e it was possible to lengthen out his life to the period
of the patriarchs." And when his death was announced to the world, the
Abbe Picot, an ardent disciple, for a long time would not believe it
possible; and at length insisted, that if it had occurred, it must have
been owing to some mistake of the philosopher's.

The late Holcroft, Loutherbourg, and Cosway, imagined that they should
escape the vulgar era of scriptural life by reorganizing their old
bones, and moistening their dry marrow; their new principles of vitality
were supposed by them to be found in the powers of the mind; this seemed
more reasonable, but proved to be as little efficacious as those other
philosophers, who imagine they have detected the hidden principle of
life in the eels frisking in vinegar, and allude to "the bookbinder who
creates the book-worm!"

Paracelsus has revealed to us one of the grandest secrets of nature.
When the world began to dispute on the very existence of the elementary
folk, it was then that he boldly offered to give birth to a fairy, and
has sent down to posterity the recipe. He describes the impurity which
is to be transmuted into such purity, the gross elements of a delicate
fairy, which, fixed in a phial, placed in fuming dung, will in due time
settle into a full-grown fairy, bursting through its vitreous prison--on
the vivifying principle by which the ancient Egyptians hatched their
eggs in ovens. I recollect, at Dr. Farmer's sale, the leaf which
preserved this recipe for making a fairy, forcibly folded down by the
learned commentator; from which we must infer the credit he gave to the
experiment. There was a greatness of mind in Paracelsus, who, having
furnished a recipe to make a fairy, had the delicacy to refrain from its
formation. Even Baptista Porta, one of the most enlightened
philosophers, does not deny the possibility of engendering creatures
which, "at their full growth, shall not exceed the size of a mouse;" but
he adds, "they are only pretty little dogs to play with." Were these
akin to the fairies of Paracelsus?[202]

They were well convinced of the existence of such elemental beings;
frequent accidents in mines showed the potency of the metallic spirits,
which so tormented the workmen in some of the German mines by blindness,
giddiness, and sudden sickness, that they have been obliged to abandon
mines well known to be rich in silver. A metallic spirit at one sweep
annihilated twelve miners, who were al