After this patent was published, many promised to answer the King’s expectations so effectually (adds the same writer) that the next year he published another patent; wherein he tells his subjects, that the _happy hour_ was drawing nigh, and by means of the STONE, which he should be master of, he would pay all the debts of the nation in _real gold_ and silver. The persons picked out for his new operations were as remarkable as the patent itself, being a most “miscellaneous rabble” of friars, grocers, mercers, and fishmongers! This patent was likewise granted _authoritate parliamenti_. Prynne, who has given this patent in his _Aurum Reginæ_, p. 135, concludes with this sarcastic observation:—“A project never so seasonable and necessary as now!” And this we repeat, and our successors will no doubt imitate us! Alchymists were formerly called _multipliers_; as appears from a statute of Henry IV. repealed in the preceding record. The statute being extremely short, we shall give it for the reader’s satisfaction. “None from henceforth shall use to multiply gold or silver, or use the _craft of multiplication_; and if any the same do, he shall incur the pain of felony.” Every philosophical mind must be convinced that Alchymy is not an art, which some have fancifully traced to the _remotest times_; it may rather be regarded, when opposed to such a distance of time, as a modern imposture. Cæsar commanded the treatises of Alchymy to be burnt throughout the Roman dominions—Cæsar, who is not less to be admired as a philosopher than as a monarch. Mr. Gibbon has the following succinct passage relative to Alchymy: “The ancient books of Alchymy, so liberally ascribed to Pythagoras, to Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more recent adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or abuse of chemistry. In that immense register, where Pliny has deposited the discoveries, the arts and the errors of mankind, there is not the least mention of the transmutation of metals; and the persecution of Dioclesian is the first authentic event in the history of Alchymy. The conquest of Egypt by the Arabs diffused that vain science over the globe. Congenial to the avarice of the human heart, it was studied in China as in Europe, with equal eagerness and equal success. The darkness of the middle ages ensured a favourable reception to every tale of wonder; and the revival of learning gave new vigour to hope, and suggested more specious arts to deception. Philosophy, with the aid of experience, has at length banished the study of Alchymy; and the present age, however desirous of riches, is content to seek them by the humbler means of commerce and industry.”