gained over the Duke, rested on his foolish prophecies concerning the Electoral dignity and prodigious treasures. A poor weak-minded boy who was maintained by Grumbach, had intercourse with angels who dwelt in the air-hole of a cellar, and declared themselves ready to produce gold, and bring to light a mine for the Duke. It may be perceived from judicial records, that the little angels of the peasant child had a similarity, unfavourable to their credibility, to our little old dwarfs. There was at Berlin, about the time of Scotus, one Leonhard Turneysser, a charlatan, more citizen-like in his occupation, who worked as gold maker and prepared horoscopes; he escaped by flight the dismal fate, which almost always overtook his fellows of the same vocation who did not change their locality soon enough. The Emperor Rudolph also became a great adept, and amalgamated in the gold crucible both his political honour and his own Imperial throne. The princes of the seventeenth century at least show the intense interest of dilettanti. During the war the art of making gold became very desirable. At that period, therefore, the adepts thronged to the armies; the more needy the times, the more numerous and brilliant became the stories of alchemy. It was proposed by an enthusiastic worshipper of Gustavus Adolphus, to make gold out of lead; and in the presence of the Emperor Ferdinand III. many pounds of gold were to be made, by one grain of red powder, from quicksilver; a gigantic coin also was to be struck from the same metal. After the peace, the adepts resided at all the courts; there were few dwellings where the hearth and the retorts were not heated for secret operations. But every one had to beware how he trifled with the reigning powers, as the paws of the princely lions might be raised against him for his destruction. Those who could not make gold were confined in prison, and those who were under suspicion, yet could fabricate something, were equally put in close confinement. The Italian Count Cajetan was hanged in a gilded dress, on a gallows at Küstrin the beams of which were adorned with cut gold; the German Rector von Klettenberg was beheaded at Königstein, where fourteen years before, Böttiger was kept in strict cloistral confinement, because he had produced innocent porcelain instead of gold. There is no doubt that it was the case with the adepts and astrologers, as it ever has been with the leaders of a prevailing superstition, that they were themselves convinced of the truth of their art; but they had strong doubts of their own knowledge, and they deceived others as to their success, either because they were seeking the means to attain to greater results, or because they wished to appear, to the world, to understand what they considered of importance. These however were not the worst of the lot.