for passing this Act was not an apprehension that men should ruin their fortunes by endeavouring to make gold, but a jealousy lest Government should be above asking aid of the subject. At the same time, letters patent were granted to several persons, permitting them to investigate the universal medicine and perform the transmutation of metals. Alphonse X., of Castille, the author of the _Key of Wisdom_, practised alchemy. Henry VI., of England, and Edward IV. had dealings with adepts. Even Elizabeth Tudor, who was a shrewd enough sovereign, had the notorious Dr. Dee in her pay. Charles VII. and Charles IX., of France, Christian IV., of Denmark, and Charles XII., of Sweden, sought to replenish their exhausted treasuries by the aid of the philosopher’s stone. If princes eventually learned not to put their trust in alchemists, alchemists learned equally to their cost not to put their trust in princes. Duke Julius, of Brunswick, in 1575, burnt a female alchemist, Marie Ziglerin, who had failed in her promise to furnish him with a prescription for the making of gold. David Benther killed himself to escape the fury of the Elector Augustus, of Saxony. Bragadino was hanged at Munich in 1590 by the Elector of Bavaria. Leonard Thurneysser, who gained an evil notoriety in his day as one of the most unscrupulous of the followers of Paracelsus, and who amassed considerable wealth by the sale of cosmetics and nostrums, was deprived of his ill-gotten gains in 1584 by the Elector of Brandenburg, and died in misery in the convent. Borri, a Milanese adventurer, who had deceived Frederick III., of Denmark, was imprisoned for years by that monarch, and died in captivity in 1695. William de Krohnemann was hanged by the Margrave of Byreuth, who, with grim irony, caused the inscription to be fixed to his gibbet: “I once knew how to fix mercury, and now I am myself fixed.” Hector de Klettenberg was beheaded in 1720 by Augustus II., King of Poland. All the followers of Hermes were not so wary or so candid as the artist who declined an invitation to visit the Court of Rudolph II., saying: “If I am an adept, I have no need of the Emperor; if I am not, the Emperor has no need of me.” Well might John Clytemius, Abbot of Wiezenberg, write: “_Vanitas, fraus, dolus, sophisticatio, cupiditas, falsitas, mendacium, stultitia, paupertas, desesperatio, fuga, proscriptio et mendicitas, perdisæque sunt chemiæ_.”