with other excellent Experiments. Divided into twelve Gates. First written by the learned and rare Philosopher of our Nation George Ripley, sometime Chanon of Bridlington in Yorkeshire and Dedicated to K. Edward the 4. Whereunto is adioyned his Epistle to the King, his Vision, his Wheele, and other his Workes, neuer before published: with certaine briefe Additions of other notable Writers concerning the same. Set foorth by Raph Rabbards Gentleman, studious and expert in Archemicall Artes.

Pulchrum pro Patria pati.

Loudon Imprinted by Thomas Orwin.

1591.
1591. 4to.

The Compound of Alchymy has been already noticed in our account of Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, 1652, 4to, where it is inserted among the poetical tracts printed on the Science of Alchemy. It was written in 1471, and is dedicated by Ripley to Edward IV. It is composed in seven-line stanzas, and not, according to Warton, in the octave metre. The title is in a compartment with termini at the sides, the Stationers' arms at the top, and the date on a tablet at the bottom. After which is an "Epistle Dedicatorie" by Rabbards "To the most High and Mightie Princesse Elizabeth, by the grace of God Queene of England, Fraunce, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith," &c.; the capital E at the commencement being what is termed a blooming letter, with Queen Elizabeth in the centre seated on the throne. Rabbard, in this epistle, is highly complimentary to the Queen, "whose piercing rays," says he, "hath since, like the Sunne beames, both dispersed all grosse mists and fogges of ignorance, error, and blinde superstition, and withall so comforted and nourished the plant of infallible truth of the Gospel (first taking roote in this Land in the short Raigne of the peerelesse Prince Edward the sixt your Maiesties Brother, of most rare expectation and famous memorie) as the same being now sprung up to a perfect tree of such full groath, that the branches thereof haue spread themselves long and wide manie waies ouer other Empires, Kingdomes and States, mauger the Diuell, the Pope, and King of Spaine, with all their fraternitie, consorts, leaguers, and adherents, or other their ministers, spreaders, and maintainers of lies; under the shelter and couert of which flourishing Palme, all true Christians have

VOL. V. PART I.

C C

been, are, and (I hope) long shall be (by the continuance of your Maiesties most bountifull and gracious especiall favour) protected and shrowded, from the burning heate of the sharpe persecutions of all malicious Enemies thereof: the which, God of his great mercie graunt." Rabbards also speaks "of the imprisonment, torments, and other hard usage he had met with for many years, and of the losse of many yeares spent unprofitably in a labyrinth of law suites and private contention with men of verie great abilitie, and better friended than myselfe, wherein now utterly wearyed, and worne out of heart, through the greatnes of my adversaries purse and friendes, I am now forced for want of abilitie, after ten yeares chargeable suite, to relinquish the same, and to returne to those my delectable studies and serviceable exercises again." This is followed by a Preface "To the Right Honourable, Worshipfull, and worthy Gentlemen of England, and other learned and industrious Students in the secrets of Philosophie," by commendatory verses in Latin by "Thomas Newtonus Cestreshyrius," and the divine poet Palingenius, and in English by J. D., gent., P. Bales, gent., and Sir E. K. (Edward Kelly), concerning the "Philosophers Stone," eight sixline stanzas; by "The Vision of Sir George Ripley, Chanon of Bridlington," twenty-four lines of verse; "Titulus Operis," sixteen lines; and by “A briefe note to the Readers," signed R. Rabbardes.

The poem is preceded by "The Prologue," thirteen stanzas, and "The Preface," twenty-nine stanzas. The twelve gates are: (1.) Of Calcination; (2.) Of Dissolution; (3.) Of Seperation; (4.) Of Coniunction; (5.) Of Putrifaction; (6.) Of Congelation; (7.) Of Cibation; (8.) Of Sublimation; (9.) Of Firmentation; (10.) Of Exaltation; (11.) Of Multiplication; (12.) Of Proiection. Then "A Recapitulation of the whole work," eleven stanzas; "An Admonition, wherein the author declareth his erronious experiments," fifteen stanzas; "The Epistle to King Edward 4," thirty octave stanzas; a woodcut of "George Ripley's Wheele mentioned in his Worke," with verses; and a short prose address "To the indifferent Reader," closes the volume.

We fear the poetry in this work will not interest our readers. It is harsh and rugged, and in parts hardly now intelligible, being written in the mysterious jargon of these enthusiastic seekers after the aurum potabile, with what success the few stanzas here given as a sample of the verse very amusingly declare. They are taken from the fifth Gate, "Of Putrifaction."

And be thou wise in choosing of the matter,

Meddle with no salts, sulphure, nor meane mineralls :

For whatsoeuer any worker to thee doth clatter,
Our Sulphur and our Mercury been onely in metalls,
Which oyles and waters some men them calls,
Foules and birds, with other names many one,
Because that fooles should neuer know our stone.

For of this world our stone is called the sement
Which moued by craft as nature doth require
In his encrease shall be full opulent,

And multiply his kinde after thine owne desire.
Therefore if God vouchsafe thee to inspire,

To know the truth, and fansies to eschew

Like vnto thee in riches shall be but few.

But many men be moou'd to worke after their fantasie,

In many subiects in which be tinctures gay:
Both white and red diuided manually

To sight, but in the fire they flye away:
Such breake pottes and glasses day by day.
Empoysoning themselues, and loosing their sights,
With odours, smoakes, and watching vp by nights.

Their clothes be baudy, and worne thread bere,
Men may them smell for multipliers where they goe,
To file their fingers with corosiues they doo not spare
Their eyes be blear'd, their cheekes leane and blowe,
And thus, for had I wist, they suffer losse and woe :
And such when they haue lost that was in their purse,
Then doo they chide, and Philosophers sore doo curse.
To see their houses, it is a noble sport,

What furnaces, what glasses there be of diuers shapes,
What salts, what powders, what oyles, waters fort,
How eloquently de Materia prima their tungs do clap,
And yet to find the truth they haue no hap:

Of our Mercurie they meddle, and of our Sulphure viue,
Wherein they dote, and more and more vnthriue.
For all the while they haue Philosophers bene,
Yet could they neuer know what was our Stone,
Some sought it in dung, in vrine, some in wine,
Some in starre slyme (for thing it is but one)
In blood, in egges: some till their thrift was gone,
Diuiding Elements and breaking manie a pot,

Sheards multiplying, but yet they hit it not.

Where is my money become, saith one?
And where is mine, saith he and he?
But will you heare how subtill they be anone
In answering, that they excused be?
Saying, of our Elixers robbed we be,

Erse might we haue paid you all your golde,
Though it had been more by tenne folde.

And then their Creditors they flatter so,
Promising to worke for them againe
In right short space the Elixers two,
Doting the Merchants that they be faine
To let them goe, but euer in vaine;
They worke so long, till at the last,
They be againe in prison cast.

If any them aske, why they be not ritch?

They say, they can make fine golde of tinne,

But he (say they) may surely swimme the ditch,
Which is vpholden by the chinne;

We haue no stock, therefore may we not winne,
Which if we had, we would soone werck

Inough to finish vp Westminster Kerck.

Westminster Abbey, the rebuilding of which had been commenced by Henry III., and had been carried on slowly by succeeding princes, was still unfinished in Edward the Fourth's time. The great tower and other parts were not completed till after the Reformation; and it is to the slow progress of the work that Ripley here, and a few stanzas before, alludes.

In Cens. Liter., vol x, p. 157, an “Induction" is printed in fifteen sevenline stanzas from an old MS. of much earlier orthography than that contained in Ashmole's work, or in the present volume, which has only thirteen stanzas, the first two being separated from the others as the title of the work, and as these relate to the personal history of the author, we here quote them:

Heare beginneth the compounde of Alchemye,

Made by a chanon of Bridlington after his lerning in Italy,

At Yxing for the tyme he did ther wonne :

In the which he declareth plainelie

The secrets both of the sone and the mone:

How they ther kinde to multiplye

In one bodye both must woonne.

The which chanon Sr George Rypley hight,
Exempt from claustriall obseruaun

For whom we pray both daie and night

Sith he labored vs to aduaunce:

He torned darknes into light,

Intending to help vs vnto happie chaunce:

Giuing councle, that we lyue right,

Doing vnto God no displeasaunce.

Ripley, who was a person of considerable learning, was a Canon Regular of the monastery of Saint Augustine at Bridlington, in Yorkshire, and had travelled much abroad in France and Italy. He afterwards became a Carmelite at Boston, in Lincolnshire, and died there in 1490.

See Warton's Hist. Eng. Poet., vol. ii, p. 448; Herbert's Typog. Antiq., vol. ii, p. 1246; Cens. Liter., vol. x, p. 157; Ritson's Bibl. Poet., p. 94; and Bibl. Ang. Poet., p. 608. Nassau's copy, pt. ii, No. 965, sold for 17. 138.; Sir Mark M. Sykes's, pt. iii, No. 1134, 17. 16s.; Bibl. Selecta (Midgley's) No. 715, 17. 10s.; Bright's, No. 4741, 17. 18.; Skegg's, No. 1492, 17. 178.; Bibl. Ang. Poet., No. 608, 10l.

Collation: Sig. A 4, *4, B. to M 4 in fours.

The present copy has the engraved frontispiece by Vaughan, to Ripley Reviv'd, inserted.

Bound in Russia, marbled leaves.

RIPLEY, (GEORGE.) — Ripley Reviv'd: or, an Exposition upon Sir George Ripley's Hermetico-Poetical Works. Containing the plainest and most excellent Discoveries of the most hidden Secrets of the Ancient Philosophers, that were ever yet published. Written by Eirenceus Philalethes an Englishman, stiling himself Citizen of the World.

London, Printed by Tho: Ratclif and Nat. Thompson, for William Cooper at the Pelican in Little Britain. 1678. 8vo.

66

The name of the author of this exposition, under the assumed title of Eirenæus Philalethes, has not transpired. Cooper, the publisher, speaking of him in an advertisement, remarks that he was an Englishman, supposed to be yet living, and travelling, and about the age of fifty-five years, but his name is not certainly known; that he was the author of several other works, some of which he afterwards burned; that among other things he