ne, and the other on the art of prolonging human
life. In the latter he vaunts his great qualifications for instructing
mankind on such a matter, as he was at that time in the thousand and
twenty-fifth year of his age! He had many disciples who believed in his
extreme age, and who attempted to prove that he was Apollonius of Tyana,
who lived soon after the advent of Jesus Christ, and the particulars of
whose life and pretended miracles have been so fully described by
Philostratus. He took good care never to contradict a story which so much
increased the power he was desirous of wielding over his fellow-mortals.
On all convenient occasions, he boasted of it; and having an excellent
memory, a fertile imagination, and a thorough knowledge of all existing
history, he was never at a loss for an answer when questioned as to the
personal appearance, the manners, or the character of the great men of
antiquity. He also pretended to have found the philosopher's stone; and
said that, in search of it, he had descended to hell, and seen the devil
sitting on a throne of gold, with a legion of imps and fiends around him.
His works on alchymy have been translated into French, and were published
in Paris in 1609 or 1610.

ALAIN DE LISLE.

Contemporary with Albertus Magnus was Alain de Lisle of Flanders, who was
named, from his great learning, the "universal doctor." He was thought to
possess a knowledge of all the sciences, and, like Artephius, to have
discovered the _elixir vitae_. He became one of the friars of the abbey of
Citeaux, and died in 1298, aged about one hundred and ten years. It was
said of him that he was at the point of death when in his fiftieth year,
but that the fortunate discovery of the elixir enabled him to add sixty
years to his existence. He wrote a commentary on the prophecies of Merlin.

ARNOLD DE VILLENEUVE.

This philosopher has left a much greater reputation. He was born in the
year 1245, and studied medicine with great success in the university of
Paris. He afterwards travelled for twenty years in Italy and Germany,
where he made acquaintance with Pietro d'Apone, a man of a character akin
to his own, and addicted to the same pursuits. As a physician, he was
thought, in his own lifetime, to be the most able the world had ever seen.
Like all the learned men of that day, he dabbled in astrology and alchymy,
and was thought to have made immense quantities of gold from lead and
copper. When Pietro d'Apone