Being sign common for this operation,
For the multitude of their iteration:
Fortune your ascendant with his Lord alsoe,
Keeping th' aspect of shrews them fro';
And if they must let, or needly infect,
Cause them look with a trine aspect,

For the white Worke make fortunate the Moone,
For the Lord of the Fourth House likewise be it done;
For that is Thesaurum absconditum of old clerkes;
Soe of the sixth house for servants of the Werkes ;
Save all them well from great impediments,
As it is in picture, or like the same intents.
Unless that your nativity pretend infection,
In contrariety of this Election,

The virtue of the Mover of the orbe is formall,
The virtue of the eight sphere is here instrumentall,
With her signs and figures and parts aspectuall,
The planet's virtue is proper and speciall,
The virtue of the elements is here materiall,
The virtue infused resulteth of them all:
The First is like to a workman's mind,
The Second like to his hand ye shall finde ;
The Third is like a good instrument,

The remnant like a thing wrought to your Intent.
Make all the premises with other well accord,
Then shall your merits make you a greate Lord.
In this wise Elixir, of whom ye make mencion,
Is engendered a thing of Second Intention.23

I could tell thee, says Vaughan, of a first and second sublimation, of a double nativity, visible and invisible, without which the Matter is not alterable as to our final purpose. I could tell thee also of sulphurs simple and compounded, of three Argent vives and as many Salts, and all this would be new news (as the schoolmen phrase it), even to the best learned in England. But I hope not by this discourse to demolish any man's castles; for why should they despair when I contribute to their building ?24

Our magistery is Three, Two, and One-
The Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral Stone.
First, I say, in the name of the Holy Trinity,
Look that thou join in one persons Three-

23 Norton's Ordinal, chap. vi.

24 See Vaughan's Lumen de Lumine.

The Fixt, the Variable, and the Fugitive-
Till they together taste death and live.
The first one is the Dragon fell,

That shall the other twaine both slay and quell;
The Sun and Moon shall lose their light,

And in mourning sable, they shall seem dight,
Three score days long, or neere thereabouts;

Then shall Phoebus appear first out

With strange colours in all the Firmament,
Then our joy is coming and at Hand present,
Then Orient Phoebus in his hemisphere

To us full gloriously shall appear:
Thus he who can work wisely,

Shall attain unto our Maistery.2

25

Which magistery is a fiery form of Light inspissate, made manifest by a triple introversion and multiplication of the hypostatic unit by the circulatory medium throughout life.

Already see the laurel branches wave!

Hark! sounds tumultuous shake the trembling cave.
Far, ye profane, far off with beauteous feet,
Bright Phoebus comes and thunders at the gate.
See the glad sign the Delian Palm hath given,
Sudden it bends; and hovering in the heaven,
Soft sings the Swan with melody divine.

BURST OPE YE BARS! YE GATES, YOUR HEADS EXPAND,
HE COMES! THE GOD OF LIGHT, THE GOD'S AT HAND.
Begin the song, and tread the sacred ground
In mystic dance symphonious to the sound.
Begin, young men ! Apollo's eyes endure
None but the good, the perfect, and the pure.
Who view the god are great, but abject they
From whom he turns his favouring eyes away.
All-seeing God! in every place confessed,
We will prepare, behold thee, and be blessed.
He comes, young men! Nor silent should ye stand,
With harp or feet, when Phoebus is at hand.26

Fit thy roof to thy God in all thou canst, continues the philosopher, and in what thou canst not he will help thee; thou must prepare thyself till thou art conformable to Him whom thou wouldest entertain, and that in every way of similitude. 25 Theatrum Chemicum Brit.; Conclusion of Bloomfield's Camp of Philosophy.

26 Callimachus' Hymn to Apollo. by Dodd.

Thou hast three that are to receive, and there be three accordingly that give. And when thou hast set thy house in order, think not that thy guest will come without invitation.

Perpetual knockings at his doore,

Teares sullying his transparent rooms,
Sighs upon sighs, weep more and more,
He comes.

This is the way that thou must walk, in which, if thou dost, thou shalt perceive a sudden illumination-Eritque in te cum Lumine, Ignis; cum Igne, Ventus; cum Vento, Potestas; cum Potestate, Scientia; cum Scientiâ, sanæ mentis integritas." And then it is requisite to believe that we have seen Him, says Plotinus, when the Soul receives a sudden Light. For the Light is with Power, and is God.-And then it is proper to think that He is present, when, like another Divinity entering the house of some one who invokes him, he fills it with splendour. For, unless he entered, he would not illuminate it, and then the soul would be without Light, and without the possession of God.28. But when illuminated, it has That which is sought for; and the Thought and understanding are in the experience One.

NEC SENTIRE DEUM NISI QUI PARS IPSE DEI SIT.

That was the sum of the Hermetic Mystery, and the ultimate object of the Alchemical Art to accomplish; and by such a subtle analysis and pure synthesis of vital agencies and effects, the Word of Life would seem to have been sought after by our ancestors, and experimentally found: which their neglected Scriptures everywhere testify of, and the Smaragdine Table yet lives summarily instructing us to reprove.

TRUE WITHOUT ERROR, CERTAIN AND MOST TRUE; THAT WHICH IS ABOVE IS AS THAT WHICH IS BELOW, AND THAT WHICH IS BELOW IS AS THAT WHICH IS ABOVE, FOR PERFORMING THE MIRACLES OF THE ONE THING. AND AS ALL THINGS WERE.

27 Anima Magia Abscond. page 47, &c.
28 Plotinus's Select Works, Taylor, p. 453.

FROM ONE, BY THE MEDIATION OF One, so all thinGS PROCEEDED FROM THIS ONE THING BY ADAPTATION. THE FATHER OF IT IS THE SUN, THE MOTHER OF IT IS THE MOON, THE WIND CARRIED IT IN ITS BELLY; THE NURSE THEREOF IS THE EARTH. THIS IS THE FATHER OF ALL PERFECTION AND CONSUMMATION OF THE WHOLE WORLD. THE POWER OF IT IS INTEGRAL, IF IT BE TURNED INTO EARTH. THOU SHALT SEPARATE THE EARTH FROM THE FIRE, THE SUBTLE FROM THE

GROSS, GENTLY, WITH MUCH SAGACITY. IT ASCENDS FROM

THIS IS

EARTH TO HEAVEN, AND AGAIN DESCENDS TO EARTH; AND RE-
CEIVES THE STRENGTH OF THE SUPERIORS AND OF THE INFE-
RIORS. SO THOU HAST THE GLORY OF THE WHOLE WORLD:
THEREFORE LET ALL OBSCURITY FLEE BEFORE THEE.
THE STRONG FORTITUDE OF ALL FORTITUDES, OVERCOMING
EVERY SUBTLE AND PENETRATING EVERY SOLID THING. So
THE WORLD WAS CREATED. HENCE WERE WONDERFUL ADAP-
TATIONS, OF WHICH THIS IS THE MANNER. THEREFORE AM I
CALLED THRICE GREAT HERMES, HAVING THE THREE PARTS
OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE WHOLE WORLD. THAT WHICH I
HAVE SPOKEN IS CONSUMMATED CONCERNING THE OPERATION
OF THE SUN.

The six following "Keys," delivered into the safe hand of the intelligent inquirer (since they will be useful to none else), may be acceptable; that, without involving more responsibility on ourselves, he may apply their explanatory words as he thinks fit. But we would deter all from hasty trial and avow our wilful reservation of an important link in the application of these principles to practice, lest any attempting to realize without a full investigation of the method, should fail utterly in the pursuit.

500

CHAPTER III.

The Six Keys of Eudoxus, opening into the most Secret Philosophy.

THE

THE FIRST KEY.

HE First Key is that which opens the dark prisons in which the Sulphur is shut up: this is it which knows how to extract the seed out of the body, and which forms the Stone of the philosophers by the conjunction of the spirit with the body-of sulphur with mercury. Hermes has manifestly demonstrated the operation of this First Key by these words: In the caverns of the metals there is hidden the Stone, which is venerable, bright in colour, a mind sublime, and an open sea. This Stone has a bright glittering: it contains a Spirit of a sublime original; it is the Sea of the Wise, in which they angle for their mysterious Fish. But the operations of the three works have a great deal of analogy one to another, and the philosophers do designedly speak in equivocal terms, to the end that those who have not the Lynx's eyes may pursue wrong, and be lost in this labyrinth, from whence it is very hard to get out. In effect, when one imagines that they speak of one work, they often treat of another. Take heed, therefore, not to be deceived here; for it is a truth, that in each work the Wise Artist ought to dissolve the body with the spirit; he must cut off the Raven's head, whiten the Black, and vivify the White; yet it is properly in the First operation that the Wise Artist cuts off the head of the Black Dragon and of the Raven. Hence, Hermes says, What is born of the Crow is the beginning of this Art. Consider that it is by separation of the black, foul, and stinking fume of the Blackest Black, that our astral, white, and resplendent