Jonson and Sendivogius: Some New Light on Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court

REFERENCES

• Quoted in C. G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, trans. R. F. C. Hull, 2nd ed., Princeton, N. J., 1968, 250.
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• On the question of the dating and first performance of this masque, see C. H. Herford, and Percy and Evelyn Simpson, eds., Ben Jonson, Oxford, 2950, X, 545–7. All quotations from Mercury Vindicated are taken from the text appearing in vol. VII of this edition.
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• Thus he is termed by Herford and Simpson in Ben Jonson, II, 294.
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• "The Alchemy in Jonson's Mercury Vindicated", SP, 39, 625–37, 1942.
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• These are John C. Meagher, Method and Meaning in Jonson's Masques, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1966 and Stephen Orgel, The Jonsonian Masque, Cambridge, Mass., 1965.
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• Lists of "Books in Jonson's Library" are included in Ben Jonson, I, 250-71; XI, 593-603. See also David McPherson, "Ben Jonson's Library and Marginalia: An Annotated Catalogue", SP, 71, 1–106, 1974.
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• Material in the following biographical sketch is derived primarily from accounts given in A. E. Waite, Alchemists through the Ages, 1888; rpt. [of Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers] Blauvelt N. Y.: Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1970, 171–81; John Read, Humour and Humanism in Chemistry, London, 1947, 50–65; E. J. Holmyard, Alchemy, Harmondsworth, 1968, 223–38. Additional bio-graphical and bibliographical information is included in John Ferguson, Bibliothecca Chemica, Glasgow, 1906, II, 364–70; and Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, New York, 1958, VII, 158–9, et passim.
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• Humour and Humanism in Chemistry (7), 53.
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• ' Holmyard,' Alchemy (7), 236.
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• Alchemists through the Ages (7), 180.
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• "The Mystery of Alexander Seton, the Cosmopolite", in Proceedings of the XIV International Con-gress of the History of Science, Tokyo-Kyoto, 1974, II, 397–400.
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• "The True Life of Michael Sendivogius", in Actes du XI Congras international d'histoire des sciences, V arsovie-Cracovie (24–31 Aoilt, 1965), Warsaw, 1968, IV, 31–5; and Hubicki's article on Sendi-vogius in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, New York, 1975, XII, 306–8.
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• This statement is made in correspondence to the author.
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• "The True Life of Michael Sendivogius", 35.
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• Hubicki (4), 32, notes that according to one of Sendivogius' early biographers, Carolides a Carls-perga in Praecepta Institutionis, Prague, 1598, Sendivogius is supposed to have visited Cambridge University prior to 1598 while in the service of Rudolph II. Another link with England resulted from Sendivogius' purchase, in 1597, of the Fumberg estate near Prague from the widow of the English alchemist, Edward Kelley.
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• The Alchemist, for example, reveals Jonson's acquaintance with both ancient authorities (II.i.80-104) and a number of recent or contemporary practitioners of the art, e.g. the two fifteenth-century Dutch alchemists, Isaac and John Isaac Hollandus (Lii.m9); Dr. John Dee (II.vi.2o-23); and Dee's disreputable scryer, Edward Kelley (IV.i.9o), whose misfortunes at the court of Rudolph II are reminiscent of Seton's rumored experiences with Christian II. In addition, Jonson's know-ledge of early seventeenth-century Rosicrucian literature was skilfully incorporated into The Fortunate Isles (1624).
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• Hohuyard (9), 236.
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• Thorndike (7), VII, 158. In footnote twenty-five on this page, Thorndike states that two other early editions of the Novum Lumen, printed in Frankfurt (1606) and Cologne (I610), are listed in Carl C. Schmieder, Geschichte der Alchemie, Halle, 1832.
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• Thorndike (7), VII, 158–9.
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• Thorndike (7), VII, 155.
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• Read (7), 62.
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• Ferguson (7), II, 365.
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• Thorndike (7), VII, 159, IL 29.
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• Ferguson (7), II, 369, states that Sendivogius "is considered to have written: Tractatus de Sulphure; Dialogus Mercurii, Alchymistae et Naturae; Aenigma philosophicum. These, which appear some-times separately, are usually all printed together."
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• All quotations appearing in this article are taken from this edition. Its title page is reproduced in Read (7), 59, and in Ian Macphaii, ed., Alchemy and the Occult: A Catalogue of Books and Manu-scripts from the Collection of Paul and Mary Mellon Given to Yale University Library, New Haven, 1968, II, 333.
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• Jung (I), 490–1.
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• John W. Shirley, "The Scientific Experiments of Sir Walter Ralegh, the Wizard Earl, and the Three Magi in the Tower, 1603-17", Ambix, 4, 66, 1949.
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• Paul M. Allen, ed., A Christian Rosenkreutz Anthology, Blauvelt, N. Y., Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1968, 519.
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• The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, ed. Geoffrey Keynes, London, 1964, II, 106.
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• George Thor, Cheiragogia Heliana. A Manuduction to the Philosopher's Magical Gold, London, 1659, 29.
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• From the translation of Helvetius' Golden Calf included in William Cooper, The Philosophical Epitaph of W. C. Esquire, London, 1673, 37.
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• John Frederick Houpreght, Aurifontina Chymica: or, A Collection of Fourteen small Treatises concerning the First Matter of Philosophers, London, 1680, sig. A 3.
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• [Cleidophorus Mystagogus, pseud.], Mercury's Caducean Rod, London, 1704, 70.
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• Cooper (31), sig. R 2".
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• Frances A. Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, London, 1972, 31, 50, 84. Though rare, brief and humorously allegorical alchemical tracts of the Dialogue type appear occasionally from the Middle Ages through the seventeenth century. In addition to the few examples cited by Yates, see Jean de Meun's A Demonstration of Nature, made to the Erring Alchemists (in The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged, ed. A. E. Waite [London: James Elliot, 1893], I, 121–41), which has im-portant thematic and stylistic resemblances to both Sendivogius' Dialogue and Mercury Vindicated. See also Michael Maier's A Subtle Allegory Concerning the Secrets of Alchemy in The Hermetic Museum, II, 199–223; and An Historical Account of a Degradation of Gold Made by an Anti-Elixir, London, 1678, attributed to Robert Boyle.
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• In addition to works mentioned in n. 35, see Thomas Tymme's A Dialogue Philosophicall, London, 1612 and Michael Maier's Lusus Serius, London, 1654. Thorndike (7) cites other alchemical dialogues in V, 545; VII, x66, 173, and the genre is discussed in Robert P. Multhauf, "Some Non-existent Chemists of the Seventeenth Century: Remarks on the Use of the Dialogue in Scientific Writing" in Alchemy and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century: Papers Read by Allen G. Debus and Robert P. Multhauf at a Clark Library Seminar, March 12, 1966, Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1966, 31–50.
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• Reprinted in The Hermetic Museum, II, 527–59; see especially 149–55.
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• Duncan (4), 629-30.
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• On Bacon's belief in the power of art to supply the deficiencies of nature see my "Francis Bacon and Alchemy: The Reformation of Vulcan", JHI, 35, 547–60, 1974.
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• Evidence of the commonness of this epithet as applied to alchemists is to be found in the works of many English Renaissance men of letters; see, for example, Nashe's second preface to Strange Newes (The Complete Works of Thomas Nashe, ed. Alexander B. Grosart [London, 1883-84], II, 184); Lodge's "The Anatomie of Alchymie" in A fig for Momus (The Complete Works of Thomas Lodge, ed. Sir Edmund Gosse [1883; rpt. New York, 1966], III, 66–67); and Jonson's The Alchemist, 1.iii.loo.
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• Such passages as this reveal Jonson's familiarity with the terminology and physical processes of the art as well as his skill in rendering its modes of thought and metaphorical idiom. "Crude" and "Sublimate", for example, refer respectively to the common, material substance (quicksilver, in this case) and to the specially prepared "sophic" mercury, one of the proximate principles of the stone. The "male" and "female" and "hermaphroditic" qualities might refer either to the conjunction of opposites—king and queen, brother and sister, sol and luna, sulphur and mercury, etc.—that was a crucial stage in the alchemical process; or to the bi-sexual principles inherent in mercury alone. The complexity of the alchemists' conception of mercury is summarized in Jung (1), 292-3, 295.
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• Jung (I), 65–6.
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• These writers are among those considered in my doctoral dissertation, "Alchemy and the English Literary Imagination: 1385 to 1633", University of Minnesota, 1971.
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• Cf. 11. 23, 37, 192 and, especially, 45–51: "Howsoever they may pretend under the specious names of Geber, Arnold, Lully, Bombast of Hohenhein, to commit miracles in art, and treason again' nature. And, as if the title of Philosopher, that creature of glory, were to be fetch'd out of a furnace, abuse the curious and credulous Nation of metall-men through the world, and make Mercury their instrument."
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• Duncan (4), 637.
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