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mons would be but to tire you; I must not omit to name, however, that of the great Paracelsus; he corrected me, and begged I would call him by the name he was proud to be known by,—“Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastes Paracelsus.” He said he agreed with many of Roger Bacon’s ideas; was, moreover, convinced that that glorious Elixir, which would prolong life indefinitely, had been discovered by him; “but,” he added, passing his hands over his brow, thoughtfully, “I procrastinated. I made the same mistake Roger Bacon made, I did not drink of the Elixir in time, and so died before I could reap the benefit of my discovery. I should have rejoiced to have been your guest at a meeting of the Sette of ‘Odd Volumes’ one night. By the bye,” he resumed, “there is a very good article on Alchemy in the Encyclopædia Britannica (1879); in this the writer says of me: ‘His work, like his genius, oscillates perpetually between magic and science; but what has not been sufficiently