Van Helmont is the most indulgent of his biographers, and Lord Bacon the most severe; but perhaps the description given by Zimmerman comes nearest the truth—“Paracelsus burnt publicly at _Bàle_ the works of Galen, Avicenna, and other eminent predecessors, because, he said, ‘they knew nothing of the cabballa and magic,’ which lay at the root of all medical and natural laws. He undertook to cure all diseases by the use of certain words and charms. He enjoined secresy on his disciples, and certainly was the first _great quack_ from whom the numerous band of Charlatans have proceeded.” He has left his mantle behind him, and his descendants, with none of his brains, have largely inherited his presumption. On the occasion of his inauguration in the Chair of Medicine, he thus expresses himself:— “Know,” says he, “that my _cap_ has more learning than all your professors, and my beard more experience than all your academies! I speak to you Greeks, Latins, Frenchmen, Italians, &c. &c. _You_ will follow _me_, _I_ shall not follow _you_. You, I say, doctors of Paris, Montpellier, Dalmatia, of Athens; you Jews, Arabs, Spaniards, English, I tell you all that nature obeys me; and if God does not deign to assist, I have yet the devil to resort to. I am king of all science, and command all the hosts of hell.” We have in this impostor the very embodiment of the true quacks of to-day; their language is indeed a little subdued, but their pretensions are as large; and, let me add, that whereas Paracelsus, in his days, had the countenance and support of many persons of rank, so in ours, there does not exist an ignorant pretender without the patronage of the great, and this patronage, too often, in the exact ratio of his presumption and falsehood. It must not be overlooked that this arch imposter died miserably, in poverty, induced by dissipation, and the possessor of the “elixir of immortality” breathed out his drunken soul at the age of fifty. We have a lively picture of the state of things begotten of this man in the pages of Burton, an example in himself of the power of credulity, and a proof that great scholastic learning was by no means at variance with the wild vagaries of the times. He appears not unconscious of his peculiarities, and offers the following apology for his frequent reference to callings other than his own:—