, then upon common
mercury--but all in vain.

However, our Bernard was still in the flower of his age--he was only
forty-six: nothing for a philosopher. He began to travel, with the
view of collecting wisdom in his way; and at length fell in with
Maitre Geoffrey Leuvrier, a Cistercian monk, a man after his own
heart. These congenial companions set to work at first upon hens'
eggs, calcining even the shells; till at the end of eight laborious
years, devoted to these and other substances, they had acquired the
skill of at least preparing in an artistic manner the furnaces used in
their operations. After this, he attached himself to another
theological friend, who was prothonotary of Berghes, in Flanders; and
with him he worked during fourteen months in distilling copperas with
vinegar. But the result of the experiments was nothing better than a
quartan-ague.

When Bernard began to get better, the interesting intelligence came to
his ears, that Maitre Henry, confessor of the Emperor Ferdinand III.,
possessed the secret of the philosopher's stone. Our adept, therefore,
set out at once for Germany, and by means of the good offices of
friends, and the liberal expenditure of money, obtained an
introduction to the fortunate man. With him he set to work with a good
heart; but after rectifying and dissolving till they were tired, he
found that he had only succeeded in melting away 300 crowns more of
his wealth. The thing grew serious. He was now fifty-eight. He could
afford to dally no longer: it was necessary to find the secret of the
hermetic science at once, or give up the search. Trevisan pondered
over his critical position for two entire months; but at the end of
that time a ray of hope flashed across the gloom of his meditations.
The nature of the hope we do not know; we can only tell what was the
course of action on which it determined him. He arose suddenly from
his depression, and, girding up his loins, began to travel. He went
first to Rome; then to Spain; then to Turkey; then to Greece. He
passed into Egypt; then into Barbary; then visited Rhodes; and then
traversed a portion of Palestine and Persia. He then returned to
France, by way of Messina, and visited England, Scotland, and finally
Germany. Wherever he went, it was the same thing. The phantom he
followed fled as he pursued; and alike in the heart of London, and in
the deserts of the Holy Land, he saw appearing, and then vanishing, in
the distance--

Th