“The artist who gave me this is still living; I prize him as my own life; I wish his happiness, for he has been a sure friend. He is at present on his travels, visiting artists and collecting antiquities as a citizen of the world. He is an Englishman of an ancient, honourable family, who now live in the place wherein he was born. He is scarcely thirty-three years of age, and is rarely learned. You cannot know more of him from me, nor can you be acquainted with him; his acquaintance with me is as unexpected as his love was cordial. I had often seen by experiment that he was master of the white and red before he would vouchsafe to trust me with a small bit of the stone, nor would I press him, trusting for his courtesy soon or late, which I shortly received, by what I have said of the white medicine, and also a portion of his mercury. “He told me this mercury was a matchless treasure, if God would open my eyes to the use of it, else I might grope in blindness. With this dissolvent, which is the hidden secret of all masters, he exceedingly multiplied his red stone. I saw him put a piece of the red, by weight, into that same mercury, which then digested, dissolved it, and made it change colour, and in three days it passed through the process of black, white, and red. “I thought that if the red and white could be multiplied that one lineal progress led to either, and on this false ground I destroyed ten parts in twelve of my medicine. This loss did not suffice me, for I mixed the remaining two parts with ten times their weight of Luna, and fell to work again, hoping to make up for my first error. I then began to think upon the maxims of the old books, revolved in my mind the agreement of my work with the laws of Nature, and at length I concluded that each thing is to be disposed according to its condition. “When I found that my vain attempts only threw away the tincture, I stopped my hand, resolving to keep the few grains left for some urgent necessity, which for its preservation I mixed with ten parts of Luna. “I tried some of the mercury before mentioned on gold, my desire being to see the work carried forward and brought to Luna, if not to Sol. This, then, I projected on mercury. After having alloyed it with silver it tinged fifty parts, and I strove to imbibe it, but in vain, because I had let it cool. I foolishly supposed to obtain the oil by imbibition. However, Nature carried on the work into blackness, the colours, and whiteness, which yet was far short of what I looked for. “In these trials I wasted nearly all my mercury likewise; but I had for my consolation the witnessing of transmutations, and those extraordinary processes which I beheld with mine own eyes, and blessed God for seeing.