from the Latin into French, and published in duodecimo at Lyons in 1557. It is written _ad clerum_, and for this reason is probably the more misleading. It represents the constituents of the perfect medicine to be vinegar, salt, urine, and sal ammoniac, with the addition of an undescribed substance called sulphur vive. NICHOLAS FLAMEL. The name of this alchemical adept has been profoundly venerated not only in the memory of the Hermetists but in the hearts of the French people, among whom he is the central figure of many marvellous legends and traditions. “Whilst in all ages and nations the majority of hierophants have derived little but deception, ruination, and despair as the result of their devotion to alchemy, Nicholas Flamel enjoyed permanent good fortune and serenity. Far from expending his resources in the practice of the _magnum opus_, he added with singular suddenness a vast treasure to a moderate fortune. These he employed in charitable endowments and in pious foundations that long survived him and long sanctified his memory. He built churches and chapels which were adorned with statues of himself, accompanied by symbolical characters and mysterious crosses, which subsequent adepts long strove to decipher, that they might discover his secret history, and the kabbalistic description of the process by which he was conducted to the realisation of the Grand Magisterium.” Whether Flamel was born at Paris or Pontoise is not more uncertain than the precise date of his nativity. This occurred some time during the reign of Philippe le Bel, the spoliator of the grand order of the Temple, and, on the whole, the most probable year is 1330. His parents were poor, and left him little more than the humble house in Paris which he continued to possess till his death, and which he eventually bequeathed to the Church. It stood in Notary Street, at the corner of Marivaux Street, opposite the Marivaux door of the Church of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie. Authorities disagree as to the amount of education that Flamel obtained in his youth, but it was sufficient to qualify him for the business of a scrivener, which, in spite of his wealth and his accredited wisdom, he continued to follow through life. He was proficient in painting and poetry, and had a taste for architecture and the mathematical sciences; yet he applied himself steadily to business, and contracted a prudent marriage, his choice falling on a widow, named Pernelle, who, though handsome, was over forty years, but who brought a considerable dowry to her second husband.