In the morning the knight arose and did the bidding of the celestial messenger, and God gave to him and to his wife many children, who inherited their father's glory, wealth, and knightly honours from generation to generation." In the "Dedicatory Epistle" to his _Triumphal Chariot of Antimony_, Basil Valentine addresses his brother alchemists as follows:-- "Mercury appeared to me in a dream, and brought me back from my devious courses to the one way.

'Behold me clad not in the garb of the vulgar, but in the philosopher's mantle.' So he said, and straightway began to leap along the road in headlong bounds.

Then, when he was tired, he sat down, and, turning to me, who had followed him in the spirit, bade me mark that he no longer possessed that youthful vigour with which he would at the first have overcome every obstacle, if he had not been allowed a free course.

Encouraged by his friendly salutation, I addressed him in the following terms: 'Mercury, eloquent scion of Atlas, and father of all Alchemists, since thou hast guided me hitherto, shew me, I pray thee, the way to those Blessed Isles, which thou hast promised to reveal to all thine elect children.

'Dost thou remember,' he replied, that when I quitted thy laboratory, I left behind me a garment so thoroughly saturated with my own blood, that neither the wind could efface it, nor all-devouring time destroy its indelible essence?
Fetch it hither to me, that I may not catch a chill from the state of perspiration in which I now am; but let me clothe myself warmly in it, and be closely incited thereto, so that I may safely reach my bride, who is sick with love.