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(See Visions.) Philalethes, Eirenæus: (circa, 1660) Alchemist. The life of this alchemist is wrapped in mystery, albeit a considerable mass of writing stands to his credit. The heading of this article is, of course, mere pseudonym, and, though some have tried hard to identify the writer who bore it with one Thomas Vaughan, a brother of Henry Vaughan, the "Silurist" poet, this theory is not supported by any very sound evidence. Others have striven to identify Philalethes with George Starkey, the quack doctor and author of Liquor Alchahest; but then, Starkey died of the plague in London in 1665, whereas it is known that Eirenæus was living for some years after that date. He appears, also, to have been on intimate terms with Robert Boyle, and, though this points to his having spent a considerable time in England, it is certain on the other hand that he emigrated to America. Now Starkey, it will be remembered, was born in the Bermudas, and practised his spurious medical crafts in the English settlements in America, where, according to his contemporary biographers, he met Eirenæus Philalethes. This meeting, then, may have given rise to the identification at issue; while it is probably Starkey to whom Eirenæus refers when, in a preface to one of his books, he tells of certain of his writings falling "into the hands of one who, I conceive, will never return them," for in 1654 Starkey issued a volume with the title, The Marrow of Alchemy by Eirenæus Philoponus Philalethes.

W 66 It is to these prefaces by Philalethes that we must chiefly look for any information about him, while in the thirteenth chapter of his Introitus Apertus ad Occlusum Regis Palatium (Amsterdam, 1667) he makes a few autobiographical avowals which illuminate his character and career. For and career. we are like Cain, driven from the pleasant society we formerly had," he writes, and this suggests that he was persecuted on account of his alchemistic predilections; while elsewhere he heaps scorn on most of the hermetic philosophers of his day, and elsewhere, again, he vituperates the popular worship of money-getting. I disdain, loathe, and detest the idolizing of silver and gold," he declares, he declares, " by which the pomps and vanities of the world are celeare celebrated. Ah! filthy, evil, ah! vain nothingness." That is vigorously written, and indeed nearly everything from the pen of Philalethes, whether in Latin or in English, pro- English, proclaims him a writer of some care, skill and taste while his scholarship was considerable also, and it is interesting to find that, in his preface to Ripley Revived (London, 1678), he gives some account of the authors to whom he felt himself chiefly indebted. " For my own part," he says, I have cause to honour Bernard Trévisan, who is , who is very ingenious, especially in the letter to Thomas of Boulogne, when I seriously confess I received the main light in the hidden secret. I do not remember that ever I I know of none learnt anything from Raymond Lully. like Ripley, though Flamel be eminent."

Langlet du Fresnoy, in his Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique, refers to numerous unpublished manuscripts by Eirenæus Philalethes, but nothing is known about these to-day, and in conclusion it behoves only to cite the more important of those things by the alchemist which were issued in book form: Medulla Alchymia (London, 1664), Experimenta de Praeperatione Mercurii Sophici (Amsterdam, 1668) and Enarratio Methodica trium Gebri Medicinarum (Amsterdam, 1668.)