TREATY WATER OF LIFE OR THEORETICAL ANATOMY AND PRACTICAL SOME WINE.

DIVIDED INTO THREE BOOKS.

Formerly composed by the late M J. Brouaut doctor

FIRST CHAPTER.

Why L'EAU DE VIE bears this name, & that there is a double Water, of Life & of Dead.

In all the foods that nature leaves us for the maintenance of our life in this common passage of the world, there is good and bad; of the restaurant of the destroyer, of the substances of excrement: one to nourish the lamp of vital fire, the other to turn it off & dampen it. The first is subtle, light, clear, & as if celestial; THE second coarse, heavy, obscure & entirely earthly: In this one lies our bearing & conservation: in this ours loss & destruction. But for what these two íbnt opposite effects, it seems to me very reasonable to give them also opposite names. He therefore who performs the office of preserving & maintaining must justly have the title of LIFE; the other who destroys & ruins deserves that of DEAD. I will say more, it is that our vital spirit being a substance liquid, clear, subtle & loose, & what maintains it in its ardor being of same nature, it is very fitting that this preservative be like a similar liquor to be more easily converted into food, & more soon unite with the vital spirit, and this liquor must be of a nature of fire to respond to that of the said spirit, which is an ethereal ardor, so that as the oil maintains the lamp, it poured into the vessels, where flames this spirit, repairs to him the weakenings and the diminutions of the light.

This is why one could conveniently give it the name of WATER OF LIFE, if this name of Water would not contradict its oleaginous substance and susceptible to fire: I say oleaginous, for what if it were not of this nature, it would be impossible to be drunk & sucked by the spirit shining & living in ardor, no more than Water by the flaming wick that she would extinguish rather than light & enliven. But for what by Philosophical authority one can soften the laws of nature to the nominations of things, and that this liquor must have form, consistency & transparency of very clear water, one will not find bad if we borrow this name of Water to express it, as by a more apparent & visible sign.

By which we will establish here a double UAE; one of LIFE, & the other of DEATH, which I have elsewhere noticed by the names of CHYME, & REALGAR; that's to say SUC & VENOM, in the seventh of my Mind of the World books, where I have strong amply deciphered this material.

EAU-DE-VIE, which is in meats & beverages, is this vapor or spiritual liquor hidden within in small quantities, which through the stomach separator, is drawn & carried to the vital spirits for their maintenance & duration. And such vapor comes from the humid radical born with the seeds of each thing, increasing by the action of the solar heat which awakens the innate heat to said seeds, to advance them to such growth.

DEATH WATER is the phlegm & silt we swallow with the food, which having been sucked from the earth by the plant, are in much greater quantity than the preceding Water. So that the pure is always overcome by the impure, the good by the bad; & substance by excrement, and in this lies the misery of our condition, which we are, for so to speak, in need to swallow death with the morsel, filling our bodies of anything harmful to our life. What nature has practiced, no not to destroy us, but rather in order to manifest, & maintain its action within us, & work on separations, which is his job ordinary at the shops of the human house: because if we only took pure things she would find nothing there to separate, and would remain idle in her economy.

Now the quantity of excrement, or phlegm, is always greater than that of the nourishing substance, because in this lower part of the world, where all gross & corruptible impurities gather round the Center, there is always very little pure substance, which loves to seek & to stay in ethereal places suitable to his nature, mortally hates stop at the lower ones, and dislikes them like a healthy and delicate guest in a junk & dirty house. And was only the establishment of the world is such, that everything either high or low; must have LIFE participation, one more, the other less, this purity would always hold to the places where it would remain simple, without never wanting to descend nor to communicate to low and earthly matter. But the goodness of God is so great that she did not want to leave anything devoid of some parcel of his goods, which he distributes to each thing according to its rank & deserves. This is why all earthly bodies are endowed with some this substance, which is mixed in them, in order to preserve them in duration as long as that the thread of their predestination must stretch,

CHAPTER II.

That EAU-DE-VIE is the same in all beverages.

This vapor therefore, or substantial liquor, that by borrowing from the word we call EAU-DE-VIE, is one and the same in all foods, but not in the same quantity because some have more like the WINE, others less like other beverages. And although this seems very strange to those who have not carefully examined the composition of the things, if the truth of experience shows in this, my doctrine be certain & well founded. Those who have duly anatomized the beverages by distillation, have shown that of all there is EAU-DE-VIE, and those who more subtle than the vulgar, distillers have sought the center of this water by reiterations of distillation, & other artificial operations, can testify that, being reduced to its extreme purity, it is in all one similar virtue, color, smell, taste, & action. From this it must be concluded that it is a universal & general liquor, powerful to act on all species with incredible strength & wonder having the power to attract to itself, souls, formed, facilitated & tinctures of other things, so that they remain as dead by the excorporation of their spirit, made in this water mistress, & full of sovereign power, which I will publish below in its place by the proof of experience, where I will show how it separates the tinctures of all bodies, drawing them to oneself by an admirable subtlety.

Then therefore that it is a & general in all foods, one should not estimate my paradoxical opinion, nor out of reason, when to say that that which is taken from the Cider, Perry, Beer & other such beverages, is also good, strong, perfect & virtuous as that of the WINE, were it the most excellent in the world: being separated from all phlegm, who doubts that she is equal to all trials, & do the same actions? Certainly, there is no difference only quantity, when it comes to quality, it's the same thing. It shows to the eye against the opinion of the vulgar, that notwithstanding the variety of meats & beverages that we take, there is only one food in all, and nourisher of all. For our stomach, which is like a Distiller, proceeds in its operations to the same kind as an Alchemist making such separation as the artificial still, & just as this EAU-DE-VIE is rectified by several reiterations of distillations, then finally exalted by circulations: also by the economy of nature in our bodies, food is subtilized, although not so perfectly, by the operation of several stomachs through which it passes.

These stomachs are, the little belly, the liver, & the other places where the food are elaborated before arriving at subtlety convertible into vital spirit.

So from that. it is necessary to draw a consequence, that all plants, roots & fruits participate in this liquor, and that it can be drawn from all: For where does that which is extracted from beer & cervoise, if not hops & wheat, of which is it done? The water where these things are boiled, has no self (as said Hippocrates) no nourishing power or virtue. More where does it come from the strength to intoxicate with beer, if not with the spirit of this liquor which is in it?

that if it is as well as any beverage that can intoxicate participates in it. I will say that even the Cahouin of the savage Jerusalem artichokes in America is not one also destitute: for this beverage disturbs their brains, not otherwise than the best wine on earth, but where does this intoxicating virtue come from? Of the only root of Zucque which they make their wives chew, then boil in clean water, & finally to rise or ferment like Beer, in order to have the clear for their use.

Truly, it is not a marvelous thing that there is EAU-DE-VIE, even in roots, plants, animals, fish, & all other things suitable for food use. For if she is the very food that we let's take things taken, and if there are men who live strong for a long time without the use of WINE, CIDER or cervoise, having only water for any beverage, is it not necessary that they derive their food from the liquor of the other meat eaten? I saw in Bourgeuil an old man, an honest man, named Perroteau, well over a hundred years old who had never drunk WINE, Cider, Beer, or the like, had never eaten flesh or fish, had never been sick, had never been treated or taken medicine, did not eat any fruit or grass, having for his meal only bread, calf cheese an egg with pure water for her to drink.

I will boldly say that I drew from L'EAU-DEVIE, from Médecine de lait, too good & potent, even that would draw a tincture as well as that of the most generous wine that one can find. And I'll say one more thing strange, which I heard from Gerard Dorn German Doctor, who was servant of that great Theophraste Paracelsus, the books of which he turned in the Latin language: It is that he drew the EAU-DE-VIE, LEAD EVEN, by the Art distillations.

CHAPTER. III

That the eau de Vie is a radical humor that preserves the bodies & that the plants have movement & feeling.

by which we will gather from what is said, that THE WATER OF LIFE is a humor or radical liquor infused into bodies, especially vegetables, & more to the fruits than to the other parts, which is clear, liquid, subtle, ethereal & celestial, having the power to nourish & preserve the bodies where it is, and do the same in those where it enters.

But we need to deploy & declare more fully all these each thing separately, in order to make our discourse more accomplished, and that we can desire nothing there that is lacking in the Theory & Contemplation of nature of this WATER that we will talk about. And although we have thrown some before several features, if there is still a lot to say, without which our dispute would go wrong, & would not go all the way where we want it to happen.

The Water of Life is a humidity or radical liquor, infused in the bodies, for their preservation & food, which may surprise many, scandalized, that I make such a mood be visible, but I will show it in a little of words, to everyone's satisfaction. I will not bring here the distinction between the radical humidity of animals & that of plants, because one & the other well considered are a similar thing as to the constitution of body, for I leave the soul alive, moving, and sensitive apart, which comes only because of the easy handling & softness of the material, which is more capable of movement & feeling, which for this cause are more manifest to both animal and vegetable bodies. Because these whoever will take it guard, are also provided with one & the other: but it is so obscurely that the eye not being able to see them, the vulgar who judge nothing but by the rude view thought they be deprived of it at all, isn't it a movement that grow? even a movement from place to place, from the surface of the earth to the top of the air where the trees rise, for from to rise from the bottom so high is not without movement, however late it may be be.

I will give even more apparent testimony to this movement by an admirable experience of nature.

Look at the Cucumber, near the end of the tokens of which if you approach a vessel full of oil, you will see that the next day it will have turned away rather than touching it, so much there is disagreement & counter-passion big between them. Consider what is said of the PALM whose female planted at the edge of a stream & the male at the other edge, they won't stop bending their branches, until they touch and kiss, as if by a secret love they have for each other, and which makes them more fertile, than if they were more distant & planted in various & more separated places. I could here bring several other examples, but I don't want to extend the thread of my speech than to things more necessary to the advanced subject.

However. Of this I I shall somehow draw proof of feeling from the plants themselves: for from where comes that the cucumbers flee the touch of the oil, and that the palm approaches his companion, except by a certain odor that one smells, & a secret affection that the other has, as it were, hidden in the vegetative Soul.

I say much more is that we commonly see the Heliotropes, it is at say the herbs whose flowers follow the Sun, open to favor, & close to his departure or even move to his movement, by a strange marvel of nature. We also see several other herbs to portend & sense the coming of the storm, even bristling & stiffening against it, this can be seen in the Clover.

CHAPTER IV..

Why Eau-de-Vie is the radical humidity of Plants

But leaving this matter, and returning from where I left, It is that the radical humidity of the body of animals & plants is a & similar. I maintain, that the EAU-DE-VIE must be this moist radical to vegetables, whether we have regard to their seed, or that we consider their food & conservation. When at this concerning the seed, it must be considered that their virtue of growing & vegetate, that is to say their vegetative Soul contains in itself a principle, which is because of their fertility; namely, an inner heat, which is not a material fire nor anything like it, but a spirit contained in the seed, the nature of which, as Aristotle says, responds proportionally to the Celestial Element of the stars.

Now that the heat which is in the WATER OF LIFE, by which it is susceptible of ignition or this spirit contained in this liquor, & that this liquor be the proper & engendering seed of the plant, I demonstrate it by reason accompanied by experience: because it is my custom in all evidence to always associate with each other, so that I let the eye see & touch the finger the truth of my doctrine.

First, this spiritual warmth is manifested by its effects in this manner. Pour well-rectified L'EAU-DE-VIE on the roots of a plant that wants to die, you will see it in less than a day become green again, reject, even bloom, which by the ordinary law of reason could not have done with length of time. Do more, sow Parsley seed (which takes a month to lift) in a vessel full of earth, then sprinkle it with this Water, & the cover with a well-lined cloth, & a dish on top to prevent evaporation: If you leave it like this for a few hours, then the discover, you will find your Parsley raised a good finger high, by a wonder no less strange than pleasant. This re-greening of the half-dead plant, & this germination of the seed of Parsley made in little hours, aren't they enough proof that this WATER gives them back their spirit radical?

You will tell me that it is the heat of this WATER that does this, a rustic will tell the like; but pour hot water on it, tant & si often as you please, even do this in a stove, or you thought counterfeit a lukewarmness of renewal, will that be done? that if she gives them back the spirit, is it not necessary that she have it in herself: for to give what one does not have is not possible. But since experience shows the truth of the thing, should we not not that reason follows & accompanies Nature does nothing for nothing nor without reason. Whereby the reason for what I have said is, that this nature has put in the plant (as in all other living things each according to its condition an innate warmth to maintain & counterguard them, which warmth has been of the ancients (especially of Theophrastus, disciple of Aristotle,) called vital principle in nature.

The German Philosophers, who since have had more subtle eyes call Baume, and this Theophraste Paracelsus, so esteemed among them, adorned with several names, this rich treasure of nature; also calling him Baume, Mumie, Mercury, quintessence, secret, Elixir, pearly matter, manna, & many others, meaning by this to mean its abundant virtue of restoration, germination & conservation. But let's listen to the reason & description made by P. Séverin Dane, one of the first philosophers in all of Germany; The Balm of herbs, he says, Mumie, recine, element, or as one will name, ne only in the mood that the sucked plant, and which carries the food with itself, of which this plant is watered, and this Balm is not hidden in the garbage excrement & rude of the earth, but in a much more excellent mood which resists with very powerful force, the external injuries of the elements & who mingling among, breed corruption.

But whatever, this heat native which is in the EAU-DE-VIE proves it, experience has shown it by the restoration of the dying plant, & thereby prompt germination, that it has made from the seed of Parsley, and the like. If I wanted here to deploy this matter according to its merit & dignity, I would have to employ all my Book. This will therefore suffice for the reason that THE WATER OF LIFE contains in itself this spiritual warmth that makes the plant live & keep.

CHAPTER V.

That Eau-de-Vie is the general seed of Plants & of an ethereal nature.

From this we draw a sequence that this WATER where lies such heat, in is there clean & first seed, by the sudden increase & restitution that its watering has done to the sown seed, & half-dead plant: For how such effects might occur, if it did not have in itself, or was not, if it must be so called, the seed of the seed of the plant.

To believe that a herb has no other first seed than its seed, is too crude an opinion. Visible seeds are placed power in action by quite another seed which is not seen, which comes from the influences of Heaven, mothers of this spiritual vapor, which Art Distillations manifest in the form of EAU-DE-VIE. The proof of this is visibly made by the subtlety that we see in it. For being led to perfect rectification, i.e. separated from all phlegm & other excrement taken from the earth, then circulated as it belongs, if you threw it in the Air to the rays of a clear summer Sun, you will see that it goes back from whence it came; has know to the ethereal region, without a single drop falling. . .

And to show that it is of the nature of ether, which is this supreme part of the Air where the Stars are, even much more subtle than the Air itself, if you pour a drop of Oil on it, you will suddenly see it go basically, as much coarser, heavier, less airy than this WATER who supersedes it.

That if you put common WATER in the bottom of a glass, then put the Oil, & on the Oil of the very pure EAU-DE-VIE, You will see there by a pleasant invention the Oil between two WATERS one earthly, which is at the lowest;

the other celestial, swimming at the highest, which is a sufficient proof, that this EAU-DE-VIE is much more aerated than Oil itself, and of a very different nature than vulgar WATER: even that it is of nature more than Oil, & not point D'EAU, although it represents its form & appearance; because if she was natural WATER, how would it swim above the Oil? or how would ignite it, which WATER can never do?

CHAPTER VI.

That the preservation of the plant lies in the EAU-DE-VIE

So I have sufficiently proved by experience & reason, that this WATER is a seed, or moist radical, endowed with very subtle innate heat & celestial, by which each Plant is produced & preserved. But I want to add to what above another noble & beautiful proof of his preservative virtue, not only to Plants, but also to Animals, so that I do not put forward anything, which is not verified by due experience,

Mix this WATER with blood recently drawn from a healthy man in a vial of glass, & close it very well that nothing breathes of it, you will see that this WATER will keep the blood from curdling, & will always keep it in its subtle clarity, as if he was still alive. And just might be that mingled with drawn blood of a sick person, she would bring him back to his good constitution and color.

This makes clearly see, that not only to Plants, but also to animate bodies, it communicates a restoring & conserving virtue: For like us said of the greening of the withered plant, so we say that being taken from within, it has the same action on human bodies, even, if I must say, in all others. I saw such a man to take it every day, to have lived without any disease, besides the age of a hundred years & always lasted healthy, until by long old age he died as if sleeping without none, feeling of pain.

CHAPTER VII

That the WATER OF LIFE does not burn in the Bodies.

Here a matter attracting the other, I want to satisfy & clear a doubt, or rather an error where the vulgar are misled by ignorance; namely that this WATER taken from inside must, burn the Stomach, the liver, & the others noble parts of the body. For the populace who judge things with indiscretion, & by the outward appearance, esteem (seeing this WATER susceptible to inflammation, because of which it is called fiery) that it burns & ignites all that it touches in the entrails, & lights up there everything like this what it would do if it were brought near a candle or burning paper. Gold how much I have disputed this sufficiently in my Book of the Spirit of Life, & make this Song loudly sung by the fifth of my Muses, if this place requires it, I will say something more about it, in order to clarify the resolution of this doubt & remove the suspicion printed in several, against the benign virtue of this EAU-DE-VIE. It must be considered that there are double warmth to the human body, the natural one, by which the spirit of life is now in ardor, not consuming, but conserving.

And this one is that which receives the vapor of the food to maintain itself in force and in force until the predestined time of its amortization: The other wine natural, coming from the excrement of said foods, which excrement taken into the Body in too great quantity, & becoming corrupted by putrefaction, because for its excess it cannot be digested, heats up & ignites with sulphurous smoke, which burns & consumes the vital Spirit, & besieging him in his fortress of the Heart puts him all in fever, which well often, if this fire is not extinguished with help, or WATER, or rather something else suitable refreshment, set ablaze not only the citadel of the said heart, but also the whole city of the Corps. What therefore ignites & burns is not a pure & liquid substance, but an orderly & loamy matter: for the purity added to purity does not damage it, but rather doubles its perfection, or on the contrary, the filth & excrement binds the disorder, infects, & spoils:

Thus adding to the vital Spirit of the Body will restore clear, liquid, & separated from any strange impurity, even a restorative & conservative of the same substance & nature, how will it be possible that this spirit suffers badly nor loss? THE EAU-DE-VIE, perfectly subtilized, has no excrement, neither by consequently no harmful faculty; how, then, taken from within, could it burn the intestines, & consume by inflammation the Spirit of LIFE, to which in all she looks like? The good never makes war on the good, but the evil, which always engineer its ruin.

The massive & loamy excrement we swallow with eating & drinking, is at all useless for nourishment, & nature rejects it through the conduits intended for purgation, as something from which he can make no profit, but rather in very often receives extreme damage: If this EAU-DE-VIE was excremental, it could cause remarkable harm; but being all pure spirit, & ethereal in nature, experience has repeatedly shown, that instead from burning, she defended the Body & its vital spirit, from the fire that the excess of excrement strove to put there: For to indigestion caused by too much gluttony, and which by the putrefaction of things taken, would engender feverish inflammation in the Heart, there has never been found a more excellent nor quick remedy than this liquor of LIFE, which suddenly advances virtue digestive, brings out, either by vomiting or by stockings, indigestible things & opening the conduits of the spirits through the whole body, gives them free passage to exercise their office in the preservation of health. I confess that a body already all burnt with fever, or which has the blood cooked with leprosy, it added to the Vital Spirit, inflaming it with the excremental sulphur, which caused the disease, would increase inflammation, inflaming itself; but to Body healthy & not on fire elsewhere (some natural ardor of the vital Spirit there is) how will it ignite. Experience shows us that if you put her in his vessel over the heat of the fire, he'll never take it, if the flame does not touch it: Also it will not do in the Body, if the sulphur, another natural, lit by the excrements, does not serve as a bait.

It is therefore to great it is wrong to tax her with such malice, and those who slanderously accuse her of burn well show not having entered the sacred much before to take Natural Philosophy: But abuse in this, as in all other things to this custom of always blindfolding the people prevented by ignorance & false persuasion to see the light of truth. What will you say to me will retort someone of the ardor that it causes to the mouth even in the taking? But what will you say, I will answer him, that where it touches, it does not leaves no burn marks. However I will learn that this UAE subtilized & prepared, both by sufficient distillations and circulations, no longer gives this ardor in the mouth or elsewhere, but is as pleasant as the best WINE produced by the vineyards of Grave or Frontignac: I don't speaks here only of its simple preparation.

But what will it be if it is adorned & enriched with Tinctures of all things more excellent, for the conservation of the noble parts of the human body, as I will show in talking about his practice? Certainly, far from being harmful, that as nature's balm is considered to have the virtue of warming & moistening , how much it removes the heat & humidity of illnesses, also this WATER makes the similar.

Here I cannot refrain from complaining that the properties so much excellent & desirable of this liqueur, are so imprisoned in the dungeons of malicious ignorance, which they cannot show to the human nature the favor and benevolence it owes him. And on her part she complains of having come in vain to the Province of the world, and incessantly accuses the stupidity of men, who do not remember such great predestination, to which they were bound by the foresight of nature, put at such a low price & contempt, one of its richest treasures. And those who profess to know the virtue of things, are forced to hide their ignorance by the blame of what precious Baume, having more regard for their ambition, vainglory, avarice & boasting, than in praise of a present so worthy and so laudable; this is stealing to day its light, & to suffocate by imposture the clear truth. So here is what I say fur the burning, of which the vulgar accuse him.

CHAPTER VIII.

Why the EAU-DE-VIE catches fire.

Now I wanna decipher cause why she is susceptible to flame by the approach of fire, in order to to satisfy those, who from there would like to draw the consequence of this burning. And how much that matter must be borrowed from the deepest Philosophy, & requires a sought-after discourse from further away, if will I touch the main point of it the most succinctly as it will be possible for me.

I have said before, that this liquor is of oily substance, but what nature of oil it represents, it does not easily enter into a hard brain: for where is he who, judging her only by the sight of the eye, says that she be of this nature?

However the fire she receives at the slightest approach shows that it is so, because nothing can be inflamed except the substance oilseed: For I understand under the name of oil, any greasy thing, resinous, or sulphurous, apt to receive ignition. But when here I speak of oil, I do not mean common & vulgar oil, for that would be To philosophize too rustically, but an airy essence, or even more subtle & light, even as the Air, which so much more approaches in proportion to the nature of the ether, that is to say of this supreme region where the celestial bodies fly, making continual rounds around the mundane City; the more she is distant from the nature of WATER, & consequently approaching that of FIRE. This Region was called by the ancients the Region of FIRE, not that it be full as the vulgar think; but for what it is the part of the Air the lightest, subtlest & freed from all inferior aquosity, towards which incessantly from all the great body of the earth, rises the spiritual vapor, from nature of elemental fire, which of necessity must be very clear, full of vital ardor, and very friendly to fire. Otherwise if it was watery like the lower Air, its too humid coldness, & of the nature of WATER would darken the great celestial torches, which can only shine in an Air which is of their nature.

CHAPTER IX.

That the EAU-DE-VIE is by nature Oil not Water.

From this it must be concluded, that our liquor carried out to perfect subtlety, & which we have taught above, responds in proportion to the Element of the Stars, which can be raised in the same way than the vapor that rises to the Ethereal Regions: Even who who flies to the same place, as to its natural center & place, is by necessity other condition & property than WATER, & it must be of nature oilseed vapor, because of which it ignites, which however it wouldn't do without the touch of the common & burning fire, as I declared above, which fire nevertheless it can easily receive, because of the great subtlety of its Oil, & that it is like a vapor that stains incessantly to fly upwards, if it is not retained in a vessel well closed, even in such a matter & manner that it cannot escape by any pores, as I will show hereafter: Wherefore if the flame of fire common the key ever so slightly on the way up, it suddenly lights up, as one can experience by closing the Still where it distills, & approaching a candle of rising steam, to which immediately the fire will catch fire, filling the entire vessel with its ignition. The reason therefore why it ignites, is not to be caustic or burning in nature, but subtle ethereal & freed from all wateriness, even taken to higher simplicity, which neither WATER nor Air itself, which in all respects comes from the nature of aqueous & cold vapour: on account of which it is breathed by animals for the continual refreshing of the ardor of their vital spirit. Here someone will be able to say that this is not so, and that if our air were a vapor of WATER cold, the lighted candle would be extinguished there in a short time, not being able maintain in ardor in a place that was contrary to it.

I will also be told that if the ethereal region was similar to the substance of our liquor, the Stars which are bodies of fire would suddenly ignite all that Region there, like the approached candle ignites the rising vapor in the distillation. To what I answer that the aqueous vapor of the Air cannot put out the Candle lit, because of its rarity, which is not powerful enough to do this, & can give him no other impediment than to tighten his flame, as we sometimes see in very humid weather that this Candle illuminates very little by the stretching & tightening of its flame, from which it comes makes smoke & pumpkins at the end of its wick.

As for the ether, the stars cannot ignite it, because their fire is not such as our vulgar, because there is no sulfur in it excrement, to inflame by its approach the ethereal substance. For they are made of a simple fire neither consuming nor destroying, but always lively & retaining.

That if our fire were the same, who will believe that by its approach he ignited the most flammable thing in the world? For real this astral fire is of quite another and dissimilar nature. Instead of the vulgar rises from bottom to top, this one descends from top to bottom, by continual influence, sending its nourishing & vivifying rays on the globe of the earth:

For what folly would it be to think that astral influences rose to the above them, where there is nothing over which they can have power or action, all things therein being immortal, & though needing no nourishment to increase their liveliness? It therefore remains resolved that the EAU-DE-VIE ignites not because of a burning & caustic nature, but for its perfect substance led by Art, to greater exaltation than Air itself, to to which I will add this again, to show that it does not damage or burn in the Body the places where it touches.

If it caused limb burns interiors, why wouldn't she do something similar to the ulcers & sores where the flesh is uncovered? Now experience shows us to the eye that the more it is subtle, & the less pain it causes. What can I say less? because were she without rectification, it is completely innocuous, that is to say without pain, & does not find no remedy or Balm, by which the Flesh be more recreated. what if we apply it very pure & subtle, where is the wound, the ulcer, the cancer, the noli me tangere, that in a short time she heals? But I say much more, it is that it can be put in the eye even without any pain or damage: And however the eye is the most sensitive part of the whole Body, where then will the mind be? so stupid, who dares to say that it is harmful & burning? But here is what I say, both against the accusation of her burning, and to show that she is of oily nature, now we have to talk about its subtlety.

CHAPTER X.

The subtlety of the EAU-DE-VIE.

Anyone who WILL PEEL well the nature of the WINES (under this name including any liquor, from which EAU-DE-VIE can be drawn) he will know than the one we are arguing about, although it is in some interspersed with large amount of phlegm, always desires to ride up, &, fly in the Air, to get rid of earthly, coarse, & muddy bonds to which it is attached: For whatever guard it is made, & in whatever closed place one tightens it, if there is so little openness, it will escape out, & piercing the almost invisible conduits of the walls of sound vessel, it will subtly emerge as an unbound spirit, leaving the body of the WINE where she was, as soulless & lifeless:

This is why the barrels where this VIN is enclosed cannot keep it for long, due to the porosity of the wood, if they have not received the coating according to the fashion of the ancients; that is to say, if they have been tarnished & coated on the inside with Resin, or rather sulphur, as the Germans do, to prevent its evaporation: For they have invented the practice of sulfuring them, so that the WINE is preserved there by several years, which means that all theirs, especially that of the Rhine, has the smell & taste of sulphur, and all the more so since he is in a newly sulphurous vessel. But still it's not enough to hold this spirit until in the end it comes out, because its master subtlety, dissolves these resins & sulfurs over time, in order to open the pores of the wood, and set it free.

Experience will show what I say, if you leave turpentine in white WINE they will dissolve it, & make it drinkable, especially if you mix in the yolk of an egg. Painters demonstrate almost the same thing by a nice Varnish, from which they come on the same paper, dissolving very clear turpentine with only EAU-DE-VIE; And if you want to have testimony that it can make the similar to the harder resins & gums, see the Apoquaries who cause the Adapte to dissolve, even with this WATER,& not only Mastic, but all other gums, such as Galbanum, Bdelium, Ammonia, & Oppoponax.

I have several times felt that the blood of Dragon also dissolves in it, of which I have made a very excellent Varnish red-crimson, which I used with the brush on the Silver coated in foil, to make all sorts of Moresques, & other beautiful things in the Art of portraiture, in the exercise of which I sometimes take pleasure. All of this therefore gives sufficient proof that this liquor is so subtle, that neither sulfur nor Resin, nor rubber, can not retain it for a long time without overriding them, and flies away by its spiritual nature.

This is why the most curious to keep the WINE, keep it in bottles of glass, which is in no way porous, & this by plugging them with gummed wax & enveloped in a Pig's bladder which is impenetrable to it: And we could not find something that can close the glass vessels, or we reserve, that this bladder, which also we judge to be without pores, by the urine it contains, even though they are in a hurtful mood very poignant & salty, which can even pierce the pores of a strong vessel metal or earth. Because when metal, they eat it, gnaw, & percent: And as for the earth, it is eaten up in a few days, and this by the Saltpetre or Nitre. For one can draw from it very clear & beautiful, even proper to to make gunpowder, of which the wise & diligent researcher of the mysteries of Nature will be able to draw judgments which will guide him to the goal of a great perfection & knowledge. But Nature, a wise worker, practiced making the bladder without pores, so that the neighboring parts are not infected with the vapor of the urine to damage the whole body: The best way to keep the spirit in its WINE, it is to lock it in the glass, & remember to have some another time drunk in Antwerp, which had been preserved in its goodness & beauty by more than fifteen years

Now I come back to the subtlety of this spirit, which I still want to show, by a very admirable & beautiful experience, even such that greatness must induce everyone to great astonishment. Watch & consider the operation PASVINS of which (if you haven't seen it) I will teach you how:

Have a glass vessel made all round, or oval, which has the neck only one or two fingers up: Also have a glass of greatness & similar capacity, on whose mouth you can spill & hold the said vessel:

This done, fill the glass with good claret VIN, & fill the round vessel with WATER; then put your finger in his mouth & reverse it on the glass y so much that the neck touches the WINE:

Remove then after your finger, then you will see first that the WINE & the WATER do not will not mingle, & will still see this WINE rising through & in the middle of the WATER from above, like a net of crimson silk, or like a little smoke that rises from the cup of the vase at the top of which all the WINE will rise, WATER descending completely to the bottom of the glass: So that one makes room to the other by a transposition which seems to be more of a miracle than a work natural: here is the shape of the PASSEVINS & their posture.

CHAPTER XI.

Passevins & their Reason.

Many have endeavored to explain the reason for this marvel, and the most of our Physicians had not yet been enough subtle, to invent or see it, but none that I know of have it.

well found: I will therefore say it to the truth, to give you pleasure in intelligence of such a beautiful thing, and empty by the same means that of subtlety of our EAU-DE-VIE. We have seen ingenious men invent the means of making WATER rise against its own nature, with a wonder not less useful than pleasant, so much so that they did it by artifice perpetual fountains whose practice Cardan wanted to teach, but not such, nor so beautiful as Polyphile in Hypnerotomachy.

But Mathematics shows us the invention of such machines to make rise WATER by reason of emptiness, for nature abhorring all emptiness, makes that WATER by forced sucking, be pulled up to fill this void, as well as we see at the push-ups, with which we raise it to such a height that we wants, as I remember having seen in the house of the Lord of Boussu near Monts en Hainaut, where by a pump the WATER was carried in a beautiful & rich fountain on the door, & as far as the Stables, & built grotto in the middle of the garden.

By this same Art & means, One could make a Mill perpetual who would throw WATER into the Pond from which he would have taken it. Who will want to see a more familiar proof of the attraction of WATER by vacuum, put WATER in a dish, then on this WATER a coffin of paper reversed the point in high, this fact, light the end of said coffin, then spill an empty glass on it as long as he touches the WATER, and then he will see it rise completely to the glass, & remain there until lifted.

It is the same reason for suction cup of the Surgeons, by which the flesh is raised by sucking as one would do WATER itself. This lifting & sucking happens through the dissipation & consumption of the Air, being therein made by the flame, which amortized, and the place remaining empty, it is forced to fill with something. What nature strives to do by attracting WATER into the glass, or flesh in the plunger. But all these reasons have no of place to PASSEVINS:

For it is not emptiness that attracts the WINE to the top, nor WATER below, since everything there is full, and there can be no void there. Certainly I find in this a greater marvel, namely to the exchange of places that WINE & WATER make to each other, the WINE rising to through WATER, & WATER down through WINE, which happens all in one same time by very great industry of nature:

What cause then can we assign to this marvel? Will it be the light subtlety of one, & the heavy bulk of the other?

But I'll be told, if the WATER drops to low rightly of its size & weight, why not make the VIN the same because of the phlegm & earthly dregs of which it abounds?

To this I answer, that the elevation of the WINE is made by the Spirit who is in him, whose power is so great (although he be less in quantity) than in its nature seeking the top, it commands this phlegm & binds, not yet separated, to follow him, for the nature of spirits is powerful, which gives its laws to that of bodies which obey their movements & wills, until making in them changes & miraculous alterations; even raise them with oneself against their innate desire to tend downward.

Experience manifests this by the effect of sublimations in the Chemical Art, such as quick, silver, sulphur, & several others, including spirits raise the faeces with them, this is also seen in sublimation or distillation of saltpeter, including WATER, however clear it may be, by distilling through the filter, attracts with itself earthly phlegm in large quantities which see through the reiterations of Calcination, Solution & Distillation, so that a pound sometimes draws out three quarters of terrestrial silt.

THE similar therefore is made to PASSEVINS, where the phlegm, tartar & lees, do not point down the VIN to low, but are raised with it by the master force of his mind, though much less in quantity.

It is therefore the subtlety which is the cause of its elevation: For as I have said before, the spirit of the WINE is an ethereal substance, & (if it is necessary so to speak) superiority of elementary natures, even a general spirit of plants & fruits, which as King, is made obey the partial forms of each one, of what give sufficient testimony the tinctures which he draws from all, as I will show soon.

But if in all he is general, that is to say one & similar & he is gifted of power such that in rising it also raises its phlegm & lees, from which comes that the spirit of Cider also rises being in the PASSEVINS Because if you put the Cider in the manner of the VIN, you will see that there will be no elevation,& WATER will not sink to the bottom, but if you place them at the contrary to knowing the Cider to the upper vessel & the WATER to the lower one, suddenly the WATER will rise, and the Cider will descend.

Is this done for what WATER be more subtle, nothing less: For what is of spirit in Cider is of the same virtue, nature force, than he who is at the WINE, as I have above enough shown & when separated from its phlegm, it differs in no way from the other, having equal power to draw dyes. what? is there quantity of his phlegm is too much?

no.. Wouldn't it be for the big viscosity of the said phlegm & dregs where it is so enclosed, that it is impossible for it to move the wings to rise & that the size of this viscosity attaches to it like a heavy stone at the feet which makes him lower? Certainly it is the nature of any viscous thing to be its weight, and to agglutinate what can be of spirit in it with the tenacity of its mucilage. But in cider there is much of that slimy phlegm, & comes out little, if not much less spirit than in the VIN.

What appears to the vessels where the Cider is drawn, at the bottom which attaches a large phlegm and very thick mucus, which the vulgar calls Maire, which is not to be found on VIN's vessels. That is why this too much earthy & loamy matter prevents the little spirit from escaping from its prison, & by gravity flowing step by step, attracts with itself this little spirit, who can (like poverty in Alciat) complain & say,

My mind is so sharp it could fly up to the golden paneling of the vault starry If the heavy burden or my wing is glued Did not force by its weight, its flight to slide down.

It is therefore not the quantity, but the viscosity of the phlegm, whose gravity & glue hold it back, & prevent it from rising, but rather make it sink, forcing the WATER to leave him the place & seek the top. That if this spirit is once freed from this glue & burden, who doubts that his wing will become as light as the best & most generous WINE in the world. By all these things one can judge & know the subtlety of the vinous spirit to which one has given the name of EAU-DE-VIE:

Which subtlety is such, that it cannot be stopped nor retained in any porous vessel, whether of wood or metal, & have we not found by experience that GOLD & GLASS that can contain it: this one to be poreless, that one to be very heaped & tightened.

CHAPTER XII.

That the WATER OF LIFE, BECAUSE OF ITS ethereal NATURE, surpasses the Elementals.

I come now to its ethereal & celestial Nature, of which even I have spoken before I will add something here for the confirmation of what is advanced. The vulgar of Philosophers, especially those who Schools base their disputes on Aristotle's Physics, will argue loudly against me, & will propose to me that in the province of the Elements nothing can be find, nor see, which exceeds their nature, and that giving the name of Ether to composed things, it is an error in their Philosophy: But I will answer them by the testimony of Cardan, whose authority, considering his doctrine, well deserves to be confessed & received.

The fire (he says in the Second Book of Subtlety) which is very hot, is rarer & thinner than ether, & quintessence itself. Because it is joining to the Sky, & for this very light, moderating by circulation the heat printed from the Stars, with retained tenuity & rarity.

By this means (he says again) fiery WATER reduced to supreme subtlety by FIRE, is refreshed by the movement of elevations & circulations, & acquires a temperature excellent. Yet this WATER & ether are almost an average thing, between mortal & immortal; this is why a little earlier he doubt not to call it ETHER, because of its very-rare, mobile substance, & which retains by its movement the temperate heat, and yet very abundant, for which reason I even confess that it can not only retain all the virtues, but also prolong life.

Because (he said) expected that it is very subtle, it mixes with the first radical humidity, penetrating the solid parts of the body, & separating the excrement contained in said humidity. But for what she has a lot of heavenly warmth, she rejects all that is not pure, because of which it restores & remakes the natural heat, mainly when it was weakened by old age, which is nothing but the diminution of this heat. And that's the reason why this Cardan even thinks that such WATER does not hurt the heart or the liver, but on the contrary, it keeps all parts of the body in perfect economy of health, even cures them of all their infirmities by its admirable virtues above written in this first Book of Theory, and which will be further expressed in the two following Books, which will deal with the practice to prepare it with all its virtues.

---

BOOK SECOND

FIRST CHAPTER.

Anatomy of WINE.

I have, it seems to me, quite extended my discourse of theory & contemplation of the nature of L'EAU-DE-VIE, Either nevertheless I would have researched several considerable things much further, if the fear of going too far away, and the difficulty in something so little intelligible to those who have not entered into the profound sacrament of Philosophy, would not have retained my steps of such a painful journey: But I think I have taught as much as he is needed for the clear & naive knowledge of the subject which I have undertaken to speak, that's why I will now come to the practice.

Experience will show us that things which are not the same substance, are never united nor carried out perfectly, and only by consequently they are separable. This presupposed, it is necessary to deduce which are those filth and phlegm which are in the WINE, and among the EAU-DE-VIE, of what nature they are; & where they come from.

Therefore, if it is allowed to say it this way, we must anatomize the VIN, & make it, like a dissection with the instrument & action of FIRE, which is the only cutter & separator of heterogeneous & different parts.

So take some WINE & distill it, if you like, in a distillatory without refrigerator, & this until everything being mounted, it does not remain at the bottom than dregs. This dark, coarse, heavy and viscous lees is the terrestrial & material that the WINE drew from the earth. What is verified by the Salt that one draws from it, because nothing contains SALT which is not of terrestrial nature, as it appears in all things burnt, in the ashes of which SALT is contained.

This SALT properly speaking is what we called TARTAR SALT, which if you dissolved separately in a cellar, it will turn into this liquor that it is called TARTAR OIL.

But to separate the SALT from this dregs, do it well burn & calcine in an earthen vessel that endures fire until it becomes gray-white: Then warm it in WATER, which WATER if you distill through the filter, which is a strip of cloth in the way that I I will say linen below, then let it evaporate & smoke on the fire in a clean vessel, you will have at the bottom the very white SEL, suitable for many of good uses, and which among other things derives the tincture from ANTIMONY;

or even perfectly melts the Crystal, to compose stones artificial beauty no less agreeable than the natural ones. But what will be remained at the end of the filter while distilling, it will make a very ugly black & earth dregs, which is the true earthly excrement which the vine had drawn from its mother nurse.

So you have in the first place the earth & the SALT, which were the most coarse separable parts to VIN. I say nothing here of this dregs which remains at the bottom of the barrels after being exhausted, because it is not the one we called TARTRE, which remains at the first distillation of the WINE, and from which I just spoken:

The other is quite diverse in nature descending to the bottom, & this one attaching itself to the top of the ship: Plus, that one is nothing else than the faeces & plates of cloudy WINE coming out of the press, but this one is the solid part of the tincture of the said WINE which, being volatilized, stands around of the vessel in the manner of SEL, of which even she represents the taste, which SEL OF TARTAR of some of the more subtle Philosophers estimate to symbolize more with mineral Nature than with vegetable Nature by which this first binds which descends to the bottom of the barrel is not of the substance of the WINE, of which it is than the marc, & it should not be put in the rank of the parts or members of its Anatomy.

Continuing the rest of which, if you take all the WATER that you have distilled WINE, & pass it through the EAU-DE-VIE distillery with its refrigerator, under moderate fire conditions, and when you have drawn until what will come out no longer tastes of EAU-DE-VIE, empty what has remained bland at the bottom, and you will have common WATER that the vine had sucked from the earth taking its nourishment from the waterings of the rain:

pour back into the vessel what good you have distilled, & the distill again, doing as before until it comes out of the WATER which no longer or very little taste. Continue this so many times that it doesn't find more of this WATER, but let everything be pure liquor of LIFE If therefore you have set aside all these bland WATERS, you will have by this means excrement & matter which was not mixed perfectly with the spirit of WINE; has namely WATER or phlegm sucked from the rainy waterings by the vine.

Gold that this is so, we usually see when the year especially in Autumn, was rainy, because the grapes swell with WATER, so much that the WINE is less generous, & has not so much spirit, nor EAU-DE-VIE.

But I will be told: If this watery phlegm comes from the watering of the earth, where does it turn to vinegar? because it is done very good: And, as is it possible that this WATER does not turn sour any more than the WATER of the rain?

this question has not yet been debated by anyone that I know of: to which I answer, that the WATER of itself does not sour. Well is true that by corruption she acquires an unpleasant taste against its natural property, which is to be tasteless, so much so that the best is the tasteless one: But when it has passed by bitter things, it acquires a sourness, and becomes poignant, as can receive all flavors; & this is the way taught, by Cardan at thirteenth book of Subtlety, showing the art of making vinegar with blackberries cornouilles, & wild pears dried, then dipped in it:

I say therefore that the watery phlegm having been passed through the body of the Vine or Grape; then fermented & boiled with the WINE, retains something, not of the spirit vinous, but Tartarous, & Salty matter, which causes its sourness: For according to the testimony of the same Cardan, salty liquors become sour: So if you want to sour the phlegm of WINE, boil it until decrease by one-third; so that all the impression of the vinous spirit that could stay flies away. This done, leave it in an uncorked vessel, when over time it will sour, yielding nothing to the best vinegar, which even does not sour for any other reason than the loss of its vinous spirit, & mixes of TARTAR left in it.

This TARTAR is so vigorous to cause sourness to liquors where it mixes, as if you distil three or four jars of vinegar common, until you have at the bottom of the distillation, a material thick as dregs, then put a portion of this material in a barrel of WINE, THAT will make him in a few hours so sour, that the vinous spirit will remain defeated: from which invention the vinegar makers could draw a very great profit in a short time. Now besides this phlegm, Anatomy finds another separable thing to WINE, and which is much greater consequence, and of which no one in front of me noticed. Because neither Lully nor Ulstade, nor Rupecissa, nor others who have spoken of the distillations of EAU-DE-VIE, made no mention of it.

It is an Oil which swims on the phlegm being at the WINE of green color, & cider; tanned, both very small quantity, but so horrible in stench, that it is not possible to smell them without brain injury, even so sticky, that the finger after touching them in keeps the bad smell very long: Gold like all that is good fragrant is a friend of the SPIRIT OF LIFE, so everything that smells bad is enemy. And that's why Nature put the sense of the nose near the mouth to discern the bad from the good smell before anything enters it. This Oil, then, being so troublesome, must be something dangerous, and must think it comes from a bad cause. I spoke at length at seventh of my Books of the Spirit of the World, than in the lower Sphere or .

inhabit mortal bodies, Nature to observe vicissitude, & continue always his ordinary action, put in every body two seeds, one of LIFE, & the other of DEATH: That of LIFE is what receives &, gives food for maintenance of the Vital Spirit: That of DEATH is what continually wars against this spirit, in order to chase it out of its home. And as this substance vitality is something sweet, clear and with a sweet smell: On the contrary, what destroyed is bitter, dark, & stinking.

See then that THE WATER OF LIFE converted into perfect subtlety, is because of its good smell the restaurant of the vital spirit, shall we say without reason that this Oil found in WINE is by its stench, cause of DEATH & ruin of this spirit?

Now, although both seeds of LIFE and DEATH are in small quantity in compound bodies, if this mortal Oil, is much less so than the vital spirit. That if it were not so, oh good God how little would we live, taking with the meats more venom than of food?

But the Author of Nature, like a good Father, desiring us keep alive on the one hand, as far as the term by him ordained permits, & not wanting that for our offense we remain immortal, has made that this seed of DEATH was engendered in food, even in all bodies, but in small quantities, to attract us little by little to our end, and to suffer the penalty for the disobedience of our first Father. This is why (as we said in common proverb ) We swallow death little by little with the morsel.

& there there is nothing that had a beginning of LIFE which the end does not finally attack..

And here, it seems to me, is a very great misery for mortals, that the traitor suborne delicacy to desire the excess of VIN, excrement? of which if they knew, they would be content with the moderate use of it, whereby they would find themselves strengthened in the economy of all their functions natural, vital & animal & on the contrary one can by an observation sinister, & all too common, seeing how all the above functions are offended in the man of debauchery by very great infirmities, as paralysis, epilepsy, apoplexy, dropsy, drops, fevers, & others innumerable diseases, which many consider incurable, for not being experienced in the part of Medicine, called therapeutic, or curative, being in this Doctors in name and dress, and nothing less in effect, contenting themselves only from the ostentation of some Greek or Latin Theory, & neglecting the research & practice of the specific remedies that are in the nature destined by divine Providence, for the healing of all kinds of diseases.

Now to return to the continuation of my speech begun, this Oil separable which I consider to be the seed of DEATH, is one of the substances heterogeneous & dissimilar in spirit of the WINE, which Art Separates from it, because of its imperfect & divisible mixture.

There is still in this VIN another excrement much more difficult to separate, & obstinately entwined within it. It's a subtle tartar who can only draw or hunt it at the last distillations, which attaching itself to the glass vessels, marks them with a floury whiteness, so well attached, that it is not possible to remove it by any enema.

This Tartar does not lie in WATER phlegmatic, but in substance clean WINE, acrimony & smokiness of which it is the cause, the separation is known so much by the said whiteness, attached to the vessels, only by taste: For to the last distillations, while the SPIRIT of LIFE is very close to its simplicity, if you taste what remains at the bottom of the vessel, you will find it acrid & poignant to the language; from where it is necessary to conjecture, that it is that which gives this flavor ungrateful & biting to the EAU-DE-VIE, which separated from this excrement by reiterations & distillation, & circulation, makes its amicable sweetness felt, much more graceful without comparison, than the sweetest VIN in the world.

CHAPTER II.

From the excrement of the WINE, from their mixture,

But to make this previous operation even more intelligible to those who have not had the experience. We hold as a certain rule in Philosophy, that all that is not point mixed by the minimal parts, (i.e. perfectly) is separable: for the heterogeneous things we can interpret dissimilar never unite in perfection of mixture, & some union that seems to be there, if by means of artistic separation, the division is made by eye, and can one draw apart the substance from what is not point of its nature.

This can be seen in the VIN itself, in which if you mix WATER, you will withdraw it, as Cardan says, by a rather slight artifice. Make a little strip or linen cloth, in the form of a filter, of which I spoke above, and put it through one end in the glass where the VIN will be, leaving hang the rest in another empty glass, & then you will see the WATER rising by this tab, then descend into said empty glass as clear as it was before the mixture: what is part because of the dissimilarity & imperfect mix of WATER & WINE partly because of the clarity of the WATER that this tab attracts, leaving behind the body of the thicker VIN for its tincture which still contains some portion of lees: For this color red, which seems so pleasant, & of the beauty of which we are so tempted, is nothing but dregs, which he leaves even at the first distillation in form of black pitch which remains at the bottom of the distillation vessel.

We can make yet another separation of WINE & WATER according to that some write, by means of ivy wood; make a vase or cut this wood, then having filled it with water and wine, place it in a dish, leave for a few hours you will see the water pass & flow through, the Pure WINE, remaining within. What the Poets seem to have confirmed, dedicating the ivy to Bacchus which they made the God of WINE.

If this is true, is it not because this wood is very porous, through which passes WATER, which Aristotle says is the most subtle liquor of all, and than wine because of dyes & scales being thicker cannot override.

But whether the VIN is the thicker the proof will be by putting an egg in it: for if it is pure, the egg will swim, otherwise it will sink to the bottom. And this is the reason why the water of the Sea carries large vessels, which that of Rivière cannot do. Those who do salt also experience this, putting an egg in their water to know its strength or weakness of this salt.

CHAPTER III.

Manner of separating said excrement

It is by the Anatomist Art of fire that one separates the excrement from the WINE to have the pure ethereal & simple liquor, of which I (this seems) shown the practice in the first Chapter of this second Book : But so that you don't have to search for it through the menu in my speech, I will deduce it immediately in a few words, and with such ease, that the little work will make you want to put it to the test. For therefore avoid the boredom of extracting the EAU-DE-VIE from the WINE itself.

Take four or five pots of the Commune more or less according to good will seem to you, & according to the quantity you want to make, not having regard if it is of WINE, CIDER, or other beverage: For as I have taught above, it is the same thing.

Then put it to be distilled in a fire bath such that it gives leisure by distilling to count up to the number of five or six between two drops: continue this fire diet until you have drawn both shares, or by tasting what comes out. You couldn't find any flavor of EAU-DE-VIE, & you remember at the end of the distillation to leave cool your distillery by itself.

This done, remove the phlegm remaining inside, & after having washed & dried the low & high vessel, so that he does not feel any smell of phlegm, pour inside what will have distilled, & fight very well the joins, so much of the said vessel than from the vessel, so that nothing is lost by breathing, the lut will be sufficient linen plastered with flour & soaked in water in the manner of porridge without cooking, because the dough stops the spirits very well.

When all is well joined, & the vessel placed in the bath, rekindle the fire in the stove, regulating it by reduction of some heat from the first distillation: because spirit at each becoming more subtle, also rising more lightly & to less fire.

Having done this distill what you can until the sign in front says of the blandness of outgoing phlegm. That if you see by the taste that this phlegm still brings back WATER OF LIFE, continue the distillation, as long as at all, or at soon it loses this taste, & when you will open the cooled vessel for the empty & wash as said is.

Repeat the distillations of your Water as long as many times that you finally had it all without phlegm, which will happen in the seventh. This done, you will test the perfection of this WATER in such so. Pour a little into a silver spoon, and set it on fire with paper, or by holding it close to a lighted candle, if it suddenly catches fire, & that it burns all without leaving after its amortization any phlegm in the spoon making a clear & broad flame, not blue point nor rising in pyramid shape, it is well done & perfect.

You can make it another test, spilling on it a drop of oil that you will see descend to the bottom against the naturalness of common & phlegmatic Water. So a safe & fairly good practice to draw the spirit of the VIN into its pure simplicity.

But if you want a more ingenious and prompt one, I will tell you. Make the mouthpiece of the still enter a channel passing through a refrigerator full of water, & fight the joints of both very well. By this artifice you will draw it very perfect from the third or fourth distillation.

But in this operation it is necessary that both the distilling vessel whether the canal be of glass or of very firm earth, because if they were of copper or lead, the WATER taking their quality would become much worse & evil proper to health. Some wanted to shorten the time to use of oiled sponges to put on the mouth of the distilling vessel that they call Pumpkin, so that the only spirit passes through, and the phlegm leaking oil remains behind, which happens to be genuine; but he happens an evil that we cannot avoid, it is that this spirit takes the taste of it very annoying oil, which he can almost never give up. The others have otherwise practiced, putting at the said mouth paper in several doubles, hoping that the only spirit would pass there, but I saw by experience that it is followed by phlegm almost as much as in the common way. THE therefore better; & surest means are those which I have said to which there is no loss, damage or fault.

All these distillations accomplished you will put your WATER to circulate in a Pelican, which is the circulatory whose form I will give below, the mouth of which being tightly closed with several lut blankets, you will put it in the bath, or if you will in a vessel full of riddled ashes, then put it on the slow fire that you will continue for a long time in its tie until uncorking the Pelican you smell no similar in sweetness, & as if celestial. Because the longer the traffic will be, the more your liquor will be perfected becoming super-elementary in nature, at the rate of what it acquires & deserves then the name of QUINTESSENCE. By these circulations it takes a temperature such that it cannot be accused of excess heat nor coldness, which excess she chases from the bodies she enters.

CHAPTER IV.

Furnaces suitable for distilling

However, for what it is necessary to have stoves suitable for distilling operations, I want to express here the figure of a very convenient, & which I usually use, so that in the absence of having built well, one sometimes works in vain, with loss of its toil & superfluous expense: This is its form,

A A Furnace walls F F Cavity under the grill where the ashes
B Opening over which the stills
G Opening through which the ashes & give wind to the fire for govern
C C Hollow or inside the stove
D Iron grill on which one lights the furnace
E Hole through which coal is put
H Door to close said door with
one or two holes to give or
take the wind out of the fire

In the work of this furnace, several things must be observed. First of all, that it is equal on all sides, without leaning on either side, but planted the more uprightly than possible, because if he leans mainly on the inside, it will heat more on the opposite side, & will be the distilling vessel for this occasion in danger of breaking. Secondly, the inside must of the belly is oval, as you see in this figure, so that the heat is also played by everything, & does not directly go to touch the bottom of the ship which would be crumpled by the too great union & proximity of the fire.

Thirdly, that the grill be very small to avoid too much heat & spent. Because if it is big & wide, it will consume a lot of coal in a little time, & will make more fire than necessary. Fourth, that the yards of this grill are close to each other, lest the charcoal pass through the through. Fifthly, let these rods be round, so that the ashes fall more. easily, & do not remain arrested on this one. Sixth, that the cavity where these ashes descend is spacious enough to receive looks smug to the fire.

Seventh, that the door through which the ashes are taken should have a door that closes just so that the air only enters through the holes intended for it. Eighth, that at the said holes there are plugs of stuffed earth, very just & appropriate to remove them or put them according to the more or less air that it will take give to the fire.

Ninth, that the hole through which the coal is put has also a mud or brick door that closes well to contain the heat enclosed, & lest its opening, giving it too much air, cause too much of inflammation. Tenth, whether the stove be of brick or good clay beaten & mixed with hay or stuffing, lest splitting it receive the air through its crevices, & releases the bridle to the fire. In this furnace alone you will be able to carry out all distillations, sublimations, calcinations, circulations, & other operations that you please, without it you need no other. I will nevertheless show you the means of be one with such industry, that by one fire you can make many distillations at the same time, the structure of which will be a little more difficult than of the previous one.

CHAPTER V.

Savings Furnace

There are several other inventions of furnaces & vessels, besides the one that I said that each one practices at his will, & according to his industry: but that which I have figured will suffice to do perfectly the work which we let's talk; For what is the use of seeking so many fantastic things & difficult for such an easy thing, I will however forget to put here the form of my Fourneau d'Epargne, whose usefulness is such in this Art & several other conveniences, which one could not invent which could be more so.

A Heat or turn the stove by where do we put the coal CC Chambers full of ashes screened to put the stills B Cover of this one DDD Holes to put dry or bath distillation EEE Vaults under which one calcines & cooks what you want HH Holes on which we put the vessels to be boiled or otherwise F Huis to empty the ashes II Solier G Registers that we raise or lower to regulate the heat under the vaults KK Cavities to dry this that we want

Build this stove under a chimney in the way you see depicted from the outside. But the inside that the drawing cannot represent, you will do so. First of all, you have to make your walls up to the border, leaving the front openings, F, & K, which border should be made of large tiles supported on iron bars, & join them well with packed clay. It will be good if the tiles are doubled, bricked together to have more strength & keep the heat better. In the middle of this border you will leave a hole on which you will put a grill of yards of iron, as you saw in the previous furnace. And on this grill will build brick the causeway or tower, which from within will always rise narrowing, it will suffice that at the bottom it be a good half foot wide in the round, & at the top a little less.

This tower on both sides, & in front will have gates grilled with rods of iron, which will remelt under the vaults, E, through which the heat will enter to heat the Stills, & in front of each there will be a register or iron plate which will rise or fall to govern said heat. At behind you will leave two small ducts the size of more than a good thumb, which will bring fire to the rear holes. H, or you will cover the simple tiled vaults below ash chambers only, C, because it will not be needed for the Stills, which being placed above their holes, will close them so well, that underneath you can cook what you like pies, bread, and any meat to roast that would be so good seasoned & cooked that there will be no comparison to any other cuisine, the cavities below will be used to dry fruits, sugared almonds, all kinds of jams & other things, not otherwise, even, better than at one Summer Sun.

The usefulness of this stove consists, first of all, in the little spent. Because by a single & small fire you will distill several stills, & all other operations at the same time, even a very good kitchen at good quantity of meats, & boil a pot at the top of the heater. Secondly, it consists in the little care it requires, for filling the charcoal heater in the morning, it will last all day and more, depending on will be high. And don't forget to make it united on the inside, so that the coal flows.

Thirdly, in that you will regulate the fire there to suit your needs and pleasure, without no doubt or fault, & by various operations. This invention is so nice & convenient for all Chemical & domestic works, that it is not possible to invent a more beautiful or more pleasant one: And will even serve as a very good a stove in the Philosopher's room, even a hidden kitchen, as I said; or the meats will be so well cooked, that they will have an incomparable taste in delights & goodness.

CHAPTER VI

Distilling vessels

If you distil in the glass, & in the bath of which here is the form, you must may your vessel be well secured in said bath, with hay in the below & side, lest being emptied, it swim & fall, & care must be taken to fill the bath when the water has evaporated & diminished, & this of hot not cold water, because the glass feeling the coldness would break destroying your work. This is why it will be good to make one or two mouths at the top of the furnace described in Chapter IV. Above & this at side of the large opening to put a pot to heat water that you always have ready to pour in the bath when needed.

The best in this is to have an earthen vessel made which endures fire, the shape of the one you see below in the furnace. Then place it on the grill, & cover with earth so that it does not break, one of the mouths of which will be used to heat the water, the other to put the coal in the stove, something which will be very convenient for you to see the degree and measure of the fire.

If you want to bath distill in earthen vessels, which is of course the safest but not the most pleasant, here is the figure, in which you will see that the vessel carries its very convenient bath, where the water keeps for a long time without evaporate.

If you want to distill without a bath, & to the ashes, take another vessel of earth, or an iron cauldron, which is the safest, which you will fill with sifted ashes, & inside you will bury a distillery which will not carry point of bath, either glass or earth: so that there are only two fingers of ashes between the bottom of the cauldron, & that of the distillery, then apply on the stove with suitable fire;

But in any distillation, care must be taken of a very necessary thing, and of which few people notice, because of what, great mistakes are made, it is that the neck of the distillery which enters in the capital somewhat surmounts that of the said capital, because that. carries the steam straight up, & keeps it from spreading to the sides & sort by the joints where she could make & find exit because of her subtlety, of which he would bring great loss if he were not careful, here is the figure,

It should also be observed in these vessels that the beak of the capital through which the water distills, is quite open & free, otherwise there is a strong inconvenience unfortunate, which is that the drop is constricted within, and withdraws backwards without to be able to go outside to sink into the matrass & the container. What if that is, it is necessary to break a little of said beak, until the opening is enough ample.

CHAPTER VII.

From the battle of the ships.

Moreover, one must be careful to fight the joints very well, in order let nothing breathe or be lost. Because the spirits that are strong penetrating & subtle, would vanish in a short time by the smallest vent in the world: Now to avoid this evil, it is necessary to put on the neck of the distillatory with linen glued with starch, making a small bead of even below at the place where the capital descends, and this as for the glass vessels; those of earth do not need this padding, because of their stop, & just put it on the collar as it is said.

From this artifice there comes a double good: The first is, that the joints are perfectly fair, & little linen is needed on top for the good quench. The second is that the vessels better join & appropriate into each other, not being in danger of breaking when stirred, it must be made similar to the beak of the still, and clothe it with linen, so that the glass matras touching it joins it better, & does not wrinkle on the other hand touch.

If you wish to have the pleasure of seeing the course of your distillation, it will be necessary to take care that by applying & joining your matrass at the beak of the still or capital, the said beak does not touch the neck from the inside of the matrass, because you could not see the drop fall nor judge the hasty or lateness of the distillation, which is a very necessary thing. Note also that it is not enough to make these coatings of linen, but it is necessary still fight over the joint to avoid any damage: for the coatings it is necessary to use very strong & cooked starch glue, & for the lut joints, flour soaked in water will suffice because when it is need to lift the tent or matrass, just wet it with a little water the linen of the lut made of flour, to lift it easily without tenacity, what you could not do if this lut was of strong starch or other glue.

CHAPTER VIII.

Warning for Glass Vessels.

There remains yet another observation for glass vessels, that is that any distillery must have a round bottom & without a plate, because if it has little bit, it will never fail to break, while at the end of distillation it will remain dry, if the Fire is not conducted so slowly that its heat has power to do this. To avoid this danger, it is necessary that the bottom be round, so that the mood always remains at most bottom prevents creasing.

From where even a great convenience arises, it is that while one draws essences by the spirit of the WINE they become assembled at the bottom thus round, this which would not happen if it were otherwise. And to give no opportunity for any fault, lack of warning, care will always be taken not to raise the vessel out of the bath nor from the ashes lest it be completely cold: for if you lift it up & put in a cold place, it will never fail to crumple at the bottom, which at each time there would be losses.

CHAPTER IX.

How to draw the Eau-de-Vie.

After having dealt sufficiently with the Anatomy of ViN, its excrement, means of separating them, furnaces & vessels suitable for distilling, even from the said vessels, there is time to verify by very exact test the things before tell the Book of the theory & contemplation of the nature of the EAU-DE-VIE, in order that reason in this doctrine always walks accompanied by experience: I therefore want to describe here the perfect practice, even more carefully that none of my predecessors, to the satisfaction of each of those who will read this Liure..

However, it is necessary in the first place to say again the means of making this Water well. simple with all the reasons for its artifice, then after deduct the extraction tinctures by it: afterwards, to withdraw the soul of the said tinctures; And finally lead the whole to such perfection, that the liquor being accomplished, overcomes in virtues & powers all the remedies & compositions of the common medicine, or even be such that it can drive out all venom, & keep the body ALIVE, SHOWING in effect the truth of the name it bears.

Choosing the best wine to believe you are getting better EAU-DE-VIE from it is a abuse & of a useless species: for as I taught in the preceding Book, it is a whole, either in wine, cider, beer, or in their lees, of which customarily we pull it out, and there remains only the artifice of separating it well from its phlegm & garbage.

There is no need here for me to show the vulgar means to pull it, because even women & craftsmen know it. Well it's true that their way of doing things is so crude that it deserves warning & rebuke, for the fault they commit is partly Avarice, partly of ignorance. The first to have greater amount of WATER than they still sell full of phlegm & very bad graceful taste, the second for not knowing the industry to proceed well in the first extraction.

This lack is due to reform by two means; one by fire moderation that they make too violent, forcing the phlegm to rise all with the spirit of life, the other by the cooling of the water or passes the channel which carries the EAU-DE-VIE in the container.

Whoever therefore wants to proceed well, & do more in one distillation where he would do in four, he must regulate the fire moderate, keeping that the vessel does not overheat too much. And if you don't want to lose anything, but be more diligent, you have to fight so well & stop it with coated cloths of water and flour untangled, all the joints both of the channel and of the vessel distillery that there is no vent, otherwise nothing will rise or come out, the spirit escaping through the least badly fought conduit: on the other hand, it is necessary often refresh the water or pass the channel, which soon heated attracts by its heat the phlegm with the spirit.

The way to refresh it without having the trouble to empty & renew it is to have another tub full of cold water, which gradually falls into it or passes the channel, and that as it falls, it comes out as much by the one below, to avoid too big filling. It is therefore necessary to accommodate the vessels so that everything is do as I say, and which the following figure demonstrates.

But that will be done much better, & more easily by the vessel where one fires essences, & will come out of it much better EAU-DE-VIE by developing above its refrigerator the vessel that I say, from which the cold water will distill inside to maintain its freshness, here is the form.

CHAPTER X.

Reasons for the extraction of WATER OF LIFE:

But this practice, even though it is common and of slight consideration, if it is of great subtlety & the reason is not not without difficulty: because it is necessary to seek on the one hand why it is need water refreshment, on the other hand why the canal coming out of the vessel that contains the material being distilled must be small, no wide nor spacious, otherwise it would only distill insipid phlegm, which would not have no taste of EAU-DE-VIE.

The reason for the refrigerator is, so that the spirit may pass, and not the phlegm: for such spirits glide easily through coolness, which the said phlegm does not. This can be verified by removing the refrigerator, especially as it will only pass tasteless phlegm through the canal, & will there not be a single drop which represents the spirit of WINE.

Which happens because the heated phlegm does not lose its slowness & viscosity, which cannot pass through so early in the coolness, as the mind which is much more subtle & penetrating. The naturalness of freshness, is to tighten, thicken & bring WATER into a frozen state: phlegm therefore which is pure water (as I said) speaking of the Anatomy of WINE, when it comes to meet the coldness of the narrow channel, it thickens & grows so fat that, fleeing this cold, it remains in the way. In which one can notice the spirit having in itself nothing of aqueous nature, & for this reason is in no way subject to freezing:

Because the EAU-DE-VIE well rectified never freezes because of its spirituality full of ethereal warmth. This is why we invented the refrigerator in its extraction, but the reason why the channel must be very small in view of the size of the distillation vessel, is almost similar to the previous one, which is so that the spirit passes and not the phlegm: for the spirit which is of a subtle nature escapes much rather by a small conduit, than the said phlegm of which it is separation to meet the coldness of Water, not however such as it is spend some part with the spirit; but more apt to separate by other distillation than before, for what the spirit already made more subtle at the first distillation, is even more so in the second, & by this means becomes freer to pull itself out of phlegm, encountering refreshment at through which it escapes, leaving said phlegm behind. Such then is the way to draw the first EAU-DE-VIE much better than the vulgar which is full of impurities & bad taste.

CHAPTER XI.

Why the Philosophers call their Eau-de-Vie CIEL.

The perfect rectification of the EAU-DE-VIE completed, it is necessary to undertake to show what uses it should serve for the conservation of LIFE, and the virtues which are in it. I have said before that it is a substance or general essence infused & hidden, especially to plants by the industry of nature, which substance must be brought up & subtilized by the separation of the mixture of elementary things; such that it acquires an ethereal nature & as CELESTIAL, so high & perfect that it overcomes in sublime dignity all other inferior things.

For which reason the ancients for its great simplicity compared it to the SKY, giving it my my the name of SKY: because as the SKY is adorned of all kinds of Stars & Stars, unanimously receiving all their virtues & natures without any discernment of warmth, coldness, moisture or dryness, because it is of all these qualities, as one experiments by their various influences, from which come the variety of time, the regulation of the ebb and flow of the Sea & the various faculty of plants, the complexions of men & to put it in a word, all these changes, impressions & influences that these Celestial Bodies make to low things:

Also this essence of EAU-DE-VIE can receive in itself all the Stars, that is to say, the virtues, souls, and qualities of each thing. Truly it is a very great marvel that in this world it is possible find an ESSENCE or liqueur, which by an admirable Magic draws the spirits of their bodies, & adorns its wide expanse with them as the SKY adorns itself with Stars: this is therefore without cause that the Sages named it their HEAVEN, because it can hear & Understand in the Sphere all sorts of Stars with their actions, virtues & properties is called Stars the faculties, & powers printed on the bodies of animals, plants, stones, metals, & all other bodily species of the lower region, & sublunary: For these virtues, natures, faculties & complexions have their courses & revolutions similar to Celestial stars, to the movement of which each is regulated & marches by a path & order that never turns away. I would clarify this further if one of my Muses had not acquitted herself sufficiently of it to the satisfaction of those who will sometimes want to do him the honor of hearing him speak.

CHAPTER XII

On the incorruptibility & conservation of the WATER-DE-VIE.

Before dealing with the ornament of this Philosophical HEAVEN or CELESTIAL ESSENCE by the extraction of tinctures, I mean something thing of his incorruptible & celestial nature, to satisfy the doubt that many might have of his excellent perfection.

Everything, therefore, that Heaven respecting the elements is incorruptible & immutable, receiving no strange impressions or changes in itself: also is this ethereal liquor, especially in regard to the qualities of the body human, because if by distillations & circulations, it is raised to nature CELESTIAL, she becomes mistress, & reigns over all these qualities by a acquired temperament, & such that as a ROI is not subject to the Laws of his Kingdom, but changes them as it sees fit & as the need requires, regulating & moderating everything by equal justice: also it is not subject to complexions of the elementary qualities, the excess & bad order of which, she chastises & changes for the better for her conservation & good settlement of the republic of the human body.

By what as the power of the Monarchies is very durable because of a lordship & command that God gives to kings over peoples, who not being able to harm them, cannot also change or destroy them: in the same way this perfect essence of EAU VITALE is of such vigor & power, that it can be spoiled or corrupted by these qualities of the corruptible elements whom she forces to obey her temperament, and to regulate herself under her laws.

For this cause it is as it were perpetual, without being able to be changed by no alteration. And as, according to the Prophet Samuel, God puts in the face of Kings the majesty which makes them other than the common run of men; also he impresses in the essence or ethereal liquor, of which we are speaking, a quite different & super-excellent nature than to the lower elementary ones. Because she is not hot nor dry like Fire, nor wet & cold like Water nor hot & moist like the Air, neither cold & dry like the Earth:

But it is like the SKY which when needed influences the rain, sometimes cold, sometimes hot,& sometimes drought & heat, each in its time & season, because of its own nature, & movement with the Planets & Signs, by means of which he variously moves the Elements, the bodies, the complexions, the regions & other things under the Circle of the Moon.

Now that this ethereal essence is not humid like Water, it seems by the contrariety of their nature. Because it is flammable, Water is not; She swims on oil, Water does not; it never freezes & tightens in the cold , salt cannot dissolve in it because of its oleaginous substance, WATER dissolves it easily for its humidity: in short, they cannot mix or empathize together, because everything resists its opposite. On the other hand, it is not hot & humid as is estimated, the Air, because it does not corrupts not like him, who begets by the putrefaction of flies, spiders, toads, & other such things; but she does not engender from her no vermin by rotting: let it not be cold nor dry like the Earth, it appears in its subtle action by which without fire it heats so that it is neither hot nor dry like the Fire. We see it with the eye by its fluidity which is not suitable for dry things. Further, the power of Fire if it is not actualized does not burn it, i.e. it cannot without touching it current, ignite by its power alone: & although it is by nature inflammable, if it does not burn what it touches, as one sees the linen soaked in it, then lit: for the flame ceases, it remains whole, finally starting to ignite from the bottom end at the end of its burning.

It is therefore higher than the elementary qualities, and consequently ethereal & CELESTIAL: That if so, how can she be corrupted? because corruption only comes through these qualities. Put her in a vessel well closed & corked glass, it will last there without altering an infinity of time, even would keep well in perpetuity, never feeling any accident of old age, but always acquiring (the longer it is kept) a greater perfection, gentleness & virtue.

In what way one could conjecture, that by this increase of perfection it would overcome (if it is necessary so to speak) the nature of HEAVEN itself, which always remains in its state, without receiving any increase of virtue by long duration.

---

THIRD BOOK

FIRST CHAPTER

How to draw the TINCTURES by the spirit of the WINE, & separate their SOUL.

But I think I have forgotten nothing about the art of good & properly distill, having shown point by point the means of properly draw & rectify THE EAU-DE-VIE, now remains to be declared two more things: one is the extraction of Tinctures & their practice: the other, the art of rectified water circulation to convert it into Quintessence. The Ancients gave this WATER the name of SKY, both because of its excellent subtlety as I said above that as the HEAVEN receives in itself all stars: also this WATER receives in itself all the tinctures, virtues & qualities of all other things.

So take the drugs from which you want to draw the AME, and grind or crush those who will need it, then put them to soak in this Water, in a tightly sealed glass vessel, for as long as you see the WATER perfectly dyed, which will happen in a few days. This fact, remove your Water by gentle inclination, & keep it in another well-closed vessel, then pour other rectified UAE over said drugs after doing as above, & this by so many times that this WATER no longer draws any TINCTURE, & when the said drugs will remain as dead & soulless.

Finally after having put all your dyed WATERS together, & pressed the marc of the drugs to extract the rest, pour them into the distillery, & distill slowly on the ashes, so that the spirits of the tinctures can rise more easily, which they would not do in the bath, the heat of which would not be powerful enough to make them elevate.

When, therefore, you have withdrawn a good quantity of your WATER, and you you will see drops coming out of the beak of the still like milk, change the matrass to receive what must flow afterwards: for what is already distilled is the pure EAU-DE-VIE, and what follows is THE ESSENCE, THE SOUL, WHERE FORMS tinctures, incorporated from the said drugs:

That if you want to mix everything together, that will not be bad & all the WATER will retain the virtues of these dyes whose lie will have remained at the bottom of the vessel like a dead thing, black and without great strength nor property.

But if you separate the first WATER as I said, it will be a whole liquor particular for the said drugs, of which it will represent the tastes all together. If he all agrees to draw the spirit or tincture of only one thing alone, like Cinnamon, Saffron, Nutmeg, Clove, & other similar you you can do it in the following way you will have a liqueur of each excellent, that it will cause you great admiration.

CHAPTER II.

Of the marvel in the extraction of dyes

Now, as this CELESTIAL Water can elevate these stars to itself, that is to say excorporate the Spirits of all Bodies, & join them or place them his: I have reached the point & instead of saying it & showing it by effect, so that having first established his HEAVEN by rectifying subtilization & purification of its substance, & adorns it with a rich marquetry of the starry virtues of these excorporated spirits, which will make it shine brightly if beautiful in their tints, & so promptly elevated to its sublimity that there is a man of wit who does not fall into very great admiration.

For where is he, if he is not at all without judgment, who does not admire this speed attraction of dyes, and this penetration so lively that it goes to the center Bodies to snatch & attract the spiritual virtues. But who doesn't will be surprised to see all these virtues passed into it, although the Bodies being bereft of their own souls, remain dead at all & ready to return to earth.

Where are the Greek philosophers who have ever imagined or seen such a thing?

but we will see the experience of it, so that our century being honored invention so beautiful, we showed that it owes nothing to the predecessors, because God, the FATHER of light, from whom all gifts of Grace proceed, has given us this present, even favored to see another much bigger one in these last times, when anything approaching the general, this period, will be known & known.

CHAPTER III.

Of the Stars of the Philosophical SKY, especially In the SUN which is GOLD.

Since this QUINT-ESSENCE or spirituous WATER is similar to SKY , It is very reasonable to place stars & celestial bodies there to adorn it of diverse influences & virtues: for like the first Worker of the mode, Created the Sky, then the Para of Celestial fires which we called STARS, to be signs & conductors of the times & seasons: also after to have made our own, that is to say, to have made our EAU-DE-VIE perfect, we must enrich with its Planets, & other stars to influence & to radiate on the Human body; so that both by itself and by the virtue of the said STARS, the conservation be attracted

But with what STARS will we adorn it? HEAVEN receives all kinds, too makes this CELESTIAL Water. Put as I said above to infuse or soak in it all that you will know to be proper either to the conservation of health, or to the healing of illnesses, and then you will see the tinctures come out in way of clear & subtle Fires which will shine in it like the STARS in SKY.

The first of which was the Sun, we must also give it the first place in this one. This SUN is GOLD which is the KING of metals, & the most excellent Body, indeed the most perfect in the world; because the fire consuming all other things cannot destroy rust cannot to bite; There is neither trial nor artifice that ruins it: but so much the more it is tormented by cast irons, cements & other tortures, the more it embellishes & becomes perfect remaining invincible, & immortal, always shining more with incomparable rays

This is why the Ancient Sages gave it the name SUN, because (as the CELESTIAL is on all the Stars) this TERRESTRIAL is on all Bodies lower. On the other hand, he is the SON of the SUN from whom he is begotten bowels of the earth by a special influence of his virtue: But if this OR is inviolable & incorruptible by fire itself, how can we place it in our SKY? several have taught the way like Raymond Lully, Philippe Ulstade & more recently, Theophraste Paracelse, Gérard Dorn, & some other learned Philosophers, each however by various artifices: but tending all to the same end which is to extract the tincture from them, and to impress virtue in the EAU-DE-VIE or spirit of wine; of all of which artifices, I would say the most likely to experience it.

The most difficult thing in this is to reduce the gold to such a state that the dye can to be drawn, a very difficult thing to tell, and practiced by few people; Raymond Lulle & Ulstade reduce it to very subtle powder with lively silver in the manner of the Goldsmiths, which is to put it in thin strips or in fine filings (which is the best) what having done they heat the quicksilver in a crucible until it begins to smoke, then throw the gold into it after having also heated it, moving a little to make it amalgamate, it is say mix & dissolve:

After that continue the fire, as long as the quicksilver is all evaporated in smoke, and that the powder of I OR remains dry at the bottom of the crucible, which powder they wash several times with dissolved water & Salt, & finally with water alone, then put it in L'EAU-DE-VIE, or spirit of Wine. This Lully says another easier way, that is (extinguish several times in this WATER of fiery golden blades, having the opinion that it takes not the tincture, but virtue & strength, in which there seems to be some appearance: For as Iron extinguished in WATER communicates to it its limiting virtue, so can make gold with EAU-DE-VIE:

But there is a great inconvenience that the ardor of I'OR by extinguishing it, does not evaporate this WATER which by reiterations of extinction was all lost.

THEOPHRASTE, Paracelsus, who in spite of the war that he made the VULGAR of DOCTORS, never clearly wanted to write any of its secrets, Calcine the gold with the WATER of prepared salt, & mixed with the juice of the root of raphane, then distills with as much purse-au-pasteur juice, it does the puts in the spirit of wine which he draws in this way.

Take a jar of very good wine claret or white, put to Circulate in a boiling bath in a clean vessel & well fought for the space of ten days (in a few Books there are forty.) Then pour it into a still to be distilled without fire, because it must distill cold & this until the Spirit is quite elevated, and the WATER OF LIFE begins to follow. He yawns yet another way which is such.

Put phials full of wine with very strong frost, & when the wine will be iced, break them, you will find in the heart of the wine a liqueur of WATER which has withdrawn in the Center, & that the cold could not win or freeze, that is what it called Spirit of WINE. Others pull it like this: put a quantity of VIN inside a large matrass, then pour over it a portion of perfect EAU-DEVIE, & put the whole well closed in horse manure (which they call horse belly) buried up to the neck for the space of fifteen days, after this time remove it, & gently tilting it pull the Spirit swimming over it with a small filter or strip of linen or untied sheet, & distill in another vessel until the EAU-DE-VIE rises, anyway, I estimate this WATER rectified to perfection be the pure & true SPIRIT of WINE that draws the dyes without any other artifice, to which they gave this name OF SPIRIT for no hide their secrets:

I return to the Calcination of the GOLD which (as said Geber Prince of the Alchymists) cannot be calcined perfectly or else it is great difficulty, and again, useless.

As for me, I find such a strange difficulty in all their operations for return this OR to such a state that the dye comes out, that the cost (as we say) makes me lose my taste, referring me rather to the opinion of the good Villeneuve who considers that this EAU-DE-VIE, where the spirits of the flowers of Rosemary & others drugs are excorporated, is the true GOLDEN WATER having thus been named, both for the color of the dyes as for its excellence.

CHAPTER IV.

As it is necessary to place the other Stars in said SKY.

Do you want to adorn this SKY with beautiful and powerful stars? make him draw the TINCTURES of all the things that will be clean for the general preservation of long life, or for the special cure of each disease.

As for the general preservation, you will take the supporting documents of the parties noble, such as Brain, Heart, Liver, Stomach, Lung, Kidneys, Spleen, or others, & you will not need to make a large pile of appropriate to everyone, but it will suffice to choose the one who will be the highest in degree of virtue, as for the HEART you will take Saffron, mace for the BRAIN, Musk prepared Vitriol, for NERVES & CHEF, Lavender, Primerole, Sage, Rosemary, for the STOMACH; mint, cyperus, Cloves, Cinnamon, for the LIVER, Agrimony, Roots aperitifs, for the SPLEEN, the Tamarind: for the KIDNEYS, the indaigue Stone, for the SEMEN: the Figs, the Satyrion, for the VENINS, for the LUNG, the Liquorice, the sigillated earth,.

For the simplest medicines Are the best, & the great number or heaping up remedies in a Body never has a good or laudable effect, and nature exerts itself more merrily in its reception of little, than in importunity of several which give it too much of an impediment.

As for the special cure of diseases, you will do the same, for this nature has imprinted in certain things the property of healing each its own without having the care of the help or help of others; like Primerole or Lavender . Paralysis: with soldanella or sea cabbage, & with hiebles, dropsy: & the peacock; Epilepsy: to hypericon, impurity & corruption of blood, worms & plantain fevers, (as Fernel says) the special remedy of all: with the lancet, ulcers, corrosives, with Bugle & sanicle, wounds & so do others. That please place in our SKY OF LIFE the Stars & virtues of Aromatic things, very useful for several evils: like Cinnamon, Clove, Mace, Nutmeg, Ginger, & such fragrant drugs, it will be very easy in the manner above taught.

The similar will be able to make laxatives, like Senna & Rubarbe, Agaric, Turbit, & others, who perform such a commendable operation, & are taken so easy, that it is an admirable relief For example put Senna in rectified EAU-DE-VIE, & leave it in a tightly stoppered vessel as long as it took the tincture adding a little Anise & Liquorice; this fact express all with a cloth & put to distil over reasonable heat, on the ashes as long as the white drops start to come out; when changing containers, & what will distill afterwards will be the SPIRIT of Sené, continue distilling until the tincture becomes, like Oil thick at the bottom of the vessel, then let cool down by itself. This ESSENCE will still have great strength to purge being taken in the amount of a good pill.

CHAPTER V.

How must the spirit be separated from the TINCTURE, from the perfection of this spirit with its virtues

Now the last and supreme secret in all these operations is to something you pulled the tincture, distill yours WATER tint on the ashes & not on the bath: because the ashes hunt the spirits with WATER, which the bath cannot do. Then put this which will be distilled to circulate in a Pelican by so much time, that emerging the ship you smelled a very sweet & perfect odor, with a taste without no ardor or acrimony:

For circulation has this virtue of leading the liquor with a very pleasant sweetness & smell, vividly representing the STARS & things with which it has been adorned, that if this does not happen, put back to circulate until what you have achieved your desire. Then you will have an ESSENCE such as its excellent dignity will far surpass all other medicines some esteemed & renowned as they may be & whose dose or intake is so small, that it is a great wonder that so little makes such a great & virtuous operation.

Either you have raised your SKY or LIQUEUR DE VIE to perfection without no stars, or whether you have adorned it with those you will have liked, you have acquired a sovereign condom & health preservative from which you can take at any time it will be necessary, or use it sometimes for the maintenance of LIFE.

The virtues of this CATHOLICON are such that no human mouth can can decipher by the menu, for there is no evil who does not find his help there, and the older ones are rather disheartened by it.

Where is the epileptic who by taking a few drops in his access does not get up suddenly where is the Apoplectic, however desperate, who does not do the similar? Certainly, I say with very great & assured boldness, that he is in the world no stronger ANTIDOTE against venom or plague than this WATER, as I have often experienced.

And since recently in one of Caen that I healed three plagues in less than six hours, moving me there with a small dose of this liquor a universal sweat which delivered it perfectly, to the great marvel & sudden astonishment of many of whom, however, he was very ungrateful having recognized with a single thank you redemption of his life.

This liquor is also such that by taking a spoonful or little moreover, she frees any woman from work in less than half an hour child, with such great happiness & ease, that it seems a miracle & not natural thing, which I have practiced so many times, even on people desperate & who had the dead fruit in their belly, so much that I hold this remedy in this for sovereign over all others. In short this liquor conducted to an ethereal nature & (as the Doctes say) quintessentialized, acquires such a perfect temperature, that taken in the Body it reduces in peace sedition, & disorder of all moods, moderate excess heat & coldness, being like a UNIVERSAL remedy for the greatest illnesses, it rekindles (if one must thus speak) the wick of the vital lamp, whereas it wants to be extinguish by accidents of illness or coldness of old age, lengthening the days with firm health, besides the ordinary course of men.

CHAPTER VI

Of the Circulation of the Quintessence

TO leave nothing to be desired, to the perfect Instruction of the Curious of the preparation of this Physical Masterpiece, & for the intelligence practice of raising it to ethereal & Celestial perfection which depends on the Traffic. I will add here the figures of the Circulatory Vessels in which must be put the above mentioned dyes to put them to the highest & final state of perfection.

These vessels or Circulatories are by the Philosophers called Pelicans, of which the first is much more excellent: but difficult to recover by the ignorance of the Glassmakers to do it well. The second can be used for lack of the other, but it doesn't move so fast, & it takes a lot longer to improve circulation. But we call Circulating up & down without ceases in the manner of a Wheel like a Circle, what the WATER or the spirit or the QUINT-ESSENCE or tincture in these vessels, that they finally become so subtle by the frequent elevations & descents, acquiring a incorruptibility so great & virtue so powerful, that being kept in a vessel closed properly, they will last until the end of the world.

I will tell you something more marvelous, it is that the more they will age the more they will increase in excellence, perfection, virtue, taste & smell, please circulate your EAU-DE-VIE simple, without any spirit of tincture, you will all the same, & will finally find a general liquor so high in goodness, that nothing comparable can be found for the preservation of life.

CHAPTER VII.

On the Conservation of the Quintessence.

Now I want to teach the way to preserve it well which consists in two things: one to stop the vessel well, the other to keep in a cool place. The first will be like this.

Take some Wax common, & having melted it, dissolve it among on the fire as much enough turpentine to make it more manageable & sticky. wax you will make a mass that you will keep to plug your vessels in this way. Make it into a pill or ball, then wrap it in a skin of pig's bladder dried, so that the inside of the bladder is turned outside, tie it very well with good waxed thread, and put a cork of it on the orifice of your vessel, then put again & tie over a piece of said bladder, & above all that another of good leather, so that nothing breathe, for that is the sure way to hold back the flight of all spirits.

The other thing in which the conservation of this WATER consists, is to hold it in place.

cool, which you will do burying the glass vessel in another of ground with sand, & put the whole in a cellar in a safe place: because if you lay in place where there is warmth, the SPIRIT of this WATER is so subtilized that feeling it, he will never fail to want to elevate himself, and will never cease to seek issue, so that it will be very difficult to stop him, so eager is he to ascend upwards, & soar towards the SKY, as in the place of which he represents the perfect nature.

CHAPTER VIII.

If life can be extended.

But here I may be told that LIFE, some conservative remedy whatever one does, cannot be extended beyond its term. to what i answer that indeed we take it for granted, that GOD Sovereign Author of all things, has determined a limit to the course of our days, which it is not possible for us to go beyond, it is the extremity of Old Age, not the illnesses occurring at each age:

for any disease such as it is, does not bring a necessary DEATH, the GOD of Nature having established remedies for each, the ignorance of which by our laziness causes the patient to die for lack of help. But old age I say to be the last wear and tear of the human body, & the consumption of vital heat which is amortized when the wick fails a lamp of LIFE, finally makes us arrive at this last term, which when the FIRE goes out, the wick being consumed, & that (as the vulgar say) our legs fail us, we can't get past it, & must that for our acquisition of the Law of Nature, we stop at the step of a destined DEATH.

That's why I don't say that our LIQUOR OF LIFE can extend our days further than the Terminal of extreme & last old age, but that it can until then, bring on our age with the help of continual health: so that we repel all the diseases that could make us die in the middle of the journey.

In this regard all philosophers have labored to find a thing created for the use of man that can prevent him from putrefaction to the corruptible body preserve without diminishing what is preserved & if it were possible to perpetuate the ESSENCE of the preserved: Because all naturally desire to be & not DIE:

But for what it is ordained for all men to pass through the strait of DEATH, it would be in vain undertake to want to find in this perishable LIFE a means of making it immortal.

If our first Father had not transgressed the Commandment of his Creator, he had heard of this precious good, having permission to eat of all the fruits of the Terrestrial paradise, except for THE TREE OF THE SCIENCES OF GOOD & EVIL which alone was forbidden: Between whose fruits was that of the TREE of LIFE, of which he could taste like others, but excessive curiosity makes him depart from his due obedience caused him to lose this Privilege, and was driven out of the garden, to the Portal from which GOD placed the Cherub with a fiery sword, in order to close & prevent entry, so that for having desired too much, it is not his remained only a perpetual regret of his loss.

However, this good GOD, not wanting him at all to deprive him of his goods, left him the use of several excellent & great remedies against ailments, or for its fault he had to fall during the course of his mortal LIFE: so much that there is thing, either in the Sea or on the Land, which does not have some gift and virtue of it. help, having everything spread out before his eyes to help him in his need.

Whereupon I cannot refrain from repeating the gross ignorance of many who despise such gifts of grace, believing that MEDICINE is useless thing, and that there is no other (they say) nor better Physician than GOD, which must be left at all. Such men are so blinded to their stupidity, that they cannot see the visible virtues & properties of a thousand & a thousand herbs, stones, Animals, & their parts, which they will confess, or have to be used for their help, or that GOD has thoughtlessly done, to have imprinted them in these things to remain useless to the world:

For he has done nothing that does not serve, & his prodigal liberality towards these ungrateful, has submitted them all to MAN for his use. If so we see before us so great an abundance of remedies for diseases arising; shall we think that there is also something for the conservation of health? The Hand of the Creator has shortened into one for only expand into the other? But as we have lost the good of immortality by our own vice, so he wanted us to work for this very vice with the sweat of our face to seek help against diseases or we ourselves rushed & obliged.

That is why the wisest among grateful & lamenting MEN their misery, have ingeniously studied themselves in this search, both for the relief from their neighbour, only to have the means of accomplishing the painful journey of this mortal LIFE. The divine goodness therefore placed us in hand of preservatives, like remedies, so that not only we We repelled the onslaught of diseases, but we also prevented their arrival: For although we are subject to a thousand evils, and we are forced to pay the tribute of DEATH by the obligation of our Vice, however it is not necessary that we fall to bodily evils, & MAN can make the pilgrimage of this world, without becoming ill, although he cannot avoid the last step of the death.

We have seen MEN so well composed, or so well providing for their health that they have extended their age to extreme old age freed from all disease. What however does not come, so much from their good constitution, as of the care they took to keep themselves healthy, by the use of good preservatives which if we are ingenious in seeking, we will be able, not keep us from dying (because all are ordained to take this step) but well cross the Sea of the World, & valley of misery (without touching the reef or chopper against the hard stone of disease.

Because even GOD to chastise humans of their first fault, condemned them to live at the pain of their Bodies, and sweat from their face, that is to say, among the evils & the work, if it does not did not deprive him of the discretion, nor advice to adorn himself, not with this work, but with these evils, especially bodily, & turn away while walking, from the rock that would cause him to fall and hurt, if he did not flee her out of foresight.

Even so, he is deprived of being able to perpetuate his LIFE, If he is not of keep a child by the means that GOD has given him. Between which, I hold for very excellent the EAU-DE-VIE prepared, as I have previously taught, I know that the industry is long, and that the extraction is not point without pain, but it is not reasonable that we have such a good without to buy it by some work.

The Gods (as an Elder said) tend all things for toil, & the Sovereign Distributor of all goods does not hold at such a high price the merchandise of the preservation of health, that the wise man cannot trade with him & pay him such jewels, with the change of humble laborious prayer work: also at this price he puts us in safe possession of it, & makes us happily enjoy all our LIFE. What I beg him to do to you (my beloved Reader) so that you have occasion to thank him for this benefit, & my satisfaction & honor to have served you there.

END