he _Roman de la Rose_. He also wrote three treatises
upon natural philosophy, and an alchymic allegory, entitled _Le Desir
desire_. Specimens of his writing, and a fac-simile of the drawings in his
book of Abraham, may be seen in Salmon's _Bibliotheque 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 boundless wealth to some designing tyrant, who would make use
of it to enslave his country. This alarm appears to have soon subsided;
for, in the year 1455, King Henry VI., by advice of his council and
parliament, granted four successive patents and commissions to several
knights, citizens of London, chemists, monks, mass-priests, and others, to
find out the philosopher's stone and elixir, "to the great benefit," said
the patent, "of the realm, and the enabling of the king to pay all the
debts of the crown in real gold and silver." Prinn, in his _Aurum Reginae_,
observes, as a note to this passage, that the king's reason for granting
this patent to ecclesiastics was, that "they were such good artists in
transubstantiating bread and wine in the eucharist, and therefore the more
likely to be able to effect the transmut