"Sir Edward Dyer, a grave and wise gentleman, did much believe in Kelly, the alchemist, that he did indeed the work, and made gold; insomuch that he went into Germany, where Kelly then was, to inform himself fully thereof. After his return he dined with my Lord of Canterbury, where at that time was at the table Dr. Brown, the physician. They fell in talk of Kelly. Sir Edward Dyer, turning to the archbishop, said--'I do assure your Grace that that I shall tell you is truth: I am an eye-witness thereof; and if I had not seen it, I should not have believed it. I saw Master Kelly put of the base metal into the crucible; and after it was set a little upon the fire, and a very small quantity of the medicine put in, and stirred with a stick of wood, it came forth, in great proportion, perfect gold, to the touch, to the hammer, and to the test.' My Lord Archbishop said, 'You had need take heed what you say, Sir Edward Dyer, for here is an infidel at the board.' Sir Edward Dyer said again pleasantly, 'I would have looked for an infidel sooner in any place than at your Grace's table.' 'What say you, Dr. Brown?' said the archbishop. Dr. Brown answered, after his blunt and huddling manner, 'The gentleman hath spoken enough for me.' 'Why,' saith the archbishop, 'what hath he said?' 'Marry,' saith Dr. Brown, 'he said he would not have believed it except he had seen it; and no more will I.'" Professor De Morgan observes that "Alchemy was more than a popular credulity: Newton and Boyle were amongst the earnest inquirers into it." Bishop Berkeley was of opinion that M. Homberg made gold by introducing light into the pores of mercury. Amongst the works of the Hon. Robert Boyle (vol. iv. 13-19), is _An Historical Account of a Degradation of Gold, made by an anti-Elixir: a Strange Chemical Narrative_, in which he says--"To make it more credible that other metals are capable of being graduated or exalted into gold, by way of projection, I will relate to you, that by the like way, gold has been degraded or imbased.... Our experiment plainly shows that gold, though confessedly the most homogeneous and the least mutable of metals, may be in a very short time (perhaps not amounting to many minutes), exceedingly changed, both as to malleableness, colour, homogeneity, and (which is more) specific gravity; and all this by so very inconsiderable a portion of injected powder," &c.