pts. It will be seen that the infatuation
increased rather than diminished as the world grew older.

AUGURELLO.

Among the alchymists who were born in the fifteenth, and distinguished
themselves in the sixteenth century, the first in point of date is John
Aurelio Augurello. He was born at Rimini in 1441, and became professor of
the _belles lettres_ at Venice and Trevisa. He was early convinced of the
truth of the hermetic science, and used to pray to God that he might be
happy enough to discover the philosopher's stone. He was continually
surrounded by the paraphernalia of chemistry, and expended all his wealth
in the purchase of drugs and metals. He was also a poet, but of less merit
than pretensions. His _Chrysopeia_, in which he pretended to teach the art
of making gold, he dedicated to Pope Leo X., in the hope that the pontiff
would reward him handsomely for the compliment; but the pope was too good
a judge of poetry to be pleased with the worse than mediocrity of his
poem, and too good a philosopher to approve of the strange doctrines which
it inculcated; he was, therefore, far from gratified at the dedication. It
is said, that when Augurello applied to him for a reward, the pope, with
great ceremony and much apparent kindness and cordiality, drew an empty
purse from his pocket, and presented it to the alchymist, saying, that
since he was able to make gold, the most appropriate present that could be
made him, was a purse to put it in. This scurvy reward was all that the
poor alchymist ever got either for his poetry or his alchymy. He died in a
state of extreme poverty, in the eighty-third year of his age.

CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.

This alchymist has left a distinguished reputation. The most
extraordinary tales were told and believed of his powers. He could turn
iron into gold by his mere word. All the spirits of the air and demons of
the earth were under his command, and bound to obey him in everything. He
could raise from the dead the forms of the great men of other days, and
make them appear, "in their habit as they lived," to the gaze of the
curious who had courage enough to abide their presence.

[Illustration: CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.]

He was born at Cologne in 1486, and began at an early age the study of
chemistry and philosophy. By some means or other, which have never been
very clearly explained, he managed to impress his contemporaries with a
great idea of his wonderful attainments. At the early age of twe