Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/162

 in the 4th. Book of his Astronomicon, where he gives an Account of those that are born under Capricorn, has these Words,

scrutari cæca metalla, Depositas & opes, terræq; venas, Materiemq; manu certâ duplicarier arte:

which last Verse seems to be a Description of Alchemy: But besides that, the Verse is suspected to be spurious; even the Age of Manilius himself is not without Controversie; some making him contemporary with the Younger Theodosius, and consequently later than Firmicus himself. We may expect to have this Question determined, when my most Learned Friend Mr. Bentley shall oblige the World with his Censures and Emendations of that Elegant Poet.

But if these Grecian Chymists have the utmost Antiquity allowed them that Borrichius desires, it will signifie little to deduce their Art from Hermes, since Men might pretend that their Art was derived from him in Zosimus's Days, and yet come many Thousand Years short of it, if we follow the Accounts of Manetho. Wherefore, though this is but a negative Argument, yet it seems to be unanswerable, because if there had been such an Art, Errata