prevails to the extent indicated in this petition.

Different ages of the world have had their peculiar delusions.
Alchemy occupied the attention of eminent men for several centuries;
but there was something sublime in alchemy. The philosopher's stone,
or the transmutation of base metals into gold, the _elixir vitae_, or
'water of life' which would preserve youth and beauty, and prevent
old age, decay and death, were blessings which poor humanity ardently
desired, and which alchemy sought to discover by perseverance and
piety, Roger Bacon, one of the greatests alchemists and greatest men
of the thirteenth century, while searching for the philosopher's
stone, discovered the telescope, burning glasses, and gunpowder. The
prosecution of that delusion led, therefore, to a number of useful
discoveries. In the sixteenth century flourished Cornelius Agrippa,
alchemist, astrologer, and magician, one of the greatest professors
of hermetic philosophy that ever lived. He had all the spirits of the
air and demons of the earth under his command. Paulus Jovious says
that the devil, in the shape of a large black dog, attended Agrippa
wherever he went. Thomas Nash says, at the request of Lord Surrey,
Erasmus, and other learned men, Agrippa called up from the grave,
several of the great philosophers of antiquity, among others, Sully,
whom he caused to deliver his celebrated oration for Roscius, to
please the emperor, Charles IV. He summoned David and King Solomon
from the tomb, and the Emperor conversed with them long upon the
science of government. This was a glorious exhibition of spiritual
power, compared with the insignificant manifestations of the present
day. I will pass over the celebrated Paracelsus, for the purpose of
making allusion to an Englishman, with whose veracious history every
one ought to make himself acquainted. In the sixteenth century, Dr.
Dee made such progress in the talismanic mysteries, that he acquired
ample power to hold familiar conversation with spirits and angels,
and to learn from them all the secrets of the universe. On the
occasion, the angel Uriel gave him a black crystal of a convex form,
which he had only to gaze upon intently, and by a strange effort of
the will, he could summon any spirit he wished, to reveal to him the
secrets of