By this circumstance we are reminded that some five-and-thirty years since it came to our knowledge that a man of wealth and position in the City of London, an _adept_ in alchemy, was held _in terrorem_ by an unprincipled person, who extorted from him considerable sums of money under threats of exposure, which would have affected his mercantile interests. Nevertheless, alchemy has, in the present day, its prophetic advocates, who predict what may be considered a return to its strangest belief. A Göttingen professor says, in the _Annales de Chimie_, No. 100, that in the nineteenth century the transmutation of metals will be generally known and practised. Every chemist and every artist will make gold; kitchen utensils will be of silver and even gold, which will contribute more than anything else to prolong life, poisoned at present by the oxide of copper, lead, and iron which we daily swallow with our food. More recently, MM. Dr. Henri Fabre and Franz have placed before the French Academy their discovery of the means of transmuting silver, copper, and quicksilver into gold. [Illustration: Jack Adams, the Astrologer. _Magnifico Smokentissimo Custardissimo Astrologissimo Cunningmanisso Rabbinissimo Viro Jacko Adams de Clerkenwell Greeno hanc lovelissimam Sui Picturam._ Hovbedeboody pinxit et scratchabat.] Jack Adams, the Astrologer. Among the celebrities of Clerkenwell Green was Jack Adams, whose nativity was calculated by Partridge, who affirmed that he was born on the 3rd of December, 1625, and that he was so great a _natural_, or simpleton, as to be obliged to wear long coats, besides other marks of stupidity; and that the parish not only maintained him, but allowed a nurse to attend him to preserve him from harm. Allusion is made to him in a satirical ballad of 1655:-- Jack Adams, sure, was pamet (poet) by the vein. And in the _Wits, or Sport upon Sport_, 1682, we read of his visit to the Red Bull playhouse, where Simpleton, the smith, appearing on the stage with a large piece of bread-and-butter, Jack Adams, knowing him, cried out, "Cuz, Cuz, give me some," to the great pleasure of the audience. Ward thus mentions his celebrity:-- What mortal that has sense or thought Would strip Jack Adams of his coat; Or who would be by friends decoyed To wear a badge he would avoid?