this means we shall all
have as much gold as we desire. I am assured of the aid of the angelic
hosts, and more especially of the archangel Michael's. When I began to
walk in the way of the spirit, I had a vision of the night, and was
assured by an angelic voice that I should become a prophet. In sign of it
I saw a palm-tree, surrounded with all the glory of paradise. The angels
come to me whenever I call, and reveal to me all the secrets of the
universe. The sylphs and elementary spirits obey me, and fly to the
uttermost ends of the world to serve me, and those whom I delight to
honour." By force of continually repeating such stories as these, Borri
soon found himself at the head of a very considerable number of adherents.
As he figures in these pages as an alchymist, and not as a religious
sectarian, it will be unnecessary to repeat the doctrines which he taught
with regard to some of the dogmas of the Church of Rome, and which exposed
him to the fierce resentment of the papal authority. They were to the full
as ridiculous as his philosophical pretensions. As the number of his
followers increased, he appears to have cherished the idea of becoming one
day a new Mahomet, and of founding, in his native city of Milan, a
monarchy and religion of which he should be the king and the prophet. He
had taken measures, in the year 1658, for seizing the guards at all the
gates of that city, and formally declaring himself the monarch of the
Milanese. Just as he thought the plan ripe for execution, it was
discovered. Twenty of his followers were arrested, and he himself managed,
with the utmost difficulty, to escape to the neutral territory of
Switzerland, where the papal displeasure could not reach him.

The trial of his followers commenced forthwith, and the whole of them were
sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. Borri's trial proceeded in his
absence, and lasted for upwards of two years. He was condemned to death as
a heretic and sorcerer in 1661, and was burned in effigy in Rome by the
common hangman.

Borri, in the mean time, lived quietly in Switzerland, indulging himself
in railing at the Inquisition and its proceedings. He afterwards went to
Strasbourg, intending to fix his residence in that town. He was received
with great cordiality, as a man persecuted for his religious opinions, and
withal a great alchymist. He found that sphere too narrow for his aspiring
genius, and retired in the same year to the more wealthy c