Art-Jottings In Art-Studios.

Another difficulty in "fresco " -painting is , that as the plaster dries the colours become much lighter . Allowance can , however , be made for this , and , by practice , the artist learns to master the obstacle . Besides , he has a ready test at hand by which he can tell the difference between the shade of the colours when wet ancl dry . He puts a touch of it upon a piece of umber , which absorbs the moisture , ancl shows in an instant the appearance that the colour will present after the much longer period that it will have taken to dry when applied to the hme-eharged surface of the " fresco " -painting ' s plaster ground-work .

An Hermetic Work.

AN HERMETIC WORK .

( Continued from page 240 ) . CHAPTER IV . ( continued ) . THUS my Friend Elias taking leave , left me three weeks , ancl to this very day ; nevertheless he all these in mindand

, ( as a Spur ) impressed things deep my , Paracelsus confirmed them , saying , That in , with , of , and by metals spiritualized and cleansed , are perfect Metals made , and also the living Gold and Silver of Philosophers , as well for humane as metalhck bodies . Wherefore if this guest my Friend , had taught me the manner of preparing the Spiritual and Celestial Salt he spake of , by ancl with which I might ( as it were ) within their own matrixgather the spiritual Rays of Sun

, or moon , out of the Corporal Metalhck Substances , Then truly from his own light he had so enlightened me , that I shoidd have known how Magnetically ( by a Sympathetic !? power ) in other imperfect corporeal metals , their internal souls might be Clarified and Tinged , so that their own similary bodies being of like kind , might be transmuted into Gold or Silver , according to the nature of red Seed , into a red body ; or of the white Seed into a white and pure body ; for Elias told me that Sendivogius his Calybs was the

true Mercurial Metalhck humidity , by help of which ( without any Corrosive ) an Artist might seperate the fixt rayes of the Sun or Moon , out from their own bodies , in a naked Fire , in open Crusible , and so make them Volatile and ' Mercurial , fit for a dry Philosophic Tincture ( as he partly communicated ancl shewed me before he went ) to

transmute the Metals . For all learned Chyniists must consent , that Pyrotechny is the mother and Nurse of many noble Sciences and Arts , ancl they can easily judge from the Colours of the Ohaos of metals hi the fire , what metalhck body is therein . And thuro every clay , metals ancl transparent stones , are yet so procreated in the bowels of the Earth , from their proper , noble , vapourous seed , with a spiritual Tingent Sulphurous Seed , in then divers Salty Matrixes ; for the common Sulphur , ( or the Sulphur of any

pure or impure metal , whilst yet conjoyned with its own body ) being mingled only with Salt-Peter in the burning heat of Fire , will be easily changed into the hardest and . most fixed Earth . And this Earth is afterwards easily changed by the air into most clear water , and this water after by a stronger fire , according to the nature of either pure or impure metalhck Sulphur admixed ) is turned into Glass , coloured with various ancl very beautiful colours . Almost so likewise is a Chicken generated ancl hatcht out of the

white of an Egg , by a gentle natural heat ; and thus also from the seminal Bond of Life of any metal , is made a new and much more noble metal , by a heat convenient to a salty fires nature , Though few Chyinists know perfectly how the internal virtues of metals ( always magnetically moving according to then harmony or disconsonaney ) are distinguished ; and why one metal hath such a singular Sympathy or Antipathy with the other metal , as is seen in the Magnet with Iron , in Mercury with Gold , in Silver with Copper , very remarkably . And so in some are notably found an Antipathy , as Lead against Tin , Iron against Gold , Antimony against Silver : And again , Lead against