The last true believer in alchemy was not Dr. Price, but Peter Woulfe,
the eminent chemist, and Fellow of the Royal Society, and who made
experiments to show the nature of mosaic gold. Mr. Brande says: "It
is to be regretted that no biographical memoir has been preserved
of Woulfe. I have picked up a few anecdotes respecting him from two
or three friends who were his acquaintance. He occupied chambers in
Barnard's Inn, Holborn (the older buildings), while residing in London,
and usually spent the summer in Paris. His rooms, which were extensive,
were so filled with furnaces and apparatus that it was difficult to
reach his fireside. A friend told me that he once put down his hat, and
never could find it again, such was the confusion of boxes, packages,
and parcels that lay about the chamber. His breakfast-hour was four in
the morning; a few of his select friends were occasionally invited to
this repast, to whom a secret signal was given by which they gained
entrance, knocking a certain number of times at the inner door of his
apartment. He had long vainly searched for the Elixir, and attributed
his repeated failures to the want of due preparation by pious and
charitable acts. I understand that some of his apparatus is still
extant, upon which are supplications for success and for the welfare
of the adepts. Whenever he wished to break an acquaintance, or felt
himself offended, he resented the supposed injury by sending a present
to the offender, and never seeing him afterwards. These presents were
sometimes of a curious description, and consisted usually of some
expensive chemical product or preparation. He had an heroic remedy for
illness; when he felt himself seriously indisposed, he took a place in
the Edinburgh mail, and having reached that city, immediately came back
in the returning coach to London."
A cold taken in one of these expeditions terminated in inflammation of
the lungs, of which Woulfe died in the year 1805. Of his last moments
we received the following account from his executor, then Treasurer of
Barnard's Inn. By Woulfe's desire, his laundress shut up his chambers,
and left him, but returned at midnight, when Woulfe was still alive.
Next morning, however, she _found him dead_! His countenance was calm
and serene, and apparently he had not moved from the position in his
chair in which she had last left him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account