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aptly calls it, that gave Taylor the hope and the promise for a better
life, not in the New World, but in the Next World. Indeed, Taylor's
knowledge of esoteric alchemy and hermetic physick provided him with
the metaphors and tropes to express his vision of God's love and re-
deeming grace: regeneration.


NOTES
1. Taylor may have attended Cambridge before he arrived in America. See
Willie T. Weathers, "Edward Taylor and the Cambridge Platonists."
2. Quoted in Norman S. Grabo, Edward Taylor's Christographia (96).
3. See Joan Del Fattore, "John Webster's Metallographia"; Cheryl Z. Oreovicz
, "Edward Taylor and the Alchemy of Grace" and "Investigating 'The
America of Nature'" (108-9); Randall A. Clack, "The Transmutation of Soul";
and Leventhal (128-29).
4. For more on the Aurum Vitae ( "Gold of Life"), see Abraham, "Red Elixir"
(165-66), in Dictionary; and Ruland (65). Taylor's source for this image appears
to be John Webster Metallographia: "As Johannes Rhumelius (whom I have
quoted before, though not to this very purpose) doth confess in these words:
That his tincture Solis was made forth of a Rubie-coloured, red, thorough-
shining, or transparent, bright golden Ore, & c. And his Aurum vitae was pre-
pared forth of a certain, pure, or shining Mineral; which in its first coagulation,
was found of a red colour" (222).
5. See Oreovicz, "Edward Taylor" (33); and Abraham, "Caput Mortuum"
(31), in Dictionary.
6. Taylor's Library Catalogue Number 52 ( Metallographia) in Edward Taylor
, The Poetical Works of Edward Taylor (208).
7. Linden (201).
8. It is probably no coincidence that Taylor refers five times to the tincture,
for the number 5 represents the alchemical quintessence, the philosophers'
stone. For more on the quintessence, see Abraham, "Fifth Element" (75-76), in
Dictionary; and Haeffner, "Quintessence" (215-16).
9. Paracelsus, "The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings, Vol. 1 (28-29). Also
see Abraham, "Tincture" (200), in Dictionary; and Haeffner, "Tincture" (246-
48).
10. J. Webster (118, 122, 127, 191). For more on "Aurum Potabile," see Abraham
, Dictionary (14); and Haeffner (58).
11. Del Fattore locates Paracelsus' concept of primum ens as a direct influ-
ence on Taylor Meditation 2.47 (234-35).
12. For further discussion on Taylor-as-physician, see Catherine Rainwater,
"This Brazen Serpent Is a Doctors Shop.'"
13. Paracelsus, Vol. 2 (165). Although Paracelsian chemical medicine was
supported by Puritans during Oliver Cromwell's tenure, physicians during the
reign of Elizabeth I were also influenced by the theories of Paracelsus. For
further discussion on this subject, see Allen G. Debus, "The Paracelsian Com-
promise in Elizabethan England"; P. M. Rattansi, "Paracelsus and the Puritan
Revolution"; and C. Webster, "English Medical Reformers of the Puritan Rev-
olution."

-36-

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Publication Information: Book Title: The Marriage of Heaven and Earth: Alchemical Regeneration in the Works of Taylor, Poe, Hawthorne, and Fuller. Contributors: Randall A. Clack - author. Publisher: Greenwood Press. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 36.
    
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