to all the dissipated young men at the French court.
Among the works written by Nicholas Flamel on the subject of alchymy is The Philosophic Summary, a poem, reprinted in 1735, as an appendix to the third volume of the Roman de la Rose. He also wrote three treatises upon natural philosophy, and an alchymic allegory, entitled Le Désir désiré. Specimens of his writing, and a fac-simile of the drawings in his book of Abraham, may be seen in Salmon’s Bibliothèque des Philosophes Chimiques. The writer of the article Flamel in the Biographie Universelle says, that for a hundred years after the death of Flamel, many of the adepts believed that he was still alive, and that he would live for upwards of six hundred years. The house he formerly occupied, at the corner of the Rue de Marivaux, has been often taken by credulous speculators, and ransacked from top to bottom, in the hopes that gold might be found. A report was current in Paris, not long previous to the year 1816, that some lodgers had found in the cellars several jars filled with a dark-coloured ponderous matter. Upon the strength of the rumour, a believer in all the wondrous tales told of Nicholas Flamel bought the house, and nearly pulled it to pieces in ransacking the walls and wainscoting for hidden gold. He got nothing for his pains, however, and had a heavy bill to pay to restore his dilapidations.
George Ripley.
While alchymy was thus cultivated on the continent of Europe, it was not neglected in the isles of Britain. Since the time of Roger Bacon, it had fascinated the imagination of many ardent men in England. In the year 1404 an act of parliament was passed declaring the making of gold and silver to be felony. Great alarm was felt at that time lest any alchymist should succeed in his projects, and perhaps bring ruin upon the state by furnishing