This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1888. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... THE STUDENT OF SALAMANCA. 'What a life doe I lead with my master; nothing but blowing of bellowes, beating of spirits, and scraping of croslets It is a very secret science, for none almost can understand the language of it. Sublimation, almigation, calcination, rubification, albification, and fermentation; with as many termes unpossible to be uttered as the arte to be compassed.--Lilly's Gallathea. ONCE upon a time, in the ancient city of Granada, there sojourned a young man of the name of Antonio de Castros. He wore the garb of a student of Salamanca, and was pursuing a course of reading in the library of the university, and at intervals of leisure indulging his curiosity by examining those remains of Moorish magnificence for which Granada is renowned. Whilst occupied in his studies, he frequently noticed an old man of singular appearance, who was likewise a visitor to the library. He was lean and withered, though apparently more from study than from age. His eyes, though bright and visionary, were sunk in his head, and thrown into shade by overhanging eyeVol. 11--17 brows. His dress was always the same, --a black doublet, a short black coat, very rusty and threadbare, a small ruff, and a large overshadowing hat. His appetite for knowledge seemed insatiable. He would pass whole days in the library, absorbed in study, consulting a multiplicity of authors, as though he were pursuing some interesting subject through all its ramifications; so that when eveuing came he was almost buried among books and manuscripts. The curiosity of Antonio was excited, and he inquired of the attendants concerning the stranger. No one could give him any information, excepting that he had been for some time past a casual frequenter of the library; that his reading lay chiefly among wo...