Note 38 — BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

The principal writings ascribed to Eirenaeus Philalethes are Introitus Apertus in Occlusum Regis Palatium (1667), Tres Tractatus (1668), Experimenta de Praeparatione Mercurii Sophici (1668), Ripley Revived (1678), Enarratio Trium Gebri Medicinarum (1678). The works of Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes (George Starkey?) are often attributed to him in error. The B. M. Catalogue, s.vv. Philaletha, Philalethes, is a mass of confusions. Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique (iii. 261-266), gives a long list of printed and manuscript works. Most of these he had probably never seen. He probably took many items in his list from one in J. M. Faust's edition of the Introitus Apertus (Frankfort, 1706); and this, in its turn, was based on what Eirenaeus Philalethes himself says he has written in the preface to Ripley Revived. He there says, after naming other works: "Two English Poems I wrote, declaring the whole secret, which are lost. Also an Enchiridion of Experiments, together with a Diurnal of Meditations, in which were many Philosophical receipts, declaring the whole secret, with an Aenigma annexed; which also fell into such hands which I conceive will never restore it. This last was written in English." Can this Enchiridion and Diurnal be Sl. MS. 1741? I find no "Aenigma." Can Starkey have stolen the poems and published them as the Marrow of Alchemy?