The lives of the adepts in alchemystical philosophy

BACON.

ROGER BACON was the first Englishman who is known to have cultivated alchemical philosophy. He was of that superior and penetrating genius, that acquires a science, and fathoms it to the bottom, until its main principles are demonstrated. He was acquainted with theology in its depth, and nothing was strange to him, not only in such necessary sciences, as medicine and physic, but even of those which being only of curiosity, were almost unknown in his time. Mathematics, geometry, mechanics, perspective and optics, were his occupation and delight. He penetrated into chemistry almost as far as any have done after him.

This learned man was born in 1214, near Ilcester, in Somerset. He made extraordinary progress in the preliminary studies, and when his age permitted, he entered into the order of St. Francis; this was the custom of the times. After his first studies at Oxford, he went to Paris, where he learned mathematics and medicine; and at his return, he applied himself to languages and philosophy, in which he made such progress, that he wrote three grammars, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He understood perfectly, and even explained the nature of optic glasses, upon which he wrote a very curious treatise, and shewed their force in burning combustibles at a considerable distance.

We see, by what he wrote on perspective, his extensive knowledge of optics, in all its branches. He speaks solidly of the reflection and refraction of light. He describes the camera obscura dark chamber; a device that projects an image of its surroundings onto a screen, and all sorts of glasses that augment or diminish objects, in approaching them, or removing them from the eye.

He has even known the use of the optic tube, or telescope, which is supposed a modern invention. Bacon was almost the only astronomer of his time; he remarked a considerable error with regard to the solar year, which had encreased from the time of the Julian reformation. Bacon proposed a plan for correcting it in 1267, to Pope Clement IV. who, though skilful, did not put it in practice. But it was on the same plan, three centuries after, that the Calendar was corrected by order of Pope Gregory.

The penetration and the activity of Bacon did not rest in these sciences; he turned to mechanism, and searched into its principles to the bottom; and as Archytas a Greek philosopher and mathematician from the 4th century BCE made a wooden pidgeon to fly, so he, it is said, contrived a machine to rise in the air, and convey a chariot more speedily, than if drawn by horses. He knew the art of putting statues in motion, and to draw articulate sounds from a head of brass a legendary automaton capable of answering questions, often attributed to medieval scholars. In chemistry he discovered the properties of gun-powder; he described the matter of which it is

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composed, and the extraordinary effects it produces. So many inventions from one man would be incredible, if his own writings did not attest them.

Should we be surprized, if all these prodigies obtained for him the name of magician, in an age of ignorance and superstition. Even the friars of his own order refused to let his works into their library, as if he was a man who ought to be proscribed by society. His persecution encreased, till, in 1278, he was imprisoned, and this philosopher was obliged to own that he repented of the pains he took in arts and sciences. He was constrained to abandon the house of his order, and to form a retreat where he might work in quiet. This house is shewn to every curious visitor of Oxford to this day.

He died in 1292, aged 78. We have few of this great man’s works printed; but the libraries in England preserve several in manuscript.

RAYMOND LULLY.

AMONG the philosophers, few have made so much noise as Raymond Lully. His story, family, person, and learning, make him a sort of prodigy. Of an illustrious house, originally of Catalonia, he entered the army, after the example of his father, who served under James I. King of Arragon, in 1230, at the taking of Majorca and Minorca from the Saracens, where, partly by purchase, and partly by the gift of the King, he possessed considerable estates.

His son Raymond was born in 1235, and as it was not customary for the nobility to be studious; Raymond, after a short course of education, was satisfied to follow the court of King James II. who made him Seneschal a high-ranking administrative official in a royal household of the Isles, and Grand Prevot Grand Provost or chief magistrate of the Palace. Two male children, and one girl that he had by an advantageous marriage, did not at all fix his affections. He cast his eyes upon a lady, whose least qualification was extreme beauty, superior to all the rest of the court. He was assiduous about her person, who was the object of his desires. He solicited, he wrote billet-doux love letters and verses, but made no progress. The Signora Ambrosia Eleonora de Castello, for that was the name of the virtuous lady, tired, with the assiduity of a lover who was so importunate, sought to cure him by coldness, which, far from rebuking Raymond, served only to inflame his ardour. At last, this impassioned courtier having sent her a piece of