Page 42 - Scottish Alchemists

Mary Ruthven, became the wife of the celebrated painter, Sir Anthony
Vandyke.

In consequence of the troubles which subsequently agitated the
country, the pension of Patrick Ruthven was stopped, and he was reduced to
difficulties. In this emergency he is said to have procured a degree Doctor of
Medicine, and practised that profession in London. In the diary of Sir Henry
Slingsby, under the year 1639, it is stated that Sir Henry’s wife, who was
suffering apparently from some nervous disorder, after consulting many
other medical advisers, made “some trials of Mr Ruthven, a Scottish
gentleman of the family of Lord Gowers, who had made it his study in the
art of physic to administer help to others, but not for any gain to himself.”

After suffering much from poverty and neglect, Patrick Ruthven died in
the King’s Bench, at the age of sixty-eight; and was buried at St George’s in
Southwark, as ‘Lord Ruthven’, on 24th May 1652.

The commonplace-book of Patrick, the last of the Ruthvens, now
preserved in the University Library, Edinburgh, contains the Smaragdine
Table of Hermes Trismegistus, together with a carefully digested series of
extracts from alchemical and other works relating to the philosophers’ stone,
such as - ‘De vero et solo artis nostrae acquirendae modo’; ‘Ex quibus opus
nostrum’; ‘Cum quot et quibus perficitur’; ‘Quot vasa operi sunt necessaria’;
‘De coloribus apparentibus in opere nostro’; ‘Descriptio mercurii philosophici
cum quo solo vera et naturalis auri fit solutio’; ‘Of coniunction, sublimation,
fermentation, of projection.’

A long letter to the Earl of Argyle from D. M., who is no doubt the Dr
Muller referred to in the sketch of John Napier, written prior to 1629, is also
included in this interesting volume, and begins as follows - “The coppie of D.
M. letter writen to the Earle of Arg. contayning the wholl worke
aenigmaticallie as he conceiued it, firste out of the former wheels and sypher
of Trithemius, and then made it with his owne hands; copied by me from the
originall letter under D. M. owne hande; copied, I saye, an. 1629 Octob. 2.
per me Patricium Ruthuenum.”

This letter, as the above description purports, gives long directions for
making a red powder, which it states when projected on “10 parts of
mercurie thou shalt see thy meadson will turne this letle starr into a bright
and perfect shininge sonne.” The letter thus concludes:-

“I say with this thou mayest instantly heal all manner of diseases of all
living creatures, restore the sicke to their health, preserve the holl from
sickness, and continue them both in ane assured estate of health vntill that
howre apoynted by God to call them hense for their originall sinne. Thou
mayest also helpe all the infirmities of vegetables, and of chrystall make

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