He chose by his will, says the story, to be buried in the Church of the Jacobins, and, as an acknowledgment, left them a coffer that appeared, at least by its weight, to be filled with things precious, probably with the best gold which could be manufactured by the skill of the Hermetists. He ordered, however, that this coffer should not be opened till after his funeral, when, touched with the piety of the deceased, the monks assembled in great numbers to be present at its opening, and to offer up thanks to God. They found to their great disappointment that the coffer was filled with large pieces of slates beautifully engraved with figures of geometry and arithmetic. The indignation of the fathers was excited by the posthumous imposture, and they proposed to eject the body of Jean de Meung from their consecrated precincts; but the Parliament being informed of this inhumanity, obliged the Jacobins, by a decree, to leave the deceased undisturbed in the honourable sepulchre of their conventual cloisters. In “Nature’s Remonstrance to the Alchemist,” who is described as a foolish and sophistical souffleur, making use of nothing but mechanical arts, the complainant bitterly abuses the fanatical student who diffuses over her beautiful domain the rank odours of sulphur, which he tortures in vain over his furnaces, for by such a method he will assuredly attain nothing. The alchemist in his “Reply” figures as a repentant being, convinced of his errors, which he ascribes to the barbarous allegories, parabolic sentences, and delusive precepts contained in the writings of the adepts. THE MONK FERARIUS. About the beginning of the fourteenth century, this Italian artist gave to the world two treatises--_De Lapide Philosophorum_ and _Thesaurus Philosophiæ_, which are printed in the _Theatrum Chimicum_. The “admirable spectacle” of the palingenesis of plants is described by this Jesuit. “Immediately consequent on exposing to the rays of the sun the phial, filled with quintessence of the rose, there is discovered within the narrow compass of the vase a perfect world of miracles. The plant which lay buried in its ashes awakes, uprises, and unfolds. In the space of half-an-hour the vegetable phœnix is resuscitated from its own dust. The rose issues from its sepulchre and assumes a new life. It is the floral symbol of that resurrection by which mortals lying in darkness and in the shadow of death will pass into beautiful immortality.” The treatise on the philosophical stone very pertinently remarks that in alchemy the first thing to be ascertained is what is really signified by the myrionimous _argentum vivum sapientum_, a point on which the author gracefully declines information. Both works are exceedingly obscure and vexatious. The _Thesaurus Philosophiæ_ testifies that the plain speaking of the philosophers is completely illusory, and that it is only in their incomprehensible profundities that we must seek the light of Hermes.