The Chemical Basilica or Alchemical Royal Jewel

overlooked, in which such a vast multitude of false and gallows-deserving gold-makers charlatans who used sleight of hand or base alloys to trick people into believing they could create gold, boiler-smelters, vagabonds, idle village priests, and corrupt goldsmiths and apothecaries are to be found. These might misuse this Translation of mine to the harm and deceit of many people and for their own malicious profit, rummaging through it like pigs in a beggar’s sack and rooting around with their filthy snouts. According to many people’s opinion, I have given great occasion and cause for all of this.

But just as our Author himself very finely excuses himself—noting that, just as one is protected from the common, evil, and unworthy rabble regarding revealed Theological mysteries by mingling in Philosophical ones very aptly (in words that are brief, yet understandable to the wise), there is nothing at all to fear. This is because they [the unworthy] do not possess the Spirit of Wisdom and cannot grasp it due to their coarse understanding. Just so, he says, these Chemical Secrets original: Chymische Arcana; refers to hidden medicinal or alchemical formulas will remain unexplored by the lazy, untrained, and ignorant despisers.

Therefore, favorable and trusted reader, I also live in the complete and undoubting hope that the aforementioned scoundrels and unscrupulous swindlers will find, in every Recipe original: Recept and Secret within this Translation of ours, more than enough that will not enter or be contained within their stupid donkey-heads.

The greatest and primary reason, however, why I have taken such trouble upon myself and had this translation produced—not without great expense—is chiefly because I have been credibly informed on various occasions not only that other foreign booksellers were entertaining these same thoughts, but some of them even revealed such intentions to me in writing and desired to know if it could be done with my permission.

Therefore, since I saw that even if I [prevented] such an interpretation original: Dollmetschung; a translation or explanation from one language to another