In l. 32, we have 'Thou comfort of us wrecches,' and in l. 58, 'Me flemed wrecche.' I suspect that these lines were, in the original draught, not far apart. l. 57 would follow l. 35 very suitably.
Compare the section in the Acta Sanctorum, April 14, p. 209, headed: 'Nova corporum inventio sub Clemente VIII, A.D. MDXCIX.'
See my note to l. 134 of the Tale.
Tyrwhitt further explains that a poem in Ashmole's volume, called Hermes Bird, and by him attributed to Raymund Lully, is really a poem of Lydgate's, printed by Caxton with the title The Chorle and the Bird.
It is a totally different work from the Latin collection of alchemical works, also called Theatrum Chemicum, so often cited in my notes.
At p. 470, Ashmole gives a brief account of Chaucer, made up from Speght, Bale, Pits, and others, of no particular value. At p. 226, he gives an engraving of the marble monument erected to Chaucer's memory in Westminster Abbey, by Nicholas Brigham, A.D. 1556.
This is somewhat amusing. Charnock describes his numerous misadventures, and it is not clear that he preserved his faith in alchemy unshaken.
Thomson's Hist. Chemistry, i. 25.
'Sir To. What shall we do else? Were we not born under Taurus? Sir And. Taurus! that's sides and heart. Sir To. No, sir; it's legs and thighs.' Both are wrong, of course, as Shakespeare knew. Chaucer says—'Aries hath thin heved [head], and Taurus thy nekke and thy throte;' Astrolabe, pt. i. sec. 21. l. 52.
See Browning's drama entitled 'Paracelsus.'
It is useless to try and discover an etymology for this word. It was invented wittingly. The most that can be said was that Van Helmont may have been thinking of the Dutch geest, a spirit; E. ghost.
This seems to us a strange selection; red, green, and violet would have been better. But this scale of colours is due to Aristotle, De Sensu, ii.; cf. Bartholomeus, De Proprietatibus Rerum, bk. xix. c. 7.
The Indian god Siva, was actually worshipped under the form of quicksilver. Professor Cowell refers me to Marco Polo, ed. Yule, ii. 300, and to his own edition of Colebrooke's Essays, i. 433; also to the semi-mythic life of Sankara Áchárya, the great reformer of the eighth century.
This explains why the alchemists, in seeking gold, sometimes supposed that they had obtained silver.
Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, ed. L. Herrig; vol. 86, p. 44.
MS. Douce 162 has a copy of the treatise in Provençal.
Urry, the worst of editors, originated it.
Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, ed. L. Herrig, vol. 87, p. 33.