Wherefore indeed should he have died by any natural means who so well understood the mysteries of life and of death. What, says he, is life? _Nihil meherclè vita est aliud, nisi Mumia quædam Balsamita conservans mortale corpus à mortalibus vermibus, et eschara cum impressâ liquoris salium commisturâ._ What is Death? _Nihil certe aliud quam Balsami dominium, Mumiæ interitus, salium ultima materia._ Do you understand this, Reader? If you do, I do not. But he is intelligible when he tells us that Life may be likened to Fire, and that all we want is to discover the fuel for keeping it up,—the true Lignum Vitæ. It is not against nature, he contends, that we should live till the renovation of all things; it is only against our knowledge, and beyond it. But there are medicaments for prolonging life; and none but the foolish or the ignorant would ask why then is it that Princes and Kings who can afford to purchase them, die nevertheless like other people. The reason says the great Bombast von Hohenheim is that their physicians know less about medicine than the very boors, and moreover that Princes and Kings lead dissolute lives. And if it be asked why no one except Hermes Trismegistus has used such medicaments; he replies that others have used them, but have not let it be known. Van Helmont was once of opinion that no metallic preparation could contain in itself the blessing of the Tree of Life, though that the Philosopher's stone had been discovered was a fact that consisted with his own sure knowledge. This opinion however was in part changed, in consequence of some experiments made with an aurific powder, given him by a stranger after a single evening's acquaintance; _(vir peregrinus, unius vesperi amicus:)_ these experiments convinced him that the stone partook of what he calls Zoophyte life, as distinguished both from vegetative and sensitive. But the true secret he thought, must be derived from the vegetable world, and he sought for it in the Cedar, induced, as it seems, by the frequent mention of that tree in the Old Testament. He says much concerning the cedar,—among other things, that when all other plants were destroyed by the Deluge, and their kinds preserved only in their seed, the Cedars of Lebanon remained uninjured under the waters. However when he comes to the main point, he makes a full stop, saying, _Cætera autem quæ de Cedro sunt, mecum sepelientur: nam mundus non capax est._ It is not unlikely that if his mysticism had been expressed in the language of intelligible speculation, it might have been found to accord with some of Berkeley's theories in the _Siris_. But for his reticence upon this subject, as if the world were not worthy of his discoveries, he ought to have been deprived of his two remaining talents. Five he tells us he had received for his portion, but because instead of improving them, he had shown himself unworthy of so large a trust, he by whom they were given had taken