There are said to be three Hamburg editions of the collected works of Valentine, who discovered the common antimony, and is said to have given the name _antimoine_, in a curious way. Finding that the pigs of his convent throve upon it, he gave it to his brethren, who died of it.[252] The impulse given to chemistry by R. Boyle[253] seems to have brought out a vast number of translations, as in the following tract:
_Collectanea Chymica_: A collection of ten several treatises in chymistry, concerning the liquor Alkehest, the Mercury of Philosophers, and other curiosities worthy the perusal. Written by Eir. Philaletha,[254] Anonymus, J. B. Van-Helmont,[255] Dr. Fr. { 126} Antonie,[256] Bernhard Earl of Trevisan,[257] Sir Geo. Ripley,[258] Rog. Bacon,[259] Geo. Starkie,[260] Sir Hugh Platt,[261] and the Tomb of Semiramis. See more in the contents. London, 1684, 8vo.
In the advertisements at the ends of these tracts there are upwards of a hundred English tracts, nearly all of the period, and most of them translations. Alchemy looks up since the chemists have found perfectly different substances composed of the same elements and proportions. It is true the chemists cannot yet _transmute_; but they may in time: they poke about most assiduously. It seems, then, that the conviction that alchemy _must_ be impossible was a delusion: but we do not mention it.
The astrologers and the alchemists caught it in company in the following, of which I have an unreferenced note.
"Mendacem et futilem hominem nominare qui volunt, calendariographum dicunt; at qui sceleratum simul ac impostorem, chimicum.[262]
"Crede ratem ventis corpus ne crede chimistis; Est quævis chimica tutior aura fide."[263]
Among the smaller paradoxes of the day is that of the _Times_ newspaper, which always spells it _chymistry_: but so, I believe, do Johnson, Walker, and others. The Arabic work is very likely formed from the Greek: but it may be connected either with [Greek: chêmeia] or with [Greek: chumeia].
Lettre d'un gentil-homme de province à une dame de qualité, sur le sujet de la Comète. Paris, 1681, 4to.
An opponent of astrology, whom I strongly suspect to have been one of the members of the Academy of Sciences under the name of a country gentleman,[264] writes very good sense on the tremors excited by comets.