reveal it but in metaphor. I, being moved with pity, will hint it to you. Take that which is not yet perfect, nor yet wholly imperfect, but in a way to perfection, and out of it make what is most noble and most perfect. This you may conceive to be an easier receipt than to take that which is already perfect and extract out of it what is imperfect and make it perfect, and after out of that perfection to draw a _plusquam_ perfection; and yet this is true, and we have wrought it. But this last discovery which I hinted in few words is it which no man ever did so plainly lay open; nor may any make it more plain upon pain of an anathema.” All this was heathen Greek to Daniel, except the admonition which it contained. But Guy had meddled with this perilous pseudo-science, and used to talk with him concerning its theory, which Daniel soon comprehended, and which like many other theories wanted nothing but a foundation to rest upon. That every thing had its own seed as well as its own form seemed a reasonable position; and that the fermental virtue, “which is the wonder of the world, and by which water becomes herbs, trees and plants, fruits, flesh, blood, stones, minerals and every thing, works only in kind. Was it not then absurd to allow that the fermentive and multiplicative power existed in almost all other things, and yet deny it to Gold, the most perfect of all sublunary things?”—The secret lay in extracting from Gold its hidden seed. Ben Jonson has with his wonted ability presented the theory of this delusive art. His knavish Alchemist asks of an unbeliever