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132 PARACELSUS
comprehending their emphatic jargon. That which above all
contributed to sully his reputation was the debauched life he led.
According to the testimony of Oporinus, who lived two years in his
intimacy, Paracelsus scarcely ever ascended the lecture-desk unless
llalf dnlllk, and only dictated to his secretaries when in a state of
intoxication: if summoned to attend the sick, he rarely proceeded
thither without previously drenching himself with wine. He was
accustomed to retire to bed without changing his clothes; sometimes
he spent the night in pot-houses with peasants, and in the morning
knew no longer what he was about; and, nevertheless, up to the
age of twenty-five his only drink had been water. (')
" At length, fearful of being punished for a serious outrage on a
magistrate, (6) he fled from Basil towards the end of the year 1527,
and took refuge in Alsatia, whither he caused Oporinus to follow
with his chemical apparatus.
"He then entered once more upon the career of ambulatory
theosophist.· Accordingly we find him at Colmar in 1528; at
Nuremberg in 1529; in St. Gall in 1531; at PfefIers in 1535; and
at Augsburg in 1536: he next made some stay in Moravia, where
he still further compromised his reputation by the loss of many
distinguished patients, which compelled him to betake himself to
Vienna; from thence he passed into Hungary; and in 1538 was at
Villach, where he dedicated his' Chronicle' to the States of Carinthia,
in gratitude for the many kindnesses with which they had honoured
his father. Finally, from Mindelheim, which he visited in 1540,
Paracelsus proceeded to Salzburg, where he died in the Hospital of
St. Stephen (Sebastian is meant), Sept. 24, 1541."--(Here follows
a criticism on his writings, which I omit.)
(1) Paracelsus would seem to he a fantastic version of Von
Hohenheim; Einsiedeln is the Latinized Ercmus, whence Paracelsus
is sometimes called, as in the correspondence of Erasmus, Eremita ;
Bombast, his proper name, probably acquired, from the characteristic
phraseology of his lectures, that unlucky signification which it has
ever since retained.
(2) Then Bishop of Spanheim, and residing at Wiirzburg in
Franconia; a town situated in a grassy fertile country, whence its
name, Herbipolis. He was much visited there by learned men, as
may be seen by his "Epistolre Familiares," Hag. 1536: among
others, by his staunch friend Cornelius Agrippa, to whom he dates
thence, in 1510, a letter in answer to tlle dedicatory epistle prefixed
to the treatise De Occult. Philosoph., which last contains the
following ominous allusion to Agrippa's sojourn: "Quum nuper
tecum, R. P. in crenobio tuo apud Herhipolirn aliquamdiu con-
• "So migratory a life could afford Paracelsus but littlc leisure
for application to boo\(s, and accordingly he informs us that for
the space of ten years he never opened a single volume, and that
his whole medical library was not composed of six sheets: in eJIect,
the inventory drawn up after his death states that the only books
which he left were tlle Bible, the New Testament, the Commen.taries
of St. Jerome on the Gospels, a printed volume on Medicine, and
seven manuscripts."
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