard, he said, that he was a great reader, and was to be constantly seen at the British Museum Library; he was fond of old books, and “Ye Boke of ye Odd Volumes” had much delighted him, also “B. Q., a
