“And now laugh forever at magic! when these, the very tricks, the very sports and frivolities of science, were the very acts which men viewed with abhorrence, and inquisitors and kings rewarded with the rack and the stake.” “But the alchemist’s transmutation of metals--” “Nature herself is a laboratory in which metals, and all elements, are forever at change. Easy to make gold,--easier, more commodious, and cheaper still, to make the pearl, the diamond, and the ruby. Oh, yes; wise men found sorcery in this too; but they found no sorcery in the discovery that by the simplest combination of things of every-day use they could raise a devil that would sweep away thousands of their kind by the breath of consuming fire. Discover what will destroy life, and you are a great man!--what will prolong it, and you are an imposter! Discover some invention in machinery that will make the rich more rich and the poor more poor, and they will build you a statue! Discover some mystery in art that will equalise physical disparities, and they will pull down their own houses to stone you! Ha, ha, my pupil! such is the world Zanoni still cares for!--you and I will leave this world to itself. And now that you have seen some few of the effects of science, begin to learn its grammar.” Mejnour then set before his pupil certain tasks, in which the rest of the night wore itself away. CHAPTER 4.V. Great travell hath the gentle Calidore And toyle endured... There on a day,--He chaunst to spy a sort of shepheard groomes, Playing on pipes and caroling apace. ...He, there besyde Saw a faire damzell. --Spenser, “Faerie Queene,” cant. ix.