ALCHEMY: ANCIENT AND MODERN. Being a brief account of the alchemistic doctrines, and their relations, to mysticism on the one hand, and to recent discoveries in physical science on the other hand; together with some particulars regarding the lives and teachings of the most noted alchemists.

Sir George Ripley, an eminent alchemistic philosopher of the fifteenth century, entered upon a monastic life when a youth, becoming one of the canons regular of Bridlington. After some travels he returned to England and obtaining leave from the Pope to live in solitude, he devoted himself to the study of the Hermetic Art. His chief work is The Compound of Alchymie . . . conteining twelve Gates, which was written in 1471. In this curious work, we learn that there are twelve processes necessary for the achievement of the magnum opus, namely, Calcination, Solution, Separation, Conjunction, Putrefaction, Congelation, Cibation, Sublimation, Fermentation,

Exaltation, Multiplication, and Projection. These are likened to the twelve gates of a castle which the philosopher must enter. At the conclusion of the twelfth gate, Ripley says:—

"Now thou hast conqueryd the twelve Gates,
And all the Castell thou holdyst at wyll,
Keep thy Secretts in store unto thy serve;
And the commaundements of God looke thou fulfull:
In fyer conteinue thy glas styli,
And Multeply thy Medcyns ay more and more,
For wyse men done say store ys no sore." 19

At the conclusion of the work he tells us that in all that he wrote before he was mistaken; he says:—

"I made Solucyons full many a one,
Of Spyrytts, Ferments, Salts, Yerne and Steele;
Wenyug so to make the Phylosophers Stone:
But fynally I lost eche dele,
After my Boks yet wrought I well;
Whych evermore untrue I provyd,
That made me oft full sore agrevyd." 20

Ripley did much to popularise the works of Raymond Lully in England, but does not appear to have added to the knowledge of practical chemistry. His Bosom Book, which contains an alleged method for preparing the Stone, will be found in the Collectanea Chemica (1893).

	CHAPTER III THE ALCHEMISTS1 (A. BEFORE PARACELSUS) ALCHEMY: ANCIENT AND MODERN. Being a brief account of the alchemistic doctrines, and their relations, to mysticism on the one hand, and to recent discoveries in physical science on the other hand; together with some particulars regarding the lives and teachings of the most noted alchemists.

University of Virginia Library

§ 44. Sir George Ripley.