Page:Repository of Arts, Series 1, Volume 01, 1809, January-June.djvu/25

Rh art; their cooks prepared delicious sauces for their tables:  and the remains of their aqueducts, and other works of architecture, evince the incomparable perfection of their cements.

But all the arts, the sciences, and literature of the Romans and Greeks, were destined to sink into oblivion. Hosts of barbarian conquerors descended upon them from the North; the energies of civilization withered at their touch, and their works were destroyed before them.

The arts and sciences, driven as it were from Europe, obtained an asylum with the Arabians. The attachment of this nation to magic, and their inclination to the marvellous, soon increased the mysteries in which the arts were then already involved; and hence alchemy, or the art of transmuting base metals into gold, took its rise.

To us it may appear somewhat singular, that chemistry, now of such universal importance to mankind, should be indebted, in some measure, for its origin as an art, and for some parts of its progress, to one of the less noble or generous of the human passions; yet, in its early dawn, it was cultivated by men who were instigated by avarice to prosecute and study it. It was, certainly, natural enough for men who observed the remarkable changes produced by chemical action, to be struck with their effects; and overlooking the variations and differences in the result of their operations, which were the consequences of partial or inaccurate observation, to flatter themselves that their power over the substances on which they operated, was only limited by their wishes.

It was one of the principles among the alchemists, that all metals are composed of the same ingredients; or that the substances which enter into the composition of gold, are found in all metals, but mixed with many impurities, from which, by certain processes, they might be separated: and as they never seem to have thought of enriching themselves by their great discoveries, they were too generous to monopolize the wealth of the world. Hence they offered their services to others, and liberally proposed to communicate the fruit of their labours for a moderate reward.

As this delusive dream of the imagination held out a bait to avarice, it soon acquired a train of followers. The research was pursued with an ardour which no disappointment could damp, and the mania spread from one country to another.

The ambitious man, to procure riches that he might increase his power, and the opulent man to add to his wealth, employed and encouraged the alchemists in the prosecution of their extravagant schemes. These flattering hopes, it will be supposed, were never realized; the rich prospect fled before them, and the golden prize, which they often supposed was just within their reach, eluded their eager grasp. The magnitude of the plan, however, fired the imagination, and produced something like conviction in their minds of the possibility, and even certainty, of obtaining the object of their wishes and all their labours. With unabating ardour, with unexampled assiduity, they pursued their researches, persuading themselves and their employers, that they were on the point of being soon in