e manuscript was produced. What was his
astonishment, when he beheld before him the lost Bourbon manuscript, so
long sought for in vain! He immediately became its purchaser; and
whatever secret history belongs to the volume, connected with the time
when it was invisible, it is now one of the most treasured realities in
the magnificent library at Orleans House.

In the illuminated pages of many of these old manuscripts there lurks
much more, doubtless, than meets the eye. Thus, that famous poem of the
Middle Ages, the "Romance of the Rose," has passed for a mere fanciful
allegory, or love-story. Splendidly illuminated copies of this Romance
are well known. The British Museum possesses one, which Dibdin calls
"the cream of the Harleian Collection": it is in folio, and replete with
embellishments. He also mentions another copy, at that time belonging to
Mr. North, the frontispiece of which represents Francis I. surrounded by
his courtiers, receiving a copy from the author. Only the visible of the
illuminated volume was probably opened to the eyes of Francis, or even
of Dibdin. A later student pronounces the Romance to be a complete
specimen of Hermetic Philosophy, concealing great truths under its
allegory,--the Rose being the symbol of philosophic gold.

Such is the view taken of this Romance by our distinguished
fellow-countryman, Major-General Hitchcock, who found time, in the
interval between two wars, to collect and study three hundred volumes of
Hermetic Philosophy, coming forth therefrom as a champion in defence of
a much misunderstood class. This ingenious work, entitled "Alchemy and
the Alchemists," published in 1857, was written to prove that the
alchemists were not foolish seekers for sordid gold, nor vain believers
in the elixir of life, but philosophers of deep thought and high aims,
who, in days when a man dared not say his soul was his own, veiled in
mystic language, perfectly understood by each other, theological and
philosophical truths, theories, and discoveries, which would have
brought them to the stake or the rack, had they been produced openly.
"Man was the subject of alchemy, and the object of the art was the
perfection, or at least the improvement, of man." These were the _real_
Hermetic Philosophers. After them came men who, not knowing the meaning
of the symbolic language which concealed the spiritual truths, took the
written word in a literal sense, and went to work with crucibles and
retorts, s