of his writings. Haller quotes the authority of a certain Lorenz Zollweger, to prove that he was in reality called Höchener, and that he was born at Einsiedeln, two miles from Zurich, in the canton of Appenzell. Erastus, one of his most bitter opponents,* goes farther. He tells us that he won't believe Paracelsus was born in Helvetia "vix enim ea regio tale monstrum edidit, — that country could hardly have brought forth such a monster" -though he forgets to explain why Switzerland should not have its monsters as well as other places; in our days we have seen a Swiss giantess. So vehement is he in his wrath, that he will not even allow the Doctor had a human father:-" Terræ seu Tartari videtur filius instar Merlini cujusdam fuisse-he appears to have been the son of the earth, or of Tartarus, like a certain Merlin ;" a supposition, by the way, that must have been rather agreeable than otherwise to one who dealt in necromancy as well as physic. This, however, is not all: "vocat se Eremitam et nobilis vult videri; at in Eremo Helvetiorum nulli sunt Paracelsi, nulli Hohenhemii, nulli Bombasti--he calls himself a native of Einsiedeln, and wishes to be thought noble; but in Helvetic Einsiedeln there are no Paracelsuses, no Hohenheimers, no Bombastes." Now, here the anger of our friend Erastus gets the better of his discretion; for there certainly was a noble family of that name, as we find one of thein recorded by Shenck.† We may therefore set it down with tolerable certainty that he was born where he himself said he was, in the year 1493; that his mother was the superintendent of

* Erastus, who was a professor of medicine in the university of Heidelberg, wrote sundry dissertations, to the amount of two quarto volumes, proving, or attempting to prove, that Paracelsus was no better than an impostor; but, as is evident from the quotations in the text, he was anything but an impartial judge.

+ Observ. lib. i. p. 15.

the abbey-hospital at Ensiedeln; that his father was called Wilhelm Bombast von Hohenheim, and was very nearly related to George Bombast von Hohenheim, the then grand-master of the order of St. John.

Worse than these debates respecting the Doctor's birth-place is the next tale that Erastus tells, and which, though it may be false in detail, is unfortunately too true in the principal point, as we know from other authorities-"Hoc in loco narratum mihi est exectos ei testes fuisse a milite dum anseres pasceret. Eunuchum fuisse, cum alia multa, tum facies, indicant; et quod, Oporino teste, fœminas prorsus despexit."* By some † it is said that the accident here recorded, and which it is unnecessary to translate, arose from the bite of a swine; but the fact, however it may have happened, has not been disputed and dates from a time when he was only three years old. Of the early life of this extraordinary man-extraordinary at least in one sense of the word-we know but little. If any faith is to be given to his own assertions, he had studied for many years at German, Italian, and French, universities, after having been duly instructed in alchemy and astrology as well as medicine by his father, for in those days they had all equally the rank of a science; we have Helmont's authority also as to his diligence under some of the first masters of the age.§ He says of himself, that he had from youth upwards applied him* For this, and the foregoing, quotation, see "Erasti Disputatio de Medicina nova P. Paracelsi," Pars Prima, p. 237. Basileæ. + Helmont says, "Non enim ille Veneri deditus, trivium nempe sus castraverat." Tartari, Hist. p. 222. And Gall, who examined his skull, found the organ of philoprogenitiveness undeveloped. See also Sprengel, vol. iii. p. 445.

Hab also die hohen Schulen erfahren lange Jahr, bei den Teutschen, bei den Italischen, bei den Frankreichischen. DIE G. WUNDARTZNEI-Vorred.

§ Tart. Hist. p. 222.

self to the study of medicine, with an eager desire to learn whether it did, or did not, merit the name of a science.

In this pursuit he seems to have been greatly disturbed by finding that the patients died in spite of physic; and he somewhat testily declares that there was not a single doctor who was able to cure a toothache, yet they all nevertheless went richly apparelled, and figured at the courts of princes with rings of gold and precious stones upon their fingers. Hereupon he took a disgust to medicine, becoming convinced that it was no more than a deception of the evil spirits to lead men astray—“ ein betrugniss von Geistern den Menschen also zu verfuhren"*-and resolved to abandon the study of it, when, as good luck would have it, he chanced to stumble upon that passage of the New Testament, wherein Christ says,

they who are whole need not the physician, but they who are sick." By some odd process of reasoning-but Paracelsus was at all times a singular logician-he now became convinced that the medical art was neither deceptive nor diabolic, but on the contrary was a very necessary art to help people out of sickness. Having arrived at this conclusion, although by a rather round-about road, he again set to work in earnest; and indeed it must be acknowledged that he had an inquisitive mind, and a strong love of knowledge, though his enthusiastic and credulous nature was deeply tainted with the chimerical notions of his age. In that boundless spirit of enthusiasm, which formed so prominent a feature of his character, he now set out upon his travels, being no more than twenty years old when he journeyed through all the countries of Europe, east, west, north, and south, after the usual wont of students in those days, casting nativities, practising

* 66 Chirurgische Bucher und Schriften des P. Paracelsi." This is the general title of the whole volume, but the reference is to the preface to the Grosse Wundarznei.

palmistry, evoking the dead, and trying all sorts of chemical experiments that he had learnt from the miners of various districts. If too we may believe the various accounts that have come down to us, he even extended his visits to Egypt and Muscovy, and when on the confines of the latter he was taken prisoner by the Tartars and carried before their Khan. By some means, not very clearly explained, or indeed not explained at all, he obtained his liberty, and passed over with the Khan's son to Constantinople for the purpose of learning the secret of the Elixir Vitæ from Trismolin, who at the time was residing there. Nor did he confine his curious enquiries to the learned, for whom by the bye he never seems to have entertained too much respect, but eagerly sought for information amongst the necromancers, alchymists, old women-the distinction is not very evident—and from the noble and ignoble. The result of all these enquiries and wanderings was that, according to his own account, at the age of twenty-eight he had obtained the philosopher's stone from an alchymist, and acquired so great a name by his numerous cures amongst nobles and princes, as well as amongst the poor, that in 1526 he was elected professor of physic and surgery in the university of Basel.* It might, perhaps, however have contributed to his elevation, that just at this time the introduction of the reformed religion into Basel + had stript the university of its old teachers, who had left it either for consciencesake, or from compulsion.

The head of Paracelsus seems now to have been completely turned by inordinate vanity. In the November of this year we find him writing to Christopher Clauser, a physician in Zurich, "he should only compare him with * I. Van Helmont, Opera: Hist. Tartari, p. 222; and Sprengel, v. iii. p. 432.

f Or, as our modern geographers choose to call it, Bale, deriving the name from the French Basle, instead of from the German Basel.

Hippocrates, Galen, Rasi, and Marsilius Ficinus—that every country produced its eminent physician, whose theories were precisely suited to the land in which he was born. The Archaus,* or genius of Greece, had given birth to Hippocrates; the Archaus, or genius of Arabia, to Rasi; the Archaus of Italy, to Ficinus; and that of Germany had produced him, Paracelsus." With this conceit of his own "ingine," as Ben Jonson would call it, he commenced his lectures by openly burning in his lecture-room the works of Galen and Avicenna. But there must have been both natural talent and acquired knowledge amidst all this bombast and self-conceit, for it is plain he effected many cures, and even attracted the notice of Erasmus, who did not hesitate to consult him upon the state of his health. Even if it be true, as

Sprengel affirms, that he had no time to study books deeply, still he had seen much practice, and must in his travels have picked up a vast fund of current information upon medical topics. We should recollect, too, that in his day the lecture room and conversation with the learned supplied in a great measure the deficiency of books, besides which he had served as an army surgeon for years in a variety of campaigns, and must at least have had a practical knowledge of his art. The great difficulty in estimating his character is to forget his absurd pretensions and to separate the better part of his know

* Paracelsus was amazingly fond of calling old things by new names, and hence it is not always easy to understand exactly what he means, even supposing him at all times to have understood himself. In regard to Archaus, we are told by Sennert, "nihil aliud istud vocabulum significat quam quod in scholiis philosophorum et medicorum facultatem et virtutem naturalem, aut, si mavis, spiritum naturalem, facultatis naturalis ministrum, nominamus-(Sennerti Op. p. 193.)-that word signifies nothing else than what in the schools of philosophy and medicine we call the natural faculty and virtue, or, if you prefer it, the natural spirit, the servant of the natural faculty."