Alchemical Writings (Stone of Philosophers)

degraded an otherwise great name; finally, as a pretended transmuter of metals An alchemist who claims to turn lead or base metals into gold, who was only too leniently treated by the emperor whom he deceived Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, who patronized Kelly in Prague and later imprisoned him when the promised gold was not produced. For example, the astrologer depicted by Hudibras Hudibras is a famous 17th-century satirical poem by Samuel Butler that mocked the religious and intellectual pretensions of the era had read

“Dee's prefaces before
The Devil, and Euclid o'er and o'er, John Dee wrote a highly influential mathematical preface to the first English translation of Euclid’s Elements in 1570
And all th’ intrigues 'twixt him and Kelly,
Laski Albert Łaski, a Polish nobleman who brought Dee and Kelly to Europe and th' Emperour would tell ye.”

But to Doctor Dee, at least, this is demonstrably unjust. This is the verdict of posterity in so far as it has concerned itself with the subject; it is the verdict of the biographical dictionaries, who have faithfully transcribed from one another, after the easy method which prevails with biographical dictionaries when they deal with magicians and seers, with alchemists and other professors of mystic physicsThe study of natural phenomena through spiritual or occult frameworks, common before the modern separation of science and religion, as, generally, with all the oracles of the borderland; and, in so far as it concerns itself with borderlands, unerudite public opinion has been led by the erudite ignorance of the dictionaries.