of Azora.
Azora Burcot was the daughter of a gentleman who was one possessed of a very great fortune, but by a fatal passion for the grand operation, and an opinion of the possibility of finding the philosopher's stone, he wasted immense sums in operations to discover that preparation, which forces the faeces of infused metals to retire immediately on its approach, and so turns the rest of the mass into pure gold; communicating the malleability

and great ductility of that metal, and giving it true specific gravity, that is, to water, as eighteen and one half is to one. His love of that fine, antient art, called chimistry, brought him into this misfortune. For improvement and pleasure, he had been long engaged in various experiments, and at last, an adept came to his house, who was a man of great skill in the labours and operations of spagyrists, and persuaded him it was possible to find the stone; for he, the adept, had seen it with a brother, who had been so fortunate as to discover it, after much labor and operation. The colour of it was a pale brimstone and transparent, and the size that of a small walnut. He affirmed that he had seen a little of this, scraped into powder, cast into some melted lead, and turn it into the best and finest gold. This had the effect the adept desired, and from chymistry brought Mr. Burcot to Alchimy. Heaps of money he wasted in operations of the most noble elixir by mineral and salt; but the stone after all he could not find: and then, by the adept's advice, he proceeded in a second method, by maturation, to subtilize, purify, and digest quicksilver, and thereby convert it into gold (20.) This likewise

wise came to nothing, and instead of the gold he expected, he had only heaps of Mercury fixed with verdegrease, (which

gives it a yellow tinge), and more deeply coloured with turmeric. Gold it seemed, but, on trial in the coppel, it flew away in fumes

and the adept made off. Too late this good and learned man saw he had been imposed on, and that the Spagyrists are what Dr. Dickenson calls them Enigmatistinubivagi.
Chymistry, reader, is a fine and antient art. The analysing of sensible bodies by fire, to discover their real powers and virtues, is highly praise-worthy, and the surprising experiments we make, fill the mind of an inquirer after truth, with the greatest veneration for the wonderful author of nature: but more