The following epitaph was written by a Dr. Godfrey, who died in Dublin in 1755:

 Here lieth, to digest macerate, and amalgamate into clay, In Batneo Arenae, Stratum super Stratum The Residuum, Terra damnata and Caput Mortuum,

Of BOYLE GODFREY, Chymist and M.D.

A man who in this Earthly Laboratory pursued various Processes to obtain Arcanum Vitae,

Or the Secret to Live;

Also Aurum Vitae,

or the art of getting rather than making gold. Alchymist-like, all his Labour and Projection,

as Mercury in the Fire, Evaporated in Fume when he Dissolved to his first principles.

He departed as poor

as the last drops of an Alembic; for Riches are not

poured on the Adepts of this world.

Though fond of News, he carefully avoided the Fermentation, Effervescence, and Decrepitation of this

life. Full seventy years his Exalted Essence was hermetically sealed in its Terrene Matrass; but the

Radical Moisture being exhausted, the Elixir Vitae spent,

And exsiccate to a Cuticle, he could not suspend longer in his Vehicle, but precipitated Gradatim, per Campanam, to his original dust.

May that light, brighter than Bolognian Phosphorus,

Preserve him from the Athanor, Empyreuma, and Reverberatory

Furnace of the other world,

Depurate him from the Faeces and Scoria of this,

Highly Rectify and Volatilize, his aethereal spirit,

Bring it over the Helm of the Retort of this Globe, place

in a proper Recipient or Crystalline orb,

Among the elect of the Flowers of Benjamin; never to

be saturated till the General Resuscitation, Deflagration,

Calcination, and Sublimation of all things.