Page 32 - Scottish Alchemists

leaves of ane booke set on edge, of Sol, Luna, aqua regis and aqua fortis.
Upon the 13 daye of Nouember, he being convalesced, he shew me that he
had feared himself, and vpon affection reuealed thir thinges to me, which
vpon his saluatione he affirmed to be true, and desired me to confer the
sentences of the philosophers togither, and I should finde them all agree with
thir premisses, which I finde appearantly verie true in ther theoricall
sentences, but contrarie in ther practicall precepts. They induce many thinges
repugnant to themselfes to illude the vulgar and prophane people, to diuerte
them from the treuthe of ther former sentences, as vnworthie therof.
Heerafter, about the 15 daye of Marche 1608, the Doctor shew me that he
had receiued glade tydinges of the safe returne of Lionel Struthers his sayd
freind from Histria to England, and shew me ane certaine anticke figure with
certaine verses of congratulatione which he made and was sendinge to him in
ioye of his safe returne. So within 10 dayes he came to Edinbroughe to the
Doctor, and brought with him great store of minerall mercurie which neuer
had fealte fyre, and some vnfyned easie to be wrunge out from his owre.
The Doctor gaue me secretly ane smal portione bothe of the one and of the
other, as also ane verie smal parte of Luna minerall vnfyned, but I purchased
mor bothe of Scotes and Germane Luna. As for Sol minerall, wee haue
enoughe in Scotland. Rests tyme and opportunitie to enterpris the worke with
the blissinge of God to performe the samen to his glorie and comforte of his
servants, which the Almightie grante to us whos holy name be praysed and
magnified for ever and ever. Amen. Mr Struthers sayes that the Spainards
takes all the sayde crude mercurie, for it gathers most of mine gould.”

“This graphic glimpse,” says Napier’s accomplished biographer, Mr
Mark Napier, “of the inventor of logarithms, in his walks about Edinburgh, at
the commencement of the 17th century, is as vivid as a photograph. His
‘dismissing his company’, in order to take his place at that private seance at
the bedside of his sick friend, affords a trait of individuality suggesting an
idea of the sages of Greece and Rome, attended by their clients or scholars
as they moved about. It would seem, at least, that the sage of Merchiston
was not without a ‘company’, whom he dismissed at will, in his progress
about the metropolis.”8

Such, in a few words, is an episode in the life of John Napier; and we
are constrained to believe that the desire to discover a short and certain road
to vast wealth by a secret mode of transmuting baser metals into pure gold
had not been without its influence on one of the greatest mathematicians
Scotland ever produced.

8 Lectures on Logarithms by Mark Napier, ii. p.29.

27