The Alchemist A Comedy

Alchemical culture and poetry in early modern England

“…''Tis a stone, and not a stone; a spirit, a soul, and a body: which if you do dissolve, it is dissolv'd; if you coagulate, it is coagulated: if you make it to fly, it flieth.' 21 As well as this nod to Ripley, one can find in The Alchemist references to classic works such as the Novum Lumen Chemicum (1604) by the Polish Paracelsian Michael Sendivogius (a copy of which was much thumbed in Isaac Newton's library), the Rosarium of the Spanish alchemist Arnald of Villanova (another pioneer of distillation) and the Figures of the Frenchman Nicholas Flamel.…”