The last true believer in alchemy was, according to Mr. Brande, one Peter Woulfe, who occupied chambers in Barnard's Inn, Holborn, while in London, and usually spent the summer in Paris. He died in 1805. About the year 1801, another solitary adept lived, or rather starved, in London, in the person of an editor of an evening newspaper, who expected to compound the alkahest, if he could keep his materials digested in a lamp-furnace for the space of seven years. The lamp burnt brightly during six years eleven months, and some odd days besides; and then, unluckily, it went out. Why it went out, the adept could never guess; but he was certain that if the name could only have burnt to the end of the septenary cycle, his experiment must have succeeded. In 1828, Sir Richard Phillips visited "an alchemist," named Kellerman, at the village of Lilley, midway between Luton and Hitchen; he was believed by some of his neighbours to have succeeded in discovering the Philosopher's Stone, and also the universal solvent. He had been a man of fashion, and an adventurer on the turf; but had for many years shut himself up at Lilley, and been inaccessible and invisible to the world; his house being barricaded, and the walls of his grounds protected by hurdles, with spring-guns, so planted as to resist intrusion in every direction. Sir Richard, however, obtained an interview with this strange being, and the account of his visit is very graphic:-- "The front-door was opened, and Mr. Kellerman presented himself. I lament that I have not the pencil of Hogarth, for a more original figure never was seen. He was about six feet high, and of athletic make. On his head was a white nightcap, and his dress consisted of a long great-coat, once green, and a sort of jockey waistcoat, with three tiers of pockets. His manner was extremely polite and graceful; but my attention was chiefly absorbed by his singular physiognomy. His complexion was deeply sallow, and his eyes large, black, and rolling. He conducted me into a very large parlour, with a window looking backward, and having locked the door and put the key into his pocket, he desired me to be seated in one of two large armchairs, covered with sheepskins. The room was a realization of the well-known picture of Teniers's Alchemist. The floor was strewed with retorts, crucibles, alembics, jars, and bottles of various shapes, intermingled with old books, the whole covered with dust and cobwebs. Different shelves were filled in the same manner; and on one side stood the Alchemist's bed. In a corner, somewhat shaded from the light, I beheld two heads, white, with dark wigs on them; I entertained no doubt, therefore, that, among other fancies, he was engaged in re making the brazen speaking head of Roger Bacon and Albertus."