Page 56 - Charnock alchemical letter

pair, which shall be bunted out, as of the finest flower of all the authors
which ever I have read of this same science, and although they be but
few in number, yet these:

Turba philosophorum39 / Rosarium philosophorum40 / Practica
philosophorum / Rosarius minor / Scala philosophorum41 / Rosarium
Arnoldi de Nova Villa42 / Rosarius tollectanii / Correctio fatuorum41 /
Clangor Buccinae41/ Cemita recta43 / Margarita philosophica / Ludus
puerorum / 4. libros Ethicorum44 / Vade mecum / Compendium animae/
Speculum alchimieae45 / Secreta philosophie /Tabula smaragdina46/
Aristotel de secretis philosophie47/ Hale de secretis philosophie/ Hermes
de secretis philosophie / Tractatus plinii / Morienus48 / Democritus49 /
Abreviatum Iothis de arte alchimie / Reimundus Lullius / Calidius / et
Cornelius Agrippa.

And for our English philosophers, Albertus Magnus the black friar /
Roger Bacon the gray friar / Sir George Ripley canon / Thomas
Charnock Doctor of divinity / Thomas Norton gentleman / Thomas
Daulton / Geoffrey Chaucer / Dauston50 / Richard Carpenter / Richard of
England Meretharne, and Merlin.

All these authors afore named have full oft troubled my weak and feeble
will, and were as hard to my understanding as if I had heard one read a
book of the language of the nations which dwell in the forth part of the
world named America, until such time that it pleased God to send me a
master who revealed unto me last of all under a most sacred oath, the
greatest secret of the science which when I had attained unto, they were
all as plain and easy to my understanding as ever was in my childhood,
Bevis of Hampton or Guy of Warwick.51

And now for the more assurance unto your majesty and to the lords of
your most honourable council, that this science is most true, if it were
not, as that I am bound by Gods holy law with the link of matrimony fix
the which as long as it pleaseth god, I would not wish to be loosed. I had
as leave that your majesty would, for a true trial hereof, commit me
within the walls of the Tower, and that to be as my cloister all the days of
my natural lif e, so that I may be in my work, rather than to be a lord at
liberty.

So certain am I by God’s grace at the end appointed to attain unto the
true and perfect making of the philosophers’ stone: for I do more rejoice
in this talent which God hath given me, as in this science of philosophy
which I do profess, more than in any worldly good which I do now

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