purpose, and that its failure would be a proof
either that Perpetual Lamps are altogether
fabulous, or that the ancients made them
without wicks. For the fluid which is to
support the life of the flame, he suggested
naphtha, or liquid bitumen, which will burn
without a wick; and thought that a trial
might be made of the bitumen springing into
the coal mines at Pitchford, in Shropshire.
This is in fact a shrewd guess in the direction
of gas lamps; though the gas-contractors will
tell you that for a perpetual light there must
be a perpetual supply. It is quite certain,
however, that a species of illumination may
be produced which will continue for a great
length of time without any fresh material
for combustion. In a book of chemical and
other scientific experiments, printed not many
years ago, we find the following directions
for making a lamp that will burn twelve
months without replenishing: —"Take a
stick of phosphorus, and put it into a large
dry phial, not corked, and it will afford a
light sufficient to discern any object in a
room when held near it, and will continue its
luminous appearance for more than twelve
months," It is possible that the Rosicrucian
philosophers possessed some such knowledge
as this, and so deluded their more ignorant
contemporaries.

On the sceptical side of the question,
Ottario Ferrari, who lived in the same
century with Liceto, wrote a work, printed at
Padua, in sixteen hundred and eighty-five,
entitled Dissertatio de Veterum Lucernis
Sepulchralibus. In this treatise he contends,
"that the use of sepulchral lamps cannot be
of such standing in Italy as is pretended;
because they used to burn their dead, and
put the ashes in urns of such narrow necks
that a lamp could not be got into them," He
then endeavours to prove that there cannot
be a perpetual flame either by means of the
oil or wick.

The best mode, as it seems to us, of accounting
for the phenomenon, has been put forth in
the Ana of Vigneul Marville, where we find
the following: —" It happens frequently when
antiquarians are searching by torch-light old
sepulchres which they have opened, that thick
vapours, produced by decomposition of the
bodies, become ignited at the approach of the
flame, to the great astonishment of the
attendants, who have more than once shouted a
miracle. This sudden effect is quite natural;
but it has occasioned the belief that these
flames proceed from Perpetual Lamps." At
the same time extinguished lamps may really
have been discovered, which, of course, would
aid the delusion.

Rosencrantz, the supposed founder of the
Rosicrucian sect, is said to have made an
Eternal Lamp, which was discovered some
years after his death in a subterranean vault
where he lay buried. This story, (which is a
sort of improved edition of the legends
relating to the alleged burial-places of Tullia and
Pallas) is thus related in number three
hundred and seventy-nine of Addison's Spectator:
— " A certain person, having occasion to dig
somewhat deep in the ground, met with a
small door having a wall on each side of it.
His curiosity, and the hopes of finding some
hidden treasure, soon prompted him to force
open the door. He was immediately surprised
by a sudden blaze of light, and discovered a
very fair vault. At the upper end of it was
a statue of a man in armour, sitting by a
table and leaning on his left arm. He held a
truncheon in his right hand, and had a lamp
burning before him. The man had no sooner
set one foot within the vault, than the statue
erected itself from its leaning posture, stood
bolt upright, and upon the fellow's advancing
another step, lifted up the truncheon in his
right hand. The man still ventured a third
step; when the statue with a furious blow
broke the lamp into a thousand pieces, and
left his guest in a sudden darkness. Upon
the report of this adventure, the country
people soon came with lights to the sepulchre,
and discovered that the statue, which was
made of brass, was nothing more than a piece
of clock-work; that the floor of the vault was
all loose, and underlaid with several springs,
which, upon any man's entering, naturally
produced that which had happened.
Rosicrucius, say his disciples, made use of this
method to show the world that he had
reinvented the ever-burning lamps of the
ancients; though he was resolved no one
should reap any advantage from the
discovery." An edition of the Spectator,
published by the Tonsons in seventeen hundred
and sixty-seven, has a frontispiece by Hayman,
illustrative of this story. The statue in
armour stands with uplifted truncheon —the
mysterious lamp hangs by long chains from
the sullen vault —the recumbent figure on the
tomb sleeps in white repose beneath the
enchanted radiance —the perspective of heavy
arches recede into the gloom —the sepulchral
urn is seen in a niche overhead —and the
scared man enters at the doorway.

In Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy a
lamp is mentioned which is to burn as long
as the man with whom it has a certain mystical
connection continues to live. This lamp
(according to Burgravius, a disciple of
Paracelsus, from whom Burton quotes) is to be
made of man's blood; which, chemically
prepared forty days, and afterwards kept in
a glass, shall show all the accidents of this
life: if the lamp burn brightly, then the man
is cheerful and healthy in mind and body; if,
on the other hand, he from whom the blood
is taken be melancholic or a spendthrift, then
it will burn dimly, and flicker in the socket;
and —most wonderful of all —it goes out
when he dies. A lamp is described in the old
romance of "Virgilius," a singular chronicle
of the magical feats and works of superhuman
science, attributed by the middle ages to
Virgil the poet. The story is worth quoting