years old, being in prison here at Paris, in the same chamber with a Frenchman (who told this, as having been eyewitness of it, to him that told it me), they having both need of money, the baron sent his man to a goldsmith to buy seven or eight ordinary pearls, of about twenty pence a piece, which he put a-dissolving in a glass of vinegar; and, being well dissolved, he took the paste and put it together with a powder (which I should be glad to know) into a golden mould, which he had in his pocket, and so put it a-warming for some time upon the fire; after which, opening the mould, they found a very great and lovely oriental pearl in it, which they sold for about two hundred crowns, although it was a great deal more worth.  The same baron, throwing a little powder he had with him into a pitcher of water, and letting it stand about four hours, made the best wine that a man can drink.’  Thus far the truly hopeful young gentleman, whereby he hath hugely obliged me.  I wish he had the forementioned powder, that we might try whether we could make the like pearls and wine.”  From a subsequent letter of Hartlib’s, dated Nov. 29, 1659, it appears that Oldenburg and Jones were both much interested in the optical instruments of a certain Bressieux, then in Paris, who had for two years been chief workman in that line for Descartes.  They were anxious to make him a present of some good glass from London, because he was rather secretive about his workmanship, and such a present would go a great way towards mollifying him.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Letters of Oldenburg and Hartlib to Boyle in Boyle’s Works (1744), V. 280-296 and 300-302.]

Very possibly with this last letter of Oldenburg’s to Hartlib there had been enclosed a letter from Oldenburg, and another from young Ranelagh, to Milton.  Two such letters, at all events, Milton had received, and undoubtedly through Hartlib, who was still the universal foreign postman for his friends.  We can guess the substance of the two letters.  Young Ranelagh does not seem to have troubled Milton with his speculations on the generation of pearls, or his story of the German baron and his alchemic powders, but only to have sent his dutiful regards, with excuses for long neglect of correspondence.  Oldenburg had also sent his excuses for the same, but with certain pieces of news from abroad, and certain references to the state of affairs at home.  Among the pieces of news were two of some personal interest to Milton.  One was that the unfinished reply to his Defensio Prima, which Salmasius had left in manuscript at his death six years ago, was about to appear as a posthumous publication.  The other was that there was to be a great Synod of the French Protestant Church, at which the case of Morus was to be again discussed.  For, though it was more than two years since Morus had received his call to the collegiate pastorship of the Protestant Church of Paris or Charenton, the question of his admissibility to the charge had