Fridrichstadt Leisure, or the Chemical Tantalus

is added, then indeed from colcothar, as we said before, an excellent medicine can be prepared for curing diseases of the human body, but it is not at all valid for removing the leprosy from metals. I will not insist on more; what should be held regarding the elaboration of Vitriol for the L. P. B., we have said in our Fridrichstadt leisure hours p. 10, and some things also in this Treatise. Let these things said against Vitriol suffice. Meanwhile, we do not deny that Vitriol is an immense abyss of admirable miracles in Medicine. I could easily compose a whole thick volume of medicines to be prepared from colcothar and known by experience: but I do not wish to consume the powers of my mind in my old age in writing books anymore. But before I put an end to this Epistle, I will adduce some passages from Caneparius, whom I had the intention of illustrating with a Commentary, but the ardor is extinguished, concerning the elaboration of the L. P. B., in which he shows that he was an Adept of the first order and a Chemist altogether, but that he did not at all establish that it should be elaborated from Vitriol. In chapter 46, from p. m. 555-570, there is not even a single period which can be accepted about Vitriol; on the contrary, there are a hundred periods which suggest another matter than Vitriol, 1) it is said to be the toad freezing the mercury. 2) The dragon devouring all things and converting them to its own nature. 3) Honor our King coming out of the fire crowned with a diadem. 4) Whose father is the sun, the mother indeed the moon. 5) It must be nourished with its own milk until the perfect age. 6) So that it may be fixed and flow as wax and fly away no more. 7) The stone calcining itself, solving itself, (therefore the commonly called menstrua are useless: see our treatise inscribed Whitening of the Ethiopian, and Nebo) it kills itself, it vivifies itself, it marries itself, it nourishes, it feeds, it ferments itself with the thing from which it was born. 8) It consists of three elements, water, air, and fire. 9) In the water itself is the secret of secrets, the greatest. 10) Therefore the wise philosophers adorn it with all the names of the world: It is indeed the true mercury of the philosophers, the celestial menstruum, Raymund's sharpest vinegar, the virgin's milk, the mineral menstruum, the vegetable menstruum, the proper water, the permanent water, which coupled with its equal is united to it with an indissoluble bond, and thus it remains; Such a thing is not in Vitriol. It is the serenating water: which predicate cannot at all be said of Vitriol, as it has no metallic serenity in itself, but the water of the philosophers can be said to be serenating in a triple sense: a) since like a crystal it rivals serenity