REPRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD CLAY (THE CHAUCER PRESS) LTD., BUNGAY, SUFFOLK
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Frederick James Furnivall
The odd account of the origin of this Treatise—in its first lines—caught my eye as I was turning over the leaves of the Sloane Manuscript which contains it. I resolved to print it as a specimen of the curious fancies our forefathers believed in (as I suppose) in Natural Science, to go alongside of the equally curious notions they put faith in in matters religious. And this I determined on with no idea of scoffing, or pride in modern wisdom; for I believe that as great fallacies now prevail in both the great branches of knowledge and feeling mentioned, as ever were held by man. Because once held by other men, and specially by older Englishmen, these fancies and notions have, or should have, an interest for all of us; and in this belief, one of them is presented here.
The loss of my sweet, bright, only child, Eena, and other distress, have prevented my getting up any cram on the subject of Quintessence to form a regular Preface. The (translated?) original of the text is attributed to Hermes—Trismegistus, “or the thrice great Interpreter,” so called as “having three parts of the Philosophy of the whole world”1—to whom were credited more works than he wrote. The tract appears to be a great fuss about Alcohol or Spirits of Wine; how to make it, and get more or less tipsy on it, and what wonders it will work, from making old men young, and dying men well, to killing lice.
The reading of the proof with the MS. was done by Mr. Edmund Brock, the Society’s most careful and able helper. To Mr. Cockayne I am indebted for the identification of some names of plants, &c.; and to Mr. Gill of University College, London, for some Notes on the Chemistry of the treatise, made at the request of my friend Mr. Moreshwar Atmaram.2 The Sloane MS. I judge to be about, but after, a.d.3 The later copy (Harleian MS. 853, fol. 66) seems late 16th century or early 17th,3 and has been only collated for a few passages which require elucidation. The pause marks of the MS. and text require to be disregarded occasionally in reading.
Egham, 16th May, 1866.
P.S. The short side-notes in inverted commas on and after p. 16 (save ‘5 Me’ and the like) are by a later hand in the MS. The ‘Spheres’ on p. 26, and the ‘Contents,’ p. vii-viii, are now added.—F. 1889.
Source notes
1.The Mirror of Alchimy, composed by the thrice-famous and learned Fryer, Roger Bachon, 1597.
2. Mr. M.A. Tarkhad has been for many years Vice-Principal of the Rajkumar College, for the sons of the native Chiefs of Rajkote.—1889.
3. Mr. E.A. Bond of the British Museum has kindly looked at the MSS., and puts the Sloane at 1460-70 a.d., and the Harleian at about 1600.