born at Ilchester, in the county of Somerset, in the year 1214. He
studied for some time in the university of Oxford, and afterwards in
that of Paris, in which he received the degree of doctor of divinity.
Returning to England in 1240, he became a monk of the order of St.
Francis. He was by far the most learned man of his age; and his
acquirements were so much above the comprehension of his
contemporaries, that they could only account for them by supposing
that he was indebted for them to the devil. Voltaire has not inaptly
designated him "De l'or encroute de toutes les ordures de son siecle;"
but the crust of superstition that enveloped his powerful mind, though
it may have dimmed, could not obscure the brightness of his genius. To
him, and apparently to him only, among all the inquiring spirits of
the time, were known the properties of the concave and convex lens. He
also invented the magic-lantern; that pretty plaything of modern days,
which acquired for him a reputation that embittered his life. In a
history of alchymy, the name of this great man cannot be omitted,
although, unlike many others of whom we shall have occasion to speak,
he only made it secondary to other pursuits. The love of universal
knowledge that filled his mind, would not allow him to neglect one
branch of science, of which neither he nor the world could yet see the
absurdity. He made ample amends for his time lost in this pursuit by
his knowledge in physics and his acquaintance with astronomy. The
telescope, burning-glasses, and gunpowder, are discoveries which may
well carry his fame to the remotest time, and make the world blind to
the one spot of folly -- the diagnosis of the age in which he lived,
and the circumstances by which he was surrounded. His treatise on the
"Admirable Power of Art and Nature in the Production of the
Philosopher's Stone" was translated into French by Girard de Tormes,
and published at Lyons in 1557. His "Mirror of Alchymy" was also
published in French in the same year, and in Paris in 1612, with some