Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum

What it is

Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum is a printed book of English alchemical poems that came out in 1652. Elias Ashmole, an alchemist and antiquarian, gathered the pieces and wrote notes around them. It belongs to the written side of alchemy, texts that were copied, kept and read. Many of the poems had existed only as manuscripts in private hands, so printing them made them available. The verse deals with the philosopher's stone, the elixir and the preparation of the medicine, and it comes with annotations, discourses and tables. One long poem in the collection, the Ordinall of Alchimy, is by Thomas Norton.

Where it comes from

Ashmole collected so many manuscripts that one volume could not hold them all, so he planned a set. The verse went into the first part, marked The First Part on the title page, and prose was to be given to a second. The printing was done in London in 1652 by J. Grismond for Nathaniel Brooke, at the Angel in Cornhill, and the prologue is dated 26 January 1652. Some pieces are anonymous, one is set under the name of Ramon Lull and labelled pseudo, and the December 1633 piece called The Magistery is credited to William Backhouse in Ashmole's own annotated copy. George Ripley's Compound of Alchymie stands among the named works.

How it is done

The arrangement follows a plan. Ashmole's prologue opens the volume, the poems follow, and then come annotations and discourses on parts of what has gone before. Two tables close it: one lists the treatises with the names of their authors, the other explains words that had grown obscure, obsolete or misspelled. Because several pieces circulated in more than one handwritten copy, the printed text also notes where verses were found placed differently, or joined to the end of another work.

Tools and materials

The poems carry their subject's equipment: the philosopher's stone, the elixir, and the glass vessel that stands during the putrefaction and congelation of the medicine, a stage of decay followed by setting. They also carry the tools of a printed scholarly book: notes fixed to the poems, discourses on the earlier pieces, a table of treatises and authors, and a list of difficult spellings. The title page adds, after Ashmole's name, the Latin words Qui est Mercuriophilus Anglicus.

What it is for

The aim is preservation. Pieces that had been held privately in manuscript became, in print, something other people could read. Ashmole presents the volume as a faithful gathering of what English writers had set down about the hermetic mysteries, with notes to carry a reader through texts whose language had aged. In the preface he says of himself that he knew enough for silence but not enough for speech.

Who does it

Elias Ashmole is the compiler. The volume describes him as an English alchemist and antiquarian, and he supplied the prologue and the notes. He worked from manuscripts he had acquired in quantity, enough to fill more than one volume. The writers behind the poems are described as alchemists, poets and mathematicians, some anonymous, some named with dates: Thomas Charnock's Breviary of naturall Philosophy is dated 1557 and his two enigmas 1572. A few attributions are marked as doubtful, as with the piece given to Ramon Lull under the label pseudo.

What people believe

Behind the poems sits alchemy's own frame of ideas. The goals named in the titles are the philosopher's stone and the elixir, and a medicine carried through putrefaction and congelation, the stages of decay and setting. The writers are presented as English philosophers who set the hermetic mysteries down in verse in their own old language, and the collection is offered as a faithful gathering of that work with notes for readers who came later.

Today

The 1652 printing is still readable. A copy of the edition sits at the Internet Archive, and English alchemical verse from the collection can be read on The Alchemy Website. The Science History Institute Digital Collections offers high-resolution scans of the title page and all the plates from the 1652 edition, in a variety of formats, free to download.

Questions people ask about Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum

Good reading and sources

• Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum on WikipediaEncyclopedia
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