“Waters rubifying and bulle’s gall, Arsenic, sal-ammoniac, and brimstone, And herbs could I tell eke many a one, As egremonie, valerian, and lunary; And other such if that me list to tarry, Our lampes burning both night and day, To bring about our craft if that we may, Our furnace eke of calcination, And of waters albification”. Egremonoine or agrimony, commonly called liverwort, was used in early medical practice as an astringent tonic, lunary or moonwort (_Botrychium Lunaria_) being possessed of similar medicinal properties:— “Clay made with horse and mannes hair, and oil Of tartar. Alum, glass, barm, wort, and argoil, Rosalgar and other matters imbibing, And eke of our matters encorporing; And of our silver citrination, Our cementing and fermentation, Our ingots, tests, and many things mo’.” Among the other strange articles named, argoil was the potters’ clay used as a luting to close the joints, seal the flasks, and exclude the air. Rosalgar was the ancient name for flowers of antimony, much esteemed by the philosophers. The term citrination refers to the yellow colour, which, when it occurred through chemical action, proved the philosopher’s stone. We next have the alchemist’s creed, and the fundamental principles of the old philosophy:— “I will tell you as was one taught also, The foure spirits and the bodies seven. By order as oft I heard my lord them neven, The first spirit quicksilver called is; The second orpiment, the third y-wis Sal-ammoniac, and the fourth brimstone, The bodies sion eke lo them here anon; Sol gold is, and Luna silver was threpe, Mars iron, Mercury quicksilver, we clepe. Saturnus is lead, and Jupiter is tin, And Venus copper by my father’s kin.” The metallic bodies were described in the works of alchemists by the planet under whose influence they were supposed to operate, and known by the alchemical symbol of that planet. Thus gold is called Sol, represented by the symbol ☉, and copper is termed Venus, represented by the symbol ♀. It appears to have been a custom of the apothecaries from very early times to fill bottles with coloured solutions which were marked with these symbols; thus, a bottle containing a yellow solution signifying gold would be marked ☉, and a red one would be marked ♂, signifying iron. These gradually became a kind of trade sign, and are probably the origin of the coloured globes used as the insignia of the pharmacist or compounder of medicines at the present time. CHAPTER II. SHAKESPEARE. The bard of Avon, in the wide and general knowledge he displays of the manners, ways, and customs of his own and other countries in his plays, makes many allusions to drugs and herbs, and their use. In his references to drugs, there is none perhaps on which greater difference of opinion exists than that alluded to in the speech of the Ghost in _Hamlet_, in which the apparition says:—