It is very likely that Isaac Newton, MP for Cambridge University, had a hand in the passage of the bill. Yet nothing is known about his involvement, because he continued in his guarded attitude towards alchemy after the Revolution. Following Boyle's death in 1691, Newton confided to John Locke, a trustee of Boyle's papers, that he had no wish to learn the alchemical secrets of his late friend. In an arrogant tone all too typical of the great scientist, Newton declared that he was not interested in Boyle's recipe for transmutation, based on the “red earth” or dry mercury that was linked to the essence of Adam (whose name, in Hebrew, means “red earth”). “I do not desire to know what he has communicated,” he wrote to Locke, “but rather that you would keep the particulars from me … because I have no mind to be concerned wth this Rx [recipe] any further then just to know the entrance [the first step].”17 Newton had not renounced alchemy, of course, and for the first time his efforts enjoyed the assistance of another human being, the young Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier. They remained secret.
Perhaps encouraged by the Parliamentary Act, Newton's alchemy reached a culmination in 1693, when he wrote in his personal papers a long comment entitled “Praxis” that recorded his discovery of a process by which “you may multiply to infinity.”18 Shortly thereafter, he entered a period of depression and paranoia that some historians have linked to mercury poisoning, although he did not suffer the tremors or loss of teeth that usually accompany that condition. After his recovery, he was appointed as warden of the Mint by the Whig government, from which position he guided the major recoinage effort of 1696. He became master of the Mint in 1700.19 So far as is known, he never tried to increase the production of English specie by “multiplication.”
If Newton was not prepared to give up alchemy after 1688, neither were many others. In the immediate aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, the Hermetic philosophy was still good business for the book trade. In 1690, the printer Henry Faithorne had enough confidence in the sales of a collection of alchemical aphorisms by the mysterious “Baro Urbigerus” to attach to it a splendidly elaborate frontispiece, showing the Tree of Life with Apollo and Diana standing in water beneath it. The picture was explained as “mystically representing all our Subjects and Operations.” “Baro” was a philosophical alchemist who longed for the spiritual power that spagyria had always offered to its adepts. Claiming that he would reveal “the Secret of Secrets,” he described the “Green Dragon” or “Philosophical Gold” as “spiritual and living, having the generative Faculty in it self.”20 Alchemy remained an occult as well as a mechanical art, and it continued to revel in the allusive language of symbols and myths.
Then, abruptly, the spagyric flame began to flicker and die. In the years that followed the aphorisms of “Baro Urbigerus,” would-be adepts virtually stopped writing about alchemy. A number of celebrated works on the subject were reprinted, including those of “Eirenaeus Philalethes” and the two Van Helmonts, but very few original alchemical tracts appeared alongside them. Some that might be called “original” were in fact commentaries on earlier works, like the appendices to the 1709 edition of The Marrow of Alchemy, or the notes included with the 1714 version of the Aesch Mezereph.21 No intellectual successor to Ashmole or Vaughan or “W.C.” or “Baro” came to the fore—with a sole possible exception.
The only alchemical writer of significance who published works in English between 1690 and 1715 was the Dutch immigrant William Yworth, who wrote under the extraordinary pseudonym “Cleidophorus Mystagogus.” The name is composed from the Greek κλειδοφορε´ω, or “to bear keys,” and the Latin word for “a guide to mysteries.” Yworth was indeed a mysterious character, who had practised as an alchemical physician in his native Rotterdam before emigrating to England around 1691. He began to market medicines and became an expert in wine-making. Yworth's first published alchemical treatise, a guide to equipment and processes that appeared in 1692, included a fine print showing the laboratory at his “New Spagyrical Academy” in Shadwell. He was connected with several prominent Quakers, including the publisher Andrew Sowle, although his own religion is unknown.22 Yworth later moved to Moorfields in north London, where he published two works under the pseudonym “Mystagogus” in 1702 and 1704. He sent copies of his alchemical writings to Isaac Newton, who took extensive notes on the Dutchman's processes and tried to repeat them in his own experiments. Newton also agreed to pay the penurious alchemist an allowance. By 1710, Yworth had retired to Woodbridge, Suffolk, and his son Theophilus had taken over the “Academy.”23
Yworth did not have either the social status or the intellectual background of earlier alchemists like Vaughan, Starkey or Boyle. Yet he was no less an occult philosopher than they. He described his point of view as “Theophisical,” meaning that he was trying to reconcile alchemy and Scripture. The term may have been intended to contrast with Jacob Boehme's “Theosophy,” to which Yworth, like Newton, never showed any affinity. Neither did he accept the theory of Francis Mercurius van Helmont, delineated in Kabbala Denudata, that matter was created from nothing, and was therefore infused with God's own substance. Instead, he argued for creation out of original “Chaos,” which was separate from God. Despite his coolness towards Kabbala Denudata, Yworth claimed to understand the “Cabalistical” knowledge of the ancient Jews, and hinted at membership in a brotherhood of Kabbalists. In his first alchemical pamphlet, “Mystagogus” included an oath taken by an adept “upon the Adopting of a Brother into the Cabalistical Society.” He also appended to the work a “Philosophical Epistle” full of references to “that Cabalistical Wisdom, which contains the Secrets of Nature.”24 Yworth's Kabbalism entirely ignored the researches of Rosenroth, which must have pleased Newton, who did not think much of them either.
Even more gratifying for the great scientist, “Mystagogus” associated “the Mercury of the Philosophers” with Christ, calling it “God's Vicegerent.” As Mercury was formed out of the original Chaos, it might be assumed that Christ was too, which implied that he was of a different substance from God, and not by nature divine. This was not far removed from Newton's deeply hidden Arian beliefs. Like the Saviour, moreover, mercury “died” and was “reborn” in the alchemical process. In an ecstatic description of this moment of fulfilment, “Mystagogus” envisioned the attainment of the Philosopher's Stone as the prelude to a Second Coming:
The Gold-making Art, so-call'd, will become common to the men of the new World, when Wisdom shall be esteemed for Wisdom's sake … indeed it cannot otherwise be expected untill the fullness of time shall come, that the Golden Calf shall be ground to Powder, and Money shall be esteemed like Dross, and the prop of Antichrist dash'd in pieces. O that we might be all prepared for that long expected, yet now approaching universal Day of Redemption.25
In this striking passage, gold-making destroys the value of money and brings about the social equality that is necessary for re-entry into paradise. Heterodoxy comes together with a radical social agenda in shaping the happy future of humanity.
Despite his philosophical agenda, “Mystagogus” was preoccupied with finding ways to make money. His second treatise dealt with the “Universal Dissolvent” or “Liquor Alkahest” that was widely sought as the basis for medicines. It too sprang from Chaos and “the Universal Spirit,” but it differed from the “Philosopher's Mercury” in being artificial rather than natural. It was therefore “made unfit for the Act of Generation” and could only destroy rather than create.26 Towards the end of his treatise, “Mystagogus” pointed to “the want of Subsistance or Money of your own to carry on your Search or Labours” as a great difficulty in pursuing alchemy. The obligation to support his own large family had often prevented him from spending more time on his alchemical quest.27 Clearly, he was not in the privileged position of Boyle or Newton, who could afford to treat alchemy as a purely intellectual endeavour.
While he aspired to be a philosopher, Yworth was compelled to become a businessman, developing medicines in the laborat
ory of the “New Spagyric Academy” that he could sell in the booming London market. Many alchemists had adopted the same dual role in the past, either by choice or by necessity, but few of them had been so candid about it. In fact, Yworth was representative of a period when alchemy was shifting its main focus towards the development of patent medicines. This helps explain the abiding interest in the works of “Eirenaeus Philalethes,” which were of considerable practical use in developing pills and potions from metals. “Philalethes” himself encouraged this pursuit, concluding his Marrow of Alchemy with a short discussion of “the universal medicine.”28 Most alchemists were prepared to settle for more specific remedies. To a great extent, the future of alchemy belonged to the tonic- and pill-makers.
The evidence for this can be found everywhere in the literature of the period, especially in newspapers, which mushroomed after the Licensing Act lapsed in 1695. Advertisements for proprietary medicines in newspapers increased fivefold between 1696 and 1700, and they sprang up in other unlikely places as well.29 When Anne Conway's philosophical writings were posthumously published by Dorman Newman in 1692, her argument for “the persistence of Souls” or universal salvation shocked readers. What may shock us today is the advertisement that Newman affixed to the inside cover, praising
[t]he Elixir Proprietatis (so highly commended by the Renowned Paracelsus and Helmont) it resisteth all Putrefaction of the Blood, strengtheneth the Digestive Faculty … This Noble Elixir is Philosophically prepared by John Spire, Chymico Medicus, at four Shillings the Ounce. Who hath, by his Labour and Study in the Chymical Art, attained unto several secret Arcanums (not vulgarly known), particularly a Sovereign Remedy for the Gout.
The elixir was available from Newman's printing house in the Poultry or from Spire's houses in Southwark and Twickenham.30 The fact that Spire owned a villa in Twickenham shows how well his elixir was selling. Newman sold a variety of other medicines from his business premises, including Dr Patrick Anderson's Scotch pills, Bateman's Spirit of Scurvy-grass, Daffy's Elixir and Glauber's Spirit of Salt of the World.31
All of these medicines had been developed before 1688. The most famous of them was probably Lionel Lockyer's Pill, “Call'd by the Name of Pillula Radiis Solis Extracta,” or pill extracted from the rays of the sun. The connection of the sun with gold boosted the reputation of this “Universal Medicine,” which was supposed to be able to do anything a physician could – more cheaply, of course. The pills were distributed by agents throughout England and Ireland, as well as in Barbados and the North American colonies. Lockyer, who placed a splendid print of himself in his advertising pamphlets, demonstrated how his pills were made before Charles II in 1664. His growing fame led to a violent attack on him in print by George Starkey, who called him both a “Silly, Sawcy Fool” and “a pitiful, creeping, dirty thing.” Starkey pointed out that his pills were little more than roasted antimony, and suggested that taking them might cause vomiting as well as other dangerous side effects.32 A defender of Lockyer shot back at Starkey: “One of your Wives told me, I had better similiz'd you to an Ape than an Ass, he [sic] being certainly informed you are deficient in the tail-piece.”33 Verbal boxing matches between the makers of medicines were commonplace, and they certainly generated sales. Lockyer died rich in 1672, and was buried in a magnificent tomb in Southwark Cathedral. The fame of his pills lived an, inspiring many imitators.
The best-chronicled medicine of the era was Daffy's Elixir, developed in the mid-seventeenth century by an ejected clergyman, Thomas Daffy, and popularized by his kinsman the London shoemaker and self-styled “Doctor” Anthony Daffy. His account books for 1674–85 reveal that the latter distributed 4,000 gallons of the liquid medicine throughout the British Isles, western Europe, the English colonies in North America and the Caribbean, and beyond to Tangier and India. The empire was awash with Daffy's Elixir, by virtue of a network of agents that included merchants, booksellers, grocers and coffee-sellers. Charging between 2s. 6d. and 3 shillings per bottle, Daffy's agents sold £8,400 worth of elixir during this eleven-year period. At his death in 1685, he owned a house in London as well as a farm in Essex, and his estate was worth about £2,000, making him a successful small businessman. What happened next shows how patent medicines proliferated after 1688. Daffy wanted to leave the formula for the Elixir to his daughters, Martha and Mary, but his widow, Ellen, quickly remarried, and her scheming new husband successfully claimed the formula as his own, after a long lawsuit. Daffy's daughters continued to sell their own elixir, as did their brother Elias, who had a medical degree from Cambridge. Elias built a thriving London practice, and his widow owned two country estates. Their son Anthony remained the “preparer of Daffy's elixir” until his own death in 1750. He was challenged by numerous imitators, each claiming to sell the genuine product. Between them, they kept Daffy's Elixir in production for another century.34
According to two surviving recipes, Daffy's Elixir was composed of various herbs, roots and foodstuffs, including the laxative senna, infused in distilled alcohol. Unlike Lockyer's Pill, it was not a metallic or iatrochemical drug, and its production owed little to alchemy. Nevertheless, to copy the Elixir required knowledge of distilling, which comprised a chapter in every alchemical text. Other proprietary medications made more use of alchemy, like the “Sympathetical Rings” that were advertised in the 1709 edition of the True Light of Alchemy. A cure for haemorrhoids, the rings were sold by W. Langham of Moorfields, “Licensed Physician,” who boasted of his “sedulous Industry, careful Toil, and Study for many Years in the Chymical Art.” The rings were “Compounded from the Metallick Issue, and Decocted by the Spagyrick Art, in a proper Menstruum, agreeable to their Radical Principles, till the Bodies be Unlockt or Opened … freely illuminating and radiating the Archaeus [a term of Paracelsian medicine], when stupefied, oppressed, or enraged, causing the Disease soon to depart and vanish away, at the arrival of the Arcanum.”35 This was high spagyric parlance, as well as utter nonsense. To market Langham's Sympathetical Rings or Daffy's Elixir—or, for that matter, Newman's Elixir, Lockyer's Pills, Anderson's Scotch pills, Bateman's Spirit of Scurvy-grass, Glauber's Spirit of Salt of the World or any other proprietary medicine—it was advisable to appropriate the mysterious jargon that had been developed over centuries by the alchemists.
One of the little kings of proprietary medicine in the 1690s was William Salmon, “Professor of Physick” and popularizer of alchemy as well as other occult sciences. In the early 1690s, his London Almanack turned into an extended advertisement for his many medicines. These included Salmon's Family Pills, his Family Powder, his Elixir and his Lozenges for coughs and colds. He sold a variety of other cures, recipes and pills, and jealously protected his trade names. He attacked John Hollier, a London publisher, who “unworthily and basely assumes my name, Effigies and Seal” on his own Family Pills. Salmon sold his cures at bargain prices: pills were 9 pence per box, powder 6 pence per paper and the Elixir 18 pence per glass.36 Established doctors were suspicious of his remedies, which cut into their own business, and his writings themselves were mocked as “bless'd Opiats.”37 Salmon was ready to take on all his critics. In the late 1690s, he rallied the apothecaries and other manufacturers of medicines to oppose an attempt by the Royal College of Physicians to establish control over the dispensing of drugs. Salmon excoriated “the Pride, Covetousness and Idleness of the Physicians” who sought “to Monopolize all the Practise of Physick into their own hands.”38 The College's efforts at regulation would continue into the early eighteenth century, but without any discernible impact on the booming, irrepressible trade in proprietary medicines.
William Salmon was a brilliant publicist, but not much of a philosopher. In the alchemical field, expanding commercial potential tended to drive out ideas, particularly the occult philosophy that had been the foundation of alchemical writing in the late seventeenth century. It would be an oversimplification, of course, to suggest that the trade in medicines replaced speculative thinking, but it cert
ainly redirected the focus of alchemical writings. One writer, using the pseudonym “Eyranaeus Philoctetes,” urged the public teaching of alchemy for the benefit of medicine. “Who would it serve, and what would it merit?” “Philoctetes” asked rhetorically, “If the production of their Red Land, and Reduction into Potability were familiarly taught, tho the first water, and its Preparation were wholly concealed. Would not the sick be helped, and the happy attainer of the first water be made early serviceable?”39 The author was unmoved by the goal that had captivated Newton, of “multiplying” a metal by introducing the “seed” or “sperm” of another metal. Instead, he praised the virtues of “Virgin Mercury,” free of sulphur, which sounds more like a basis for medicines than an entrance to the Philosopher's Stone.
Those alchemists who sought for higher results than pills or tonics may have been losing heart. True adepts like Boyle or “Philalethes” had vanished, and who was to replace them? A pamphlet published by “Philadept” in 1698 proposed to remedy the situation through sweeping social reform. The author set forth a novel plan for a utopia based on communal labour, with the aim of achieving the goals of alchemy. “Philadept” admitted that he had never known a true adept, but remained convinced that “there are many reasons to believe there is such a thing” as the Philosopher's Stone. The promised benefits accruing from the work of adepts—riches, contentment and virtue, health and strength—were considerable, leading “Philadept” to wonder “why they do no more good than we generally see they do.”40 To encourage them to share the results of their experiments, sovereigns should oblige adepts to “live all in common, with regard to the possession of the goods of the Earth and inferior Offices,” in the manner of the ancient Spartans. In fact, he recommended a communal way of living for everyone. Once the social problems of the world were solved, adepts would reveal themselves. “It is certain,” the author maintained, “if there are Adepts in the World, God will never permit them to communicate themselves to any Nation except that People be reformed and become actually Righteous and Just.”41
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