iamonds, of the
value of one hundred thousand rix-dollars. With this booty he decamped,
leaving Sendivogius still naked and firmly bound to the pillar. His
servants had been treated in a similar manner; but the people of the inn
released them all as soon as the robbers were out of sight.

Sendivogius proceeded to Prague, and made his complaint to the emperor. An
express was instantly sent off to the prince, with orders that he should
deliver up Muhlenfels and all his plunder. The prince, fearful of the
emperor's wrath, caused three large gallows to be erected in his
court-yard; on the highest of which he hanged Muhlenfels, with another
thief on each side of him. He thus propitiated the emperor, and got rid of
an ugly witness against himself. He sent back, at the same time, the
bejewelled hat, the medal and chain, and the treatise upon the
philosopher's stone, which had been stolen from Sendivogius. As regarded
the powder, he said he had not seen it, and knew nothing about it.

This adventure made Sendivogius more prudent; he would no longer perform
the process of transmutation before any strangers, however highly
recommended. He pretended also to be very poor; and sometimes lay in bed
for weeks together, that people might believe he was suffering from some
dangerous malady, and could not therefore, by any possibility, be the
owner of the philosopher's stone. He would occasionally coin false money,
and pass it off as gold; preferring to be esteemed a cheat rather than a
successful alchymist.

Many other extraordinary tales are told of this personage by his steward
Brodowski, but they are not worth repeating. He died in 1636, aged upwards
of eighty, and was buried in his own chapel at Gravarna. Several works
upon alchymy have been published under his name.

THE ROSICRUCIANS.

It was during the time of the last-mentioned author that the sect of the
Rosicrucians first began to create a sensation in Europe. The influence
which they exercised upon opinion during their brief career, and the
permanent impression which they have left upon European literature, claim
for them especial notice. Before their time, alchymy was but a grovelling
delusion; and theirs is the merit of having spiritualised and refined it.
They also enlarged its sphere, and supposed the possession of the
philosopher's stone to be, not only the means of wealth, but of health and
happiness, and the instrument by which man could command the services of
s