book learning, and, in fact, he boasted that his library would not amount to six folio volumes.

It may also be imagined that such a man would strike out bold and hazardous paths, often
depending more on mere conjecture or fancy than on close reasoning founded on experiment,
and also that such treatment might occasionally meet with striking success. So great, in
fact, was his fame, a fame founded on undoubted successes, that it was not long before he rose
to the summit of popular fame, and obtained the chair of medicine iu the college of Basle.
Among other nostrums he administered a medicine which he called Azoth, and which he
boasted was the philosopher's stone given through the Divine favour to man in these last
days. Naturally his irregular practices, and still more, no doubt, his irregular successes,
stirred up all the fury of the regular practitioners — than whom no body of men, not even
excluding the English Bar, have ever maintained a stricter system of trades' unionism — a fury
which the virulence with which he censured the ignorance and indolence of the ordinary
physicians by no means tended to allay. After a while he was driven from Basle and settled
in Alsace, where, after two years, he returned in 1530 to Switzerland, where he does not
a])pcar to have stayed long, and, after wandering for many years through Germany and
Bohemia, finished his life in the hospital of St Sebastian at Salzburg a.d. 1541.

' I ilouljt Bombastus being the real name. It was probably the Latinised term of an lioncst Swiss jiatiunyniic
which, haviny been once Latinised, could take no great harm by being further Qrcciscd.

;8 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

The true character of Paracelsus has been the subject of great disj^utes. His admirers and
followers have celebrated him as a perfect master of all philosophical and medical mysteries,
and have gone so far, in some cases, as to assert that he was possessed of the grand secret of
transmuting the inferior metals into gold. But, in this case, why did he die in a public
hospital, therein following the example of most gold finders ? Others, on the contrary, have
charged his whole medical practice with ignorance, imposture, and impudence. J. Crato, in
an epistle to Zwinger, declares that in Bohemia his medicines, even when apparently suc-
cessful, left his patients in such a state that they soon after died of palsy or epilepsy, which
is quite credible seeing that he was in all probability a bold and reckless innovator whose
maxim was the vulgarism " kill or cure." The hostility of the regular practitioners is easily
understood, and as easily pardoned. Erastus, who was one of his pupils for two years, wrote a
work detecting his impostures. He is said to have been ignorant of Greek, and to have had
so little knowledge of Latin that he dared not speak it before the learned — as, however, he
despised the learning of Galen and Hippocrates, this may not have been altogether to his hin-
drance— and even his native tongue was so little at command, that he was obliged to have his
German writings corrected by another hand. He has also been charged — but this will carry
no real weight — with the most contemptible ignorance, the most vulgar scurrility, the grossest
intemperance, and the most detestable impiety. The truth seems to be, that he was a rough
and original genius who struck out a path for himself, but who, in so doing, neglected too
much the accumulated wisdom of antiquity, wherein he erred in an opposite direction to the
generality of the profession at that period, and neglected still more the common decencies and
civilities of life. His chief merit, and that was a great one, consisted in improving the art
of chemistry, and in inventing or bringing to light several medicines which still hold their
place in the " Pharmacopceia." He wi'ote or dictated many works so entirely devoid of
elegance, and, at the same time, so unmethodical and obscure, that one is almost tempted
to credit the statement of his assistant Oponinus, who said that he was usually drunk
when he dictated. They treat of an immense variety of subjects — medical, magical, and
philosophical. His " Philosophia Sagax " is a most obscure and confused treatise on astrology,
necromancy, chiromancy, physiognomy (herein anticipating I^avater), and other divining arts ;
and, though several of his works treat of philosophical subjects, yet they are so involved
as to render it an almost impossible task, to reduce them to anything like philosophical
consistency. He did, however, found a school which produced many eminent men, some
of whom took great pains to digest the incoherent dogmas of their master into something
like a methodical system. A summary of his doctrine may be seen in the preface to the
" Basilica Chymica " of Crollius, but it is little better than a mere jargon of words.

A greater visionary, without, moreover, any scientific qualities to counterbalance his
craziness, was Jacob Boehmen, a shoemaker of Gorlitz in Upper Silesia, born in 1575, and of
whom it may safely be said, that no one ever offered a more striking example of the adage tu,
suior ultra crepidam. It has sometimes been said that he was a disciple of Fludd, but be-
yond a probable acquaintance with the writings of Paracelsus, whose terms he frequently uses,
he seems to have followed no other guides than his own eccentric genius- and enthusiastic
imagination. His conceptions, in themselves sufficiently obscure, are often rendered still more
so, by being clothed in allegorical symbols, derived from the chemical art, and every attempt

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 79

wliich has been made to explain and illustrate his system has only raised a fresh vjiiis faluus
to lead the student still further astray. Indeed, it is impossible to explain that wliich possesses
no system or design, and which contains simply the crazy outpourings of an ignorant fanatic
who represented a mediteval Joanna Southcote, with German mysticism superadded. A more
scientific theosophist was John Baptista van Helmont, born at Brussels 1577, who became
lecturer on surgery in the academy of Louvain at the age of seventeen. Dissatisfied with
what he had learned, he studied with indefatigable industry mathematics, geometry, logic,
algebra, and astronomy ; but, still remaining unsatisfied, he had recourse to the writings of
Thomas h. Kempis, and was induced by their perusal to pray to the Almighty to give him
grace to love and pursue truth, on which he was instructed by a dream to renounce all
heathen philosophy, and particularly stoicism, to which he had been inclined, and to wait
for Divine illumination. Being dissatisfied with the medical writings of the ancients, he
again had recourse to prayer, and was again admonished in a dream to give himself up to the
pursuit of Divine wisdom. About this time he learned from a chemist the practical operations
of the art, and devoted himself to the pursuit with great zeal and perseverance, hoping by
this means to acquire the knowledge which he had in vain sought from books. The medical
skill thus acquired he employed entirely in the service of the poor, whom he attended gratis,
and obtained a high reputation for humanity and medical skill. His life ultimately fell
a sacrifice to his zeal for science and pliilanthropy, for he caught cold attending a poor
patient at night, which terminated his existence in the sixty-seventh year of his age. Van
Helmont improved both the chemical and the medical art, but his vanity led him into
empirical pretensions. He boasted that he was possessed of a fluid which he called Alcahcst
or pure salt (to be again referred to), which was the first material principle in nature, and was
capable of penetrating into bodies and producing an entire separation and transmutation of
their component parts. But this wonderful fluid was never shown even to his son, who also
practised chemistry, and was rather more crazy than his father, inasmuch as to his progenitor's
fancies he added the dreams of the Cabbala. His " Paradoxical Dissertations " are a mass
of philosophical, medical, and theological paradoxes, scarcely to be parallelled in the history
of letters.

The last of these writers, which I shall have occasion to mention, and that more particu-
larly, is Eobert Fludd, or De Fluctibus, born in 1574 at Milgate in Kent, and who became a
student at Oxford in 1591. Having finished his studies he travelled for six years in France,
Spain, Italy, and Germany ; and on his return was admitted a physician, and obtained great
admiration, not only for the depth of his chemical, philosophical, and theological knowledge,
but for his singular piety.

So peculiar was his turn of mind, that there was nothing ancient or modern, under the
guise of occult wisdom, which he did not eagerly gather into his magazine of science. All
the mysterious and incomprehensible dreams of the Cabbalists and Paracelsians were com-
pounded by him into a new mass of absurdity. In hopes of improving the medical and
chemical arts he devised a new system of pliysics, loaded with wonderful hypotheses and
mystical fictions. He supposed two universal principles — the northern or condensing, and tlie
southern or rarefying, powcr.^ Over these he placed innumerable intelligences and geniuses,

' This was in a wiguc idea true, imltiiig noitli and aoutli tor hcut and cold, whicli is phyiiically and gc'Ograi>liically
absurd.

So EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

herein only magnifying what had been done liy his predecessors, and called together whole
troops of spirits from the four winds, to whom he committed the charge of diseases. Disease
being blown about by wind is a theory perfectly consonant with the germ theory. AVe have
only to go a step farther, and suppose that these winds are under the guidance of spirits, which
brings us back to the old Cabbalistic and Oriental doctrine of emanation. He used his thermo-
meter in an endeavour to discover the harmony between the macrocosm and the microcosm,*
or the world of nature and of man; he introduced many marvellous fictions into natural
philosophy and medicine, and attempted to explain the Mosaic cosmogony in a work entitled
" Philosophia Moysaica," ^ wherein he speaks of three principles — darkness as the first matter,
water as the second, and the Divine light as the most central essence — creating, informing,
vivifying all things ; of secondary principles — two active, cold and heat ; and two passive,
moisture and dryness; and describes the whole mystery of production and corruption, of
regeneration and resurrection, with such vague conceptions and obscure language as leaves the
subject involved in impenetrable darkness. Some of his ideas, such as they were, seem to
have been borrowed from the Cabbalists and iSTeo-Platonists. One specimen of them will
probably suffice my readers. He ascribes the magnetic virtue to the irradiation of angels.
The titles of his numerous works are (with a few exceptions) given in full by Anthony a Wood
in the " Athenaj Oxonienses."

The writings of Fludd were all composed in Latin ; and whilst it is remarkable that the
works of an English author, residing in England, should be printed at Frankfort, Oppeuheim,
and Gouda, this singularity is accounted for by the author himself. Eludd, in one respect,
resembled Dee ; he could find no English printers who would venture on their publication.
When Foster insinuated that his character as a magician was so notorious, that he dared not
print at home, Fludd tells his curious story : " I sent my writings beyond the seas, because our
home-born printei-s demanded of me five hundred pounds to print the first volume, and to find
the cuts in cojaper ; but beyond the seas it was printed at no cost of mine, and as I could
wish ; and I had sixteen copies sent me over, with forty pounds in gold, as an unexpected
gratuity for it." * Fludd's works seem to have exercised a strange fascination over the mind
of the scholar and antiquary from whose pages I have last quoted. Disraeli observes : " We
may smile at jargon in which we have not been initiated, at whimsical combinations we do
not fancy, at analogies where we lose all semblance, and at fables which we know to be
nothing more ; but we may credit that these terms of the learned Fludd conceal many pro-
found and original views, and many truths not yet patent." *

His extravagances were especially reprobated by Pere Mersenne — who expressed his
astonishment that James I. suffered such a man to live and write — and Kepler. The former,
being either unable or unwilling to continue the contest, turned it over to Gassendi, who

' " Two works, ' Tlie Macrocosm,' or the groat visible world of nature, and ' The Microcosm,' or the little world of
man, form the comprehensive view, designed, to use B'ludd's own terms, as 'an Encyclophy, or Epitome,' of all arts
and sciences " (Isaac Disraeli, Amenities of Literature, 1841, vol. iii., p. 232). According to the same authority, "the
word here introduced into the language is, perhaps, our most ancient authority for the modern term Unci/clopccdia, which
Chambers curtailed to Cyclopwdia."

' "Goudae, 1638, fol. Printed in English at Lond. Iti59, lol." (Atheuce Oxonienses, vol. ii., 1815, p. 622). Fludd
makes Moses a great Rosicrucian.

^ Isaac Disraeli, Amenities of Literature, vol. iii., p. 210. * Ibid., p. 237.

SIR WATKIN WILLIAMS -^WYNN

PROVINCIAL GRANn MAr/rKV- i-M M,-,iv-;ii ijfA'

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 8i

wrote a reply which is supposed to have had the effect of crushing, not only Fludd, but also
the whole body of Eosicrucians, whose great supporter he was.

Soane, indeed, in his " New Curiosities of Literature," i asserts that they were forced to
shelter themselves under the cloak of Freemasonry, a view which was first broached ia
Germany,^ and with slight variation has been adopted by many English writers, notably by
Mr King, who finds " the commencement of the real existence of Freemasonry " in " the
adaptation to a special purpose of another society, then in its fullest bloom, — the Eosicrucians." *
Gassendi's strictures on Fludd's philosophy I have not seen, but their purport is sufficiently
disclosed in the " Athense Oxonienses."* According to the Oxford antiquary, — "Gassendus, upon
Marsennus his desiring him to give his judgment of Fludd's two books wTote against him,
drew up an answer divided into three parts. Tlie first of which sifts the principles of the
whole system of his whimsical philosophy, as they lie scattered throughout his works. The
second is against ' Sophias cum Moria Certamen,' and the third answers the ' Summum
Bonum ' as his." *

Although the silence of Bayle, of Chauffepi^ of Prosper Marchand, of Niceron, and of other
literary historians, with regard to Fludd, is not a little remarkable, it is none the less certain
that his writings were extensively read throughout Europe, where at that time they were
infinitely more inquisitive in their occult speculations than we in England. Passing, however,
for the present from any further consideration of the philosophy of this remarkable English-
man—who died in 1637" — I may yet briefly state, that one of our profoundest scholars, the
illustrious Selden, highly appreciated the volumes and their author.'

It has been before observed that the earth and air were at this time supposed to be full of
demons, and that this was probably owing to the Cabbalistic and Saracenic doctrines of count-
less angels and spirits, the whole springing ultimately from the Oriental doctrine of emanation.
Much curious information on this subject, and which wiU serve to show to what lengths the
belief was carried, may be found in the works below noted.* Some of the older authors wrote
regular natural histories of demons, something after the manner of Buffon or Cuvier. There
is one very curious form of exorcism which is given as having actually occurred. The exorcist,

1 Vol. ii., 1848, p. 63.

« Cf. J. G. Buhle, Ueber den Ursprung irad die Vornehrasten Siliicksale des Ordeiis dei- Roscukreuzcr und
Freimaurer, 1804.

' The Gnostics and their Remains, 1865, p. 177. * Vol. ii. col. 621.

" Of the " Summum Bonum," Wood sajs, "Although this piece goes under another name (Joachim Frizium), yet
not only Gas.sendus gives many reasons to show it to be of our author's composition (Fludd), but also Franc. Lanovius
shows others to the same purpose ; and Marsennus himself, against whom it was directed, was of the like opinion "
{Ibid., col. 620).

' The periods during which the various philosophers flourished, who are said to have been addicted to Rosicrucian
studies, become very material. E.g., Ashmole, whose Hermetic learning has been ascribed, in part, to the personal
instruction he received from Michael Maier and Robert Fludd, was only tliree years old at the deatli of the former (1620),
and had not quite attained legal age when the giave closed over tlie latter (1637).

' Cf. J. Fuller, Worthies of England, ed. 1811 (J. Nichols), vol. ii., p. 503; Athens 0.\onienses (Bliss), vol. ii.,
col. 618 ; Biographie UniverscUe, Paris, Tome xvi., 1816, p. 109 ; and Disraeli, Amenities of Literature, vol. iii., p. 237.

8 Martin Delrio, Disqiiisitionum Magicarum ; Wiertz de Dam. Prffist. ; Reginal Scot, The Discoverie of Witch-
craft, 1584 (the 2d ed., 1634, has a " Discourse of the Nature and Substance of Devils and Spirits ") ; Rev. J. Glanvill
Saducismus Triumphatus, or, Full and Plain Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions, 1667, etc. Amongst the
more modern compilations which ileal with the Ruhject may be named Sir Walter Scott's Letters on Demouology and
Witchcraft, 1831 ; and the Dictionuaire lufernale of Collin de Plancy, Zmc edit. 1844.
VOL. II. L

82 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY-ENGLAND.

on arriving at ni-ht in the room which the ghost affected, proceeded to form a charmed circle.
This donerand the ghost appearing, he proceeded to subject him to control by means of his
incantations, after which the following dialogue ensued:—

Exorcist. Thou shalt lie in the Red Sea.

Ghost. Nay, that cannot be.

Exorcist. How 60 1

Ghost. The Spaniard will take rae as T go.

(Tliere being war with Spain at this time.)
Exorcist. Thou shalt have a convoy.
Ghost. Then I will depart, boy.
Exorcist. And there shalt thou stay

For ever and a day.

The ghost was to repeat this after him, but not being anxious for penal servitude for life,

whatever a ghost's life may be, tried to get off by saying—

And there will I stay
For never any day,

and immediately flew up the chimney. If the ears of the exorcist could be deceived, the whole
proceedings would have been rendered invalid ; but the latter was far too much on the alert to
be thus caught, and sprinkled some dew, which he had brought in order to be prepared
against such" eventualities, on his "skirts," just as they were disappearing up the chimney.
This brought the ghost down, and he ramped and raved, threatened and stormed, in a
frantic mrnner, " but I nothing heeded his braggarding [the ghost-layer is made to say],
knowing weU that he could not come within the charmed circle." The ghost, having
spent the greater part of the night in this unprofitable exhibition of temper, at length
be^an to see signs of dawn, after which he dared not stay, while he could not leave with-
out permission of the exorcist, because of the dew on his skirts. He was therefore obliged
to surrender at discretion, repeat the words like a good boy, or ghost, and depart to his
watery limbo. What would have happened to him if the exorcist had not let him go,
and he had been caught either by the dawn or cock-crowing, is not stated, but it must
have been something terrible, though nameless. It is difficult to imagine such a tale
being meant seriously to be believed. Yet not many years ago a gentleman in North
Devon having a haunted farm which he was unable on that account to let, had recourse
to the ingeni°ous expedient of calling in a number of clergymen, who exorcised the ghost,
and having driven it down to the seashore, allotted the usual task of tj-ing up a sheaf of sand
with a sand rope, and carrying it to the top of a cliff which overhung the shore to the height
of 600 feet. A cave happened opportunely to be at the foot of the cliff, which was probably
the reason why that particular locality was chosen, and when the wind and tide were high, the
noise made by the breakers dashing through the cavern was fully believed by the natives to
be the moaning of the ghost over his impossible task. Somehow or another, either the knot
of exorcism was not tied quite fast enough, or the ghost was a kind of spiritual Davenport or
Maskelyne, but he was supposed to have got free from his task and to be rapidly moving up
hill to his old quarters, and an apprehension prevailed that it might become necessary to go
through the ceremony of exorcism a second time ! Whether this troublesome ghost was again

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 83

laid, and if so, with what result, I have not heard. Similarly in another locality, not far from
the above,^ there dwelt an old labourer and his wife in a cottage near a pool, wl#ch was
supposed to be haunted, though nobody even in that district ever pretended to have seen
anything, but this legend, coupled with the fact that the poor old man was in the habit of
comforting himself with singing Wesley's hymns when he could not sleep through rheumatism,
caused himself and wife to be set down as wizard and witch respectively, and to such an
extent did this belief go, that there is not a doubt but that some villager or other would have
shot the harmless old couple, only to do this a silver bullet was absolutely necessary, and as
in the days I am speaking of the Agricultural Labourers' Union did not exist, the disposable
funds were luckily not equal to so large an expenditure of capital for any purpose however
laudable.

We are apt to laugh at the superstition of former tinles, but I do not know that we
have so much to boast of ourselves. Paracelsus, Cardan, and other visionary philosophers,
though incapable of reasoning correctly, or of restraining the flights of their imagination,
were men of talent — not to say genius — and learning, which is certainly more than
can be said of Cagliostro, and even possibly of Mesmer. Astrological almanacs cb la Lilly
still find abundant sale; if Catherine de Medicis and Wallenstein had their astrologers.
Napoleon had Mdlle. Le Normand, and Alexander I. a mystical lady, whose name I forget,
and who persuaded him to found the Holy Alliance — which really was in its inception an
alliance against the atheistical and blasphemous doctrines of the Revolution — if the sixteenth
century believed in Nostradamus, a good many towards the end of the nineteenth believe
in Mother Shipton. Delrio and Wiertz are fairly matched by Mrs Crowe,^ while
mesmerism, spiritualism, animal magnetism, table turning, and the latest development,
thought-reading, to say nothing of the fact that there are very few people who have not their
pet ghosts when once you succeed in " drawing them out," do not constitute a very high claim
for immunity from superstition ; moreover, I do not believe that any of the charlatans of the
period of which I have been treating, ever hit on a more absurd mode of divining the futui-e
than by making use of a small piece of slit wood with two wheels at one end and the stump
of a pencil at the other [Planchette].

Eeverting to Eobert Fludd, or " De Fluctibus," the mention of this celebrated man brings
me not unnaturally to the Eosicrucians or Brothers of the Eosy Cross, an impalpable fraternity
of which he is known to have been a follower and defender, and by some has been supposed
to have been the second, if not the actual founder. The celebrity of, and the mystery attached
to this sect, together with the circumstances of its having by some been especially connected
with Freemasonry, will, I trust, warrant my entering with some degree of minutias into the
subject.

The fullest account we have, although we may differ from its conclusions, is contained in
the essay of Professor J. G. Buhle, of which a German version appeared in 1804,^ being an
enlargement of a dissertation originally composed in Latin, and read by him l>efore the

' Tlie remark of a learned writer, that the further IVcit he proceeded, the more convinced lie was that the wise
men came from the Ectst, will here occur to the judicious reader.

» The Night Side of Nature, 1848.

' Ueber den Urspniiig und die Vornehmsten Schicksale des Ordens der Rosenkreuzer und Fricmaursr i.e. On the
Origin and the Principal Events of the Orders of Rosicrucians and Freemasons.

84 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

rhilosopliical Society of Gbttingen A.D. 1803. This work was attacked by Nicolai in 1806,
and in 1824 De Quincey published an abridgment of it in the " London Magazine," ^ under
the title of " Historico-ciitical Inquiry into the Origin of the Rosicrucians and the Free-
masons."

Professor Buhle's work, wliich extended over more than 400 pages, has been cut down by
De Quincey to about 90, but in such a manner as to render it often very difficult to detect what
is due to Buhle and what to De Quincey,- and it is to this abridgment that I shall have recourse
mainly for the following sketch of the rise and progress of Eosicrucianism. I must first,
however, state the main argument. Denying the derivation of the order from the Egj^tian,
Greek, Persian, or Chaldean mysteries, or even from the Jews and Arabs, the writer asserts
(and herein both Biilile and De Quincey are certainly in agreement) that though individual
Cabbalists, Alchemists, etc., doubtless existed long previously, yet that no organised body made
its appearance before the rise of the Eosicrucian sect, strictly so called, towards the beginning
of the sixteenth century, when it was founded really accidentally by Andrea ; that Fludd,
becoming enamoured of its doctrines, took it up in earnest, and that hence the sect, which
never assumed any definite form abroad, became organised in England under the new name
of Freemasonry; he then goes on to show the points of resemblance between the two,*
which in Iris idea proves relationship. The essay concludes with a long dissertation disproving
the assertion of Nicolai, that ]\Iasonry was established to promote the Eestoration of Charles II.,
and another theory sometimes advanced, which derives its origin from the Templars, neither
of which requires serious, if any, refutation.

His conclusions are —

1. The original Freemasons were a society that arose out of the Eosicrucian mania between
1633 and 1646, their object being magic in the Cabbalistic sense, i.e., the occult wisdom trans-
mitted from the beginning of the world and matured by Christ [when it could no longer be
occult, but this by the way], to communicate this when they had it, and to search for it
when they had it not, and both under an oath of secresy.

2. This object of Freemasonry was represented under the form of Solomon's Temple,
as a type of the true Church, whose corner-stone is Christ. The Temple is to be built
of men, or living stones; and it is for magic to teach the true method of this kind of
building. Hence aU Masonic symbols either refer to Solomon's Temple or are figurative
modes of expressing magic in the Eosicrucian sense.

3. The Freemasons having once adopted symbols, etc., from the art of Masonry,
to which they were led by the language of Scripture, went on to connect themselves
in a certain degree with the order itself of handicraft masons, and adopted their dis-
tribution of members into apprentices, journeymen, and masters. — Christ is the Grand
]\Iaster, and was put to death whilst laying the foundation of the Temple of human
nature.

' Vol. ix. Reprinted in his collected works, 1863-71 ; vol. xvi. (Suspiria de Profundis).

* De Quincey 's vanity and conceit are most amusing, surpassing even the wide latitude usually allowed to a literary
man. E.g., " I have done what I could to remedy these infirmities of the book ; and, upon the whole, it is a good deal
less paralytic than it was "—again, " I have so whitewashed the Professor, that nothing hut a life of gratitude on his
liart, and free admission to his logic lectures for ever, can possibly repay me for my services " (Preface).

'According to the Professor, "it was a distinguishing feature of the Rosicrucians and Freemasons that iAcJ/ first
conceived tlic idea of a Society which should act on the principle of religious toleration."

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 85

This is the theory of Bulile and De Quincey, which is plausible but untenable, especially
when confronted with the stern logic of facts, as I shall hereafter have occasion to show. But
to return to the history, such as it is, of the Eosicrucians.^

Towards the close of the sixteenth century, Cabbalism, Theosophy, and Alchemy had
overspread the whole of Western Europe, and more especially, as might have been expected,
Germany. N"o writer had contributed more to this mania than Paracelsus, and amongst
other things which excited deep interest, was a prophecy of his to the effect, that soon
after the death of the Emperor Eudolph II. — who was himself deeply infected — there would
be found three treasures that had never been revealed before that time. Accordingly,
shortly after his death, in or about 1610, occasion was taken to publish three books. The
first was the " Universal Eeformation of the whole wide World," - a tale not altogether devoid
of humour. The seven wise men of Greece, together with iM. Cato, Seneca, and a secretary,
Mazzonius, are summoned to Delphi by Apollo, at the desire of Justinian, to deliberate on the
best mode of redressing human misery. Tliales advises to cut a hole in every man's breast ;
Solon suggests communism; Chilo (being a Spartan) the abolition of gold and silver; Cleobulus,
on the contrary, that of iron ; Pittacus insists on more rigorous laws ; but Periander replies
that there never had been any scarcity of these, but much want of men to obey them. Bias
would have all bridges broken down, mountains made insurmountable, and navigation totally
forbidden, so that all intercourse between the nations of the earth should cease. Cato, who
probably preferred drinking,

" Xarratur et prisci Catonis
Saepe virtus caluisse mero." ^

wished to pray for a new deluge, which should sweep away all the women, and at the same
time introduce some new arrangement by means of which the species should be continued
without their aid.* This exasperates the entire assembly, and they proceed to fall on their

' Besides the Spanish lUuminati of the si.xteenth centxiry, who seemed to have derived their ideas from the works
of Lully, which never had much influence out of Spain, and which sect, having been suppressed by the Inquisition,
reappeared not long after at Seville, when, being about contemporary, they were confounded with the Rosicrucians.
There was a somewhat similar sect, at an earlier date (1525), in the Low Countries and Picardy, headed by t^vo
artisans, named Quentin and Cossin. There arose also a.d. 15S6, a Militia crucifera evangelica, who assembled first at
Luneburg, and are sometimes confounded with the Kosicrucians. They were, however, nothing more than a party of
extreme Protestants, whose brains became overheated with apocalyptic visions, and whose object was exclusively
connected with religion. Our chief knowledge of them is derived from one Simon Studion, a mystic and theosophist
who got himself into some trouble with alchemy, and more with heresy. He was born at Urach in Wurteniberg
1565, and, having graduated at Tiibingen, settled as a teacher at Marbach. His work, " Xaometria," which
contains the information above mentioned, appears to be a fairago of the ordinary class, and has apparently never
been printed.

' This, the first of the three, was borrowed, if not translated verbatim, from the "Gencrale Riforma dell'Universo
dai sette Savii della Grecia e da altri Letterati, publicato di ordine di Apollo " ("The General Reform of the Universe by
the Seven Sages of Greece and other Literati, published by the orders of Apollo "), which occurs in tlie " Raguaglio di
Pamasso " of Boccalini, who was cudgelled to death in 1G13 (MazzucheUi, .Scrittori d'ltalia, vol. ii., pt. iii., p. 137S).
So far Buhle, who says that there was an edition of the first " Centuria" in 1612. But as even the " Fama " is generally
supposed to have an earlier date, for the actual time of its appearance is uncertain, it is possible that the Italian work
was derived from the German. I shall not venture an opinion, nor is the subject of any vital importance.

' " And the virtue of the ancient Cato is said to have been often preserved by old wine " (Horace).

* See Milton's Paradise Lost, Book X.

86 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

knees and pray tbat " the lovely race of woman might be preserved, and the world saved from
a second deluge." "Which seems to have been about the only sensible thing they did. Finally,
the advice of Seneca prevailed, namely, to form a new society out of all ranks, having for its
object the general welfare of mankind, which was to be pursued in secret.^ This was not
carried without great debate and many doubts as to its success, but the matter was at length
decided by the appearance of " the Age," who appeared before them in person, and described
the wretched state of his health, and his generally desperate condition. Whatever success
this jeiu d'esprit may have had in its day, it has long been forgotten, and is now interesting
only as having been a kind of precursor of the far more celebrated " Fama."

John Valentine Andrea, a celebrated theologian of Wurtemberg, and known also as a satirist
and poet, is generally supposed to have been its author, although Burk has excluded it from
the catalogue of his works. He was bornl586 at Herrenberg, and his zeal and talents enabled
him early to accumulate an extraordinary amount of learning. Very early, also, in life he
seems to have conceived a deep sense of the evils and abuses of the times, not so much in
politics as in philosophy, morals, and religion, which he sought to redress by means of secret
societies. As early as his sixteenth year he wrote his " Chemical Nuptials of Christian Rosy
Cross," his " Julius, sive de Politia," his " Condemnation of Astrology," together with several
other works of similar tendency. Between 1607-1612 he travelled extensively through
Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland, a practice he long continued, and even during the
horrors of the Thirty Years' war exerted himself in founding schools and churches throughout
Bohemia, Corinthia, and Moravia.* He died in 1654. " From a close review of his life and
opinions," says Professor Buhle — and in his account of Andrea we may, I think, follow him
with confidence — "I am not only satisfied that he wrote the three works (including the
' Confession,' which is a supplement to the ' Fama '), but I see why he wrote them." The evils
of Germany were enormous, and to a young man such as Andrea was, when he commenced
what we must admit to be his Quixotic enterprise, their cure might seem easy, especially with
the example of Luther before him, and it was with this idea that he endeavoured to organise
the Eosicrucian societies, to which, in an age of Theosophy, CabbaUsm, and Alchemy, he
added what he knew would prove a bait. " Many would seek to connect themselves with
this society for aims which were indeed illusions, and from these he might gradually select
the more promising as members of the real society. On this view of Andrea's real intentions

' It would have been more consonaut with the character of this glib philosopher, who made nearly two millions
and a half sterling by his profession of court philosopher, and who was a kind of philosophic Square on a gigantic scale,
if he had proposed an universal loan society. The sudden recall of his loan of £400,000 was one of the main causes
of the revolt of the unhappy Boadicea.

" Andrea was a very copious writer. The titles of his works amount to nearly 100. In many of these he strongly
advocates the necessity of forming a society solely devoted to the regeneration of knowledge and manners, and in his
" Menippus," 1617, he points out the numerous defects which in his own time prevented religion and literature from
being as useful as they might be rendered under a better organisation. Of Robert Fludd, who was, notwithstanding all
his extravagances, a very learned, able, and ingenious man, we have yet no sufficient biogi'aphy. There is a short sketch
of his life in the " Athenae Oxonienses ; " and Isaac Disraeli has agreeably skimmed the subject In his " Amenities of
Literature," but that is aU. [Abridged from a note in the " Diary " of Dr Worthington, published 1847 by the Chetham
Society, a work useful only for two things — first, as showing the utterly trivial nature of the majority of the publications
of book societies ; secondly, as forming a vehicle for tlie valuable occasional notes of a very learned editor, the late
James Crossley.]

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 87

we understand at once the ground of the contradictory language which he lield about astrology
and the transmutation of metals ; his satirical works show that he looked through the follies
of his age with a penetrating eye." ^ Buhle goes on to say, why did he not at once avow his
books, and answers that to have done so at once would have defeated his scheme, and that
afterwards he found it prudent to remain in obscurity. I do not myself see how an anonymous
publication at first would have helped him, but if he were merely throwing up a straw he was
right to conceal his name, and the storm of obliquy, excitement, hostility, and suspicion
which followed shortly after, showed the wisdom and prudence of such a course. More than
this, as a suspected person he even joined in public the party of those who ridiculed the whole
as a chimera. But we nowhere find in his posthumous memoirs that he disavows the works ; ^
and indeed the fact of his being the avowed author of the " Chemical Nuptials of Christian
Rosy-Cross," a worthy never before heard of, ought of itself to be sufficient. Some, indeed,
have denied his claim ; for instance, Heidegger, who, in his " Historia VitaB J. L. Fabricii,"
gives the work to Jung, a mathematician of Hamburg, on the authority of Albert Fabricius,
who reported the story casually as derived from a secretary of the Court of Heidelberg.
Others have claimed it for Giles Gutmann, for no other reason than that he was a celebrated
mystic. Morhof has a remark, which, if true, might leave indeed Andrea in possession of the
authorship without ascribing to him any influence in the formation of the order. " Not only,"
he says, " were there similar colleges of occult wisdom in former times, but in the ^ last, i.e.,
the sixteenth century, the fame of the Eosicrucian fraternity became celebrated." But this
is, at least, as far as I know, no sort of proof of this assertion, and the concurrent testimony
of all who have written on the subject certainly is that the fraternity of Eosicrucians, if
it ever existed at all, is never mentioned before the publication of the "Fama," in spite
of isolated societies, such as that of Cornelius Agrippa in England, or of individual enthusiasts
who pursued their dreams perhaps with more or less communication with one another.
Moreover, the armorial bearings of Andrea's family were a St Andrew's Cross and four roses.
By the order of the Eosy Cross he therefore means an order founded by himself — Christianus
Eoste Crucis, the Christian, which he certainly was, of the Eosy Cross.*

But so simple an explanation will not suit a numerous class of writers, for the love
of mystery being implanted in human nature never wholly dies out, though it often
changes its venue, and some, such as Nicolai, have considered the rose as the emblem of
secrecy (hence under the rose, mh rosa), and the cross to signify the solemnity of the oath
by which the vow of secrecy was ratified, hence we should have the fraternity of, or

' So far Buhle, but Andrea never seems to have made any effort to carry out the deep— not to say far-fetched^
design here imputed to liim. Many have thought the " Fama " a mere satire, to those who read it carefully it will
appear a straw thrown up to ascertain which way the wind was blowing.

^ Sir Philip Francis, in his later days, was most anxions to be thought the author of "Junius," going so far as to
present his second wife, the great-aunt of my informant, with no other bridal gift — much, probably, to that lady's annoyance
— than a copy of "Junius," magni&cently bound in gilt vellum ; to my mind, a tolerably conclusive proof against him.
We do not hear of Colonel Barrfe or Lord Grenville, both of whom are much more likely candidates for the somewhat
doubtful honour, stooping to such tricks. Pitt, who was the soul of veracity, and who, by his mother's side, was a
Grenville, said : " I know who the author of ' Juuius ' was, and he was not Francis."

^ Fuere non priscis tantum seculis collegia talia occulta, sed et superior! seculo, i.e., sexto decinio, de Fraternitato
Bosese Crucis fama percrebuit (Polyhist I., p. 131, cd. Lubecse 1732).

* Like the Knight of the Fetterlock.

88 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

bound by the oath of sileuce, which is recasonable and grammatical if it were only true.
But Mosheim ^ says that " the title of Rosy Cross was given to chymists who united the
study of religion and chymistry, and that the term is alchemical, being not rosa, a rose, but
ros^ dew. Of all natural bodies, dew is the most powerful dissolvent of gold, and a cro&s in the
language of the fire philosophers, is the same as lux, light, because the ligure of the cross
X exhibits all the three letters of the word lux at one view. They called lux the seed or
menstruum of the Red Dragon" or that gross and corporeal light, which, being properly digested
and modified, produces gold. A Rosicrucian philosopher, therefore, is one who, by means of
dew, seeks for light, i.e., for the Philosopher's Stone — which, by the way, the Eosicrucians always
denied to be their great aim, in fact, although they boasted of many secrets, they always
maintained that this was the least. The other versions are false and deceptive, having been
given by chemists who were fond of concealment. The true import of the title was perceived
(or imagined to be so) by Gassendi in his " Examen Philosophise Fluddianse," and better still,
by the celebrated French physician Efenaudot in his " Conferences Publiques," iv. 87.

Many of these derivations are plausible enough, but unfortunately the genitive of ros, dew,
is roris, so that the fraternity would in this case have been 7'or4crucians.^

Soane, while admitting the family arms of Andrea, says, " The rose was, however, an
ancient religious symbol, and was carried by the Pope in his hand when walking in pro-
cession on Mid Lent Sunday, and was worn at one time by the English clergy in their button
holes." * Fuller, in his " Pisgah sight of Palestine," calls Christ " that prime rose and lily."
" Est rosa flos Veneris " (the rose is the flower of Venus), because it represents the generative
power " typified by Venus " — though how or why, except because exercised sub rosa, it is hard
to conjecture ? Ysnextie, the Holy Virgin of the Mexicans, is said to have sinned by eating
roses, which roses are elsewhere termed fructo del arhol. Vallancey, in his " Collectanea de
Eebus Hibernicis," giving the proper names of men derived from trees, states : " Susan liliura
vel rosa uxor Joacim ; " and after relating what Mosheim had said as above, he goes on to say
that Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus in Syria, asserts that Eos was by the Gnostics deemed

1 Ecclesiastical History, vol. iii., pp. 216, 217.

^ Why not "rAos,"in Welsh "a marsh," which, to a certain extent, is the same thing, both having to do with
dampness and moisture. It is a pity that so promising an opportunity for bringing in the Druids has hitherto been
neglected ; but I do not despair yet of seeing it utilised. Perhaps some may take the hint.

2 Vaughan says: "The derivation of the name Rosicrucian from ros and crux, rather than rosa and crux, is
untenable. By rights, the word, if from rosa, should no doubt be Rosacruoian ; but such a malformation, by no means
uncommon, cannot outweigh the reasons adduced on behalf of the generally-received etymology " (Hours with the
Mystics, 1856, vol. ii., p. 350). The elder Disraeli observes : " Mosheim is positive in the accuracy of his information.
I would not answer for my own, though somewhat more reasonable ; it is indeed difficult to ascertain the origin of the
name of a society which probably never had an e.xistence " (Amenities of Literature, 1841, vol. iii., p. 230). Fuller's
amusing explanation of the term " Eosa-Crusian " was written without any kuow'ledge of the supposititious founder. He
says : "Sure I am that a Rose is the sweetest of Flowers, and a Cross accounted the sacredest of forms and figures, so
that much of eminency must be imported in their composition " (Worthies of England, 1662). According to Godfrey
Higgins, " Nazareth, the town of Nazir, or Nafw/iaios, ' the flower,' was situated in Carmel, the vineyard or garden of
God. Jesus was a flower ; whence came the adoration, by the Rossicrucians, of the Rose and Cross, wliicli Rose was Eos,
and this Jias, or knowledge, or wisdom, was stolen from the garden, which was also crucified, as he literally is, on the
red cornelian, the emblem of the Rossicrucians — a Rose on a Cross " (.^uacalypsis, vol. ii., p. 240). See lurther, Brucker,
oj). cil., vol. iv., p. 735; and Arnold, Kirchen und Ketzen Historic, \>i. ii., p. 1114. !■:

* Kew Curiosities of Literature, 1848, vol. ii., p. 37.

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 89

symbolical of Christ. " By dew is confessed the Godhead of the Lord Jesus." ^ The Sethites
and the Ophites, as the emblematical serpent worshippers were called, held that the dew
which fell from the excess of light was tuisdom, the hermaphrodite deity.

I quote the two above passages at length, as melancholy instances of learning, talent, and
ingenuity run mad, and to show to what extent a vivid imagination, a want of sound judg-
ment, and cool, clear, common sense, coupled with the vanity of displaying learning generally
irrelevant, and often unreal, and ingenuity as perverted as it is misplaced, will lead men of
the greatest talents and even genius. The more one reads, the more one will be apt to parody,
with De Quincey, the famous words of Oxenstiern, and say, " Go forth and learn with what
disregard of logic most books are written." The faults and foibles I have above enumerated
have, I really believe, done more harm to the cause of true learning than all other causes
and hindrances put together.

Maier, an upholder of the fraternity, in his " Themis Aurea," ^ denies that R. C. meant
either ros, rosa, or crux, and contends that they were merely chosen as a mark of distinc-
tion, i.e., arbitrarily. But a man must have some reason, however slight, for choosing any-
thing, and the fact of the rose and cross forming his family arms must surely have been
enough for Andrea. Arnold also ^ says that in the posthumous writings of M. C. Hirshen,
pastor at Eisleben, it has been found that John Arne informed him in confidence, as a
near friend and former colleague, how he had been told by John Valentine Andrea, also
in confidence, that he, namely Andrea, with thirty others in Wurtemberg, had first set forth
the " Fama," in order that under this screen they might learn the judgment of Europe thereon,
as also what lovers of true wisdom lay concealed here and there who might then come forward.*
There is a furtlier circumstance connected with the " Fama," which, though it certainly does
not prove it to have been a fiction of Andrea's, establishes with tolerable clearness that it was
a fiction of some one's, and that is, that in the contemporary life of the famous Dominican
John Tauler,^ who flourished in the fourteenth century, mention is made of one Master
Nicolas, or rather one supposed to be Master Nicolas, for he is always referred to as the
" Master," who instructed Tauler in mystic religion — meaning thereby not mysticism in the
ordinary sense, but the giving one's self up to " being wrapped up in," and endeavouring to be
absorbed in, God. Thi.s mysterious individual, who is supposed to have been a merchant at
Basle, really existed, and he did actually found a small fraternity, the members of which
travelled from country to country, observing, nevertheless, the greatest secrecy, even to
concealing from each other their place of sepulture, but who had also a common house where
the master dwelt towards the end of his life, and who subsisted in the same silence, paucity of
numbers, and secrecy, long after his death, protesting, as he did, against the errors and abuses

' Theod. Quaest in Genes., cap. XXVII., Interrog. 82, p. 91, Tom. i Halie 1772.

' Themis Aurea, Hoc est de legibus fraternitatis Rosse Crucis, Francfort, 1618. Translated into English, and
published with a dedication to Elias Ashmole, in 1656. Of the author's connection with the Rosicrueians, it has been
observed : " Maier fut certainement un des initios ou plut3t des dupes, puisqu'il a eu la bonhomie de rddiger leurs lois,
leura coutumes, et qu'il a pria leur defense dans un de sos ouvrages" (Biographie Universelle, Paris, 1820, t. 26
p. 282).

' Kirchen und Ketzer Historie, p. 899.

* As the result proved, they were wise to commence in secrecy, nnd eq^ually wise to remain so.

' Cf. Life and Times of Tauler, translated by Susannah Winkworth, 1857 ; aud K. Schmidt, Nikolaus von Basel,
Bericht von der Bekehrung Taulers, Strasburg, 1875.

VOL. XL M

90 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

of Rome, until the remnant was finally swallowed up in the vortex of the Eeformation. The
date of the " Master " anticipates by not much more than half a century the birth of the
supposed C. E., and the two stories altogether bear so many points of close resemblance, that
we shall be, I think, quite justified in concluding, without for a moment tracing any real
connection, which I am very far indeed from supposing to have ever existed, that Andrea,
who was not only a man of very great learning, but a countryman also of the " Master "
and his disciples, knew of and adapted the story for his " Fama," in the same way as he
did that of Boccalini for his " Eeformation." The name was suggested by his coat of arms,
and it so happens that it forms a by no means uncommon German patronymic — Eosecranz,
Eosencranz, Eosecreutz, which would of course be Latinised into Eosse Crucis.^ Assuming
then, as I think may safely be done, that the " Fama " and " Confessio " at least, if not the
" Eeformatio " as well, were the worbs of Andrea, and leaving aside all speculations of their
having had an earlier origin, and of the mystical nature of the name as being either the work
of imagination run mad, or the vanity of learning and ingenuity exhibiting themselves for
learning and ingenuity's sake, let us now follow the fortunes of the works, and the results
which sprang from them.^

Though the precise date of its first appearance is not exactly known, j'et it was certainly
not later than 1610, and the repeated editions which appeared between 1614 and 1617, and
stQl more the excitement that followed, show how powerful was the effect produced. " In the
library at Gottingen there exists a body of letters addressed between these years to the
imaginary order by persons offering themselves as members. As qualifications most assert
their skill in alchemy and Cabbalism, and though some of the letters are signed with initials
only, or with names evidently fictitious, yet real places of address are assigned" — the
reason for their being at Gottingen is that, as many indeed assert, unable to du-ect their
communications rightly, they had no choice but to address their letters to some public body
" to be called for," as it were, and, having once come to the University, there they remained.
Others threw out pamphlets containing their opinions of the order, and of its place of resi-
dence, which, as Vaughan says in his " Hours with the Mystics," was in reality under Dr
Andrea's hat. " Each successive writer claimed to be better informed than his predecessors.
Quarrels arose ; partisans started up on aU. sides ; the uproar and confusion became indescrib-
able ; cries of heresy and atheism resounded from every corner ; some were for calling in the
secular power ; and the more coyly the invisible society retreated from the public advances,
so much the more eager were its admuers, so much the more blood-thirsty its antagonists."
Some, however, seem to have suspected the truth from the first, and hence a suspicion arose
that some bad designs lurked under the seeming purpose, a suspicion which was not unnaturally

' Tliis pedantic fasliiou of Latinising and Grecising names lasted for a century and a half. Reuchlin was induced
by the entreaties of a friend, who was shocked at the barbarism of his German appellation, to turn it into Capnio. It
should have been KaiTTos, the Greek for smoke, but I suppose the fact of the friend's being an Italian will account for
it. I am not sure that it was an improvement, but Melancthon (McXai/x^w or Black earth) certainlj' is an improvement
on Sehwarzerd. So Fludd calls himself De Fluctibus, which is wrong in sense and grammar. He was Fluctus or
Diluvium, not Dt Fluctibus. His works certainly were drawn out of the flood, but he himself never emerged iu the ark
of common sense from the overwhelming waves of fancy and irrational speculation.

- It is contended by some fanciful commentators, that the words which stand at the end of the " Fama " — Sab
Umbi-& Alarum tuarum Jehova — furnish the initial letters of Johannes Val. Andi'ea Stipendiata Tubiugensis I

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 91

strengthened, for many impostors, as might have been expected, gave themselves out as
Eosicrucians, and cheated numbers out of their money by alchemy, and out of their health and
money together by quack medicines. Three, in particular, made a great noise at Wetzlar,
Nuremberg, and Augsburg, of whom one lost his ears in running the gauntlet, and another was
hanged. At this crisis Andreas Libau or Libavius attacked the pretended fraternity with
great power by two works in Latin and one in German, published in 1615 and the following
j'ear, at Frankfort and at Erfurt respectively, and these, together with others of a like tendency,
might have stopped the mischief had it not been for two causes — first, the coming forward
of the old Paracelsists, who avowed themselves to be the true Eosicrucians in numerous
books and pamphlets which still further distracted the public mind ; secondly, the conduct
of Andrea himself and his friends, who kept up the delusion by means of two pamphlets — (1.)
Epistola ad Eeverendam Fraternitatem E. Crucis. Fran. 1613 ; (2.) Assertio Fraternitatis E. C.
k quodam Fratern. ejus Socio carmine expressa — Defence of the E. C. brethren by a certain
anonymous brother, written in the form of a poem. This last was translated into German in
1616, and again in 1618, under the title of "Ara Foederis Therapici," or the Altar of the Healing
Fraternity — the most general abstraction of the pretensions made for the Eosicrucians being
that they healed both the body and the mind.^

The supposed Fraternity was, however, defended in Germany by some men not altogether
devoid of talent, such as Julianus a Campis, Julius Sperber of Anhalt Dessau, whose " Echo " of
the divinely illuminated order of the E. C, if it be indeed his, was printed in 1615, and again
at Dantzig in 1616, and who asserted that as esoteric mysteries had been taught from the time
of Adam down to Simeon, so Christ had established a new " college of magic," and that the
greater mysteries were revealed to St John and St Paul. Eadtich Brotoffer was not so much a
Cabbalist as an Alchemist, and understood the three Eosicrucian books as being a description
of the art of making gold and finding the philosopher's stone. He even published a receipt for
the same, so that both " materia et prceparatio lapidis aurei," the ingredients and the mode of
mixing the golden stone, were laid bare to the profane. It might have been thought that so
audacious a stroke would have been sufficient to have ruined him, but, as often happens, the
very audacity of the attempt carried him through, for his works sold well and were several
times reprinted.^ A far more important person was Michael Maier, who had been in England,
and was the friend of Fludd. He was born at Eendsberg in Holstein in 1568, and was

' Anilrea probably refers to the enjoyment of the hoax he had so effectually carried out in the " Jlythologia Chris-
tiana," published at Strasburg in 1619, speaking under the name of Truth (die Alethia) — "Planissime nihil cum hac
fraternitate commune habeo. Nam cum, pauUo ante lusum quendam ingeniosiorem personatus aliquis in literario pro
vellet agere, — nihil mota sum libellis inter se conflictantibus ; sed velut in scen^ prodeuntes histriones non sine voluptute
spectavi. " "It is very clear that I have nothing in common with this fraternity, for when, not long ago, a certain
person wished to start a rather more ingenious farce thau usual in the republic of letters, I held aloof from the battle of
books, and, as if on a stage, watched the actors with delight." He was perfectly right, Truth had nothing to do with
the Fraternity, the controversy, or the combatants.

- It is said of the famous Sir Thomas Browne that when dining one day with the Arclibishop, I think he was Abbot
at Lambeth, he met, amongst others, a gentleman who related that in Germany ho had soon a man make gold, and that,
unless he had actually seen it, he confessed that he should not have believed it, but that, nevertheless, so it was. Some
one, half in joke, remarked that he wondered that he should venture to relate such things at liis Grace's table (seeing
that they savoured of magic), and before so learned a man as Sir T. Browne, asking, at the same time, the latter what
he thought of it — " Why," said Sir Thomas, in his thick huddling manner, " I am of the same opinion as the gentle-
man, he says that he would not have believed it unless he had seen it, neither will I. "

92 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

physician to the Emperor Eudolph II., who, as has before been observed, was possessed with the
mystical mania. He died at Magdebourg in 1622. His first work on this subject is the
''Jocus Severus," Franc. 1617, addressed "omnibus verse chymise amantibus per Germaniam,"
and especially to those " illi ordini adhuc dditcscenti, ut Fama Fraternitatis et Confessione
sua admiranda et probabili manifestato " — " To that sect, which is still secret, but which,
nevertheless, is made known by the Fama and its admirable and reasonable Confession." This
work, it appears, was written in England, and the dedication composed on his journey from
England to Bohemia. Eeturning, he endeavoured to belong to the sect, so firmly did he believe
in it, but, finding this of course impossible, he endeavoured to found such an order by his own
efforts, and in his subsequent writings spoke of it as already existing, going so far even as to
publish its laws — which, indeed, had already been done by the author of the " Echo." From
his principal work, the ^ " Silentiura post Clamores," we may gather his view of Eosicrucianism
— "Nature is yet but half unveiled. "What we want is chiefly experiment and tentative
inquiry. Great, therefore, are our obligations to the E. C. for labouring to supply this want.
Their weightiest mystery is a Universal Medicine. Such a Catholicon lies hid in nature. It
is, however, no simple, but a very compound, medicine. For, out of the meanest pebbles and
weeds, medicine and even gold is to be extracted." Again — " He that doubts the existence of
the E. C. should recollect that the Greeks, Egyptians, Arabians, etc., had such secret societies ;
where, then, is the absurdity in their existing at this day ? Their maxims of self-discipline
are these — To honour and fear God above all things ; to do aU the good in their power to
their fellow-men, etc." " What is contained in the Fama and Confessio is true. It is a very
childish objection that the brotherhood have promised so much and performed so little. With
them, as elsewhere, many are called, but few chosen. The masters of the order hold out the
rose as a remote prize, but they impose the cross on those who are entering." " Like the
Pythagoreans and Egyptians, the Eosi crucians exact vows of silence and secrecy. Ignorant
men have treated the whole as a fiction ; but this has arisen from the five years' probation to
which they subject even well qualified novices before they are admitted to the higher mysteries ;
within this period they are to learn how to govern their tongues." Theophilus Schweighart
of Constance, Josephus Stellatus, and Giles Gutmann were Will o' the Wisps of an inferior
order, and deserve no further mention.

Andrea now began to think that the joke had been carried somewhat too far, or rather
perhaps that the scheme which had thought to have started for the reformation of manners
and philosophy had taken a very different turn from that which he had intended, and there-
fore, hoping to ridicule them, he published his " Chemical Nuptials of Christian Eosy Cross,"
which had hitherto remained in MS., though written as far back as 1602. This is a comic
romance of extraordinary talent, designed as a satire on the whole tribe of Theosophists,
Alchemists, Cabbalists, etc., with which at that time Germany swarmed. Unfortunately the

1 " Silentium post Clamores, hoc est Tractatus Apologeticus, quo causiE non solum Clamorum (seu revelationnm)
Fraternitatis Germanicie de R. C. sed et Silentil (seu non reddita, ad singuloruni vota responsionis) traduntur et demon-
strantur. Autore Michiele Maiero Imp. Consist. Comite et Med. Doct., Francof, 1617." " Silence after sound, that is
an apology, in which are given and proved the reason not only for the sounds (clamours), i.e., revelations of the German
fraternity of the R. C, but also of their silence, i.e., of their not having replied to the wishes of individuals. By
Michael Maier (or, as it is sometimes written, Mayer), Count of the Imperial Consistory, and Doctor of Medicine,
Frankfort, 1617."

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 93

puljlic took the whole " au grand s(5rieux." Upon this, in the following year, he puhlished a
collection of satirical dialogues under the title of " Menippus ; sive dialogorum satyricorum
centuria, inanitatum nostratium Speculum " — " A century of satyric dialogues designed as a
mirror for our follies." In this he more openly reveals his true design — revolution of method
in the arts and sciences, and a general religious reformation. He seems, in fact, to have been
a dreamy and excessively inferior kind of German Bacon. His efforts were seconded by his
friends, especially Irenseus Agnostus and Joh. Val. Alberti. Both wrote with great energy
against the Eosicrucians, but the former, from having ironically styled himself an unworthy
clerk of the Fraternity of the R. C, has been classed by some as a true Eosicrucian.
But they were placed in a still more ludicrous light by the celebrated Campanella, who,
though a mystic himself, found the Eosicrucian pretensions rather more than he could
tolerate. In his work on the Spanish Monarchy, written whilst a prisoner at Naples, a
copy of which, finding its way by some means into Germany, was there published and
greatly read (1620), we find him thus expressing himself of the E. C. : " That the whole
of Christendom teems with such heads " (Eeformation jobbers) — a most excellent expression,
but this by the way — " we have one proof more than was wanted in the Fraternity of the
E. C. For, scarcely was that absurdity hatched, when — notwithstanding it was many times
declared to be nothing more than a ' lusus ingenii nimium lascivientis/ a ' mere hoax of some
man of wit troubled with a superfluity of youthful spirits ; ' yet because it dealt in reformations
and pretences to mystical arts — straightway from every country in Christendom pious and
learned men, passively surrendering themselves dupes to this delusion, made offers of their
good wishes and services — some by name, others anonymously, but constantly maintaining
that the brothers of the E. C. could easily discover their names by Solomon's Mirror or other
Cabbalistic means. Nay, to such a pass of absurdity did they advance, that they represented
the first of the three Eosicrucian books, the ' Universal Eeformation,' as a high mystery ; and
expounded it in a chemical sense as if it had contained a cryptical account of the art of gold
making, whereas it is nothing more than a literal translation, word for word, of the ' Parnasso '
of Boccalini."

After a period of no very great duration, as it would appear, they began rapidly to sink,
first into contempt and then into obscurity and oblivion, and finally died out, or all but did
so, for, as Vaughan justly observes, "Mysticism has no genealogy. It is a state of tliiuking
and feeling to which minds of a certain temperament are liable at any time and place, in
Occident and orient, whether Eomanist or Protestant, Jew, Turk, or Infidel. The same round
of notions, occun-iug to minds of similar make under similar circumstances, is common to
mystics in ancient India and in modern Christendom,"^ and it is quite possible that there may
be Eosicrucians still, though they hide their faith like people do their belief in ghosts. Not
only had science, learning, and right reason made more progress, but the last waves of the
storm of the Eeformation had died away and men's minds had sobered down in a great measure
to practical realities. As usual, rogues and impostors took advantage of whatever credulity

• "Hours with the Mystics," 1856, toI. i., p. 60. The following, from the same work, is also worthy of note. At
the revival " of letters spread over Europe, the taste for antiquity and natural science began to claim its share in the
freedom won for theology ; the pretensions of the Cabbala, of Hermes, of Neo-Platonist Theurgy became identified with
the cause of progress " (vol. ii., p. 30). In short, men with excited imaginations were everywhere groping and struggling
in the dark — Qmd plura f

94 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

there was, and this hastened the decay of the sect, for though there was no actual society or
organisation, yet the name of Eosicrucian became a generic term embracing every species of
occult pretension, arcana, elixir, the philosopher's stone, theurgic ritual, symbols, initiations
tt hoc genus omne} Some few, as I have remarked, doubtless lingered. Liebnitz was in early
life actually connected with a soi-disant society of the E. C. at Nuremberg, but he became
convinced that they were not connected with any real society of that name. " II me paroit," he
says, in a letter published by Feller in the " Otium Hannoveranum," p. 222, " que tout ce, que Ton
a dit des Frferes de la Croix de la Eose, est une pure invention de quelque personne ingenieuse."
And again, so late as 1696, he says, elsewhere — " Fratres Eoseae Crucis fictitios esse suspicor;
quod et Helmontius mihi confirmavit." One of the latest notices is to be found in Spence's
"Anecdotes of Books and Men,"^ where we have the Eev. J. Spence writing to his mother from
Turin under date of August 25, 1740—" Of a sett of philosophers called adepts, of whom there
are never more than twelve in the whole world at one time. . • . . " . Free from poverty,
distempers, and death " — it was unkind and selfish in the last degree to conceal such beneiits
from mankind at large !— " There was one of them living at Turin, a Frenchman, Audrey by
name, not quite 200 years old " — who must in this case have been past 70 when he joined the
original fraternity ? In the same work ^ it is also stated that a story of Gustavus Adolphus
having been provided with gold by one of the same class, was related by Mar^chal Ehebeuden
to the English minister at Turin, who told it to Spence. A similar anecdote is related by John
Evelyn, who, whilst at Paris in 1652, was told by " one Mark Antonio of a Genoese Jeweller who
had the greate Arcanum, and had made projection before him severall times." * But the great
majority were douljtless mere knaves, and whole clubs even of swindlers existed calling them-
selves Eosicrucians. Thus Lud. Conr. Orvius, in his " Occulta Philosophia, sive ccelum Sapientum
et Vexatio Stultorum," tells us of such a society, pretending to trace from Father Eosycross, who
were settled at the Hague in 1622, and who, after swindling him out of his own and his wife's
fortune, amounting to about eleven thousand dollars, expelled him from the order with the
assurance that they would murder him if he revealed their secrets, " which secrets," says he, " I
have faithfully kept, and for the same reason that women keep secrets, viz., because I have none to

1 See Atheuie Oxonienses, passim. Butler writes —

' ' A deep occult philosopher,
As learu'd as the wild Irish are,
He Anthroposophus, and Floud,
And Jacob Behmen, understood :
In Rosicrucian lore as learned.
As he that Vcri Adeptus earned."

— Hudibras, pt. I., canto i.
= Ed. 1820, p. 403.

' P. 405. The extravagancies of earlier Eosicrucians, or of persons claiming to be such, are thus alluded to by
Disraeli — " In November 1620 a rumour spread that the King was to be visited by an ambassador from the President of
the Society of the Rosycross. He was, indeed, a heteroclite ambassador, for he is described — ' as a youth with never
a hair upon his face.' He was to proffer to His Majesty, provided the King accepted his advice, three millions to put
into his coffers ; and by his secret councils he was to unfold matters of moment and secresy " (Guriosities of Literature,
1849, vol. iii., p. 512).

* Memoirs of John Evelyn, ed. 1870, p. 217. See the life of Arthur Dee, son of the famous John Dee, of whom
Wood says — "While a little hoy, 'twas usual with him to play at quaits with the slates of gold made by projection, in
the garret of his father s lodgings " (Atheufe Oxonienses, vol. iii., col. 285).

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 95

reveal ; for their knavery is no secret."i After all it is not to be wondered at, for the auri sacra
(or vesana) fames does but change its form— not its substance ; and those who, not long ago, bought
shares in Mr Eubery's Californian anthill, made up of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, would
doubtless have faUen an easy prey to the first Eosicrucian alchemist, and really with more
excuse. Considering that there never was any real body of Eosicruciaus properly so caUed,
there could not well be any fixed principles of belief, e.g., especial creed as it were ; still, as the
number of those who, for one reason or another, chose to call themselves Eosicrucians was
doubtless very great, it may readily be imagined that certain principles may be gathered as
being common to all or, at least, most of all who might happen to be of that way of thinking.
Accordingly we find that Mosheim says—" It is remarkable, that among the more eminent
writers of this sect, there are scarcely any two who adopt the same tenets and sentiments.
There are, nevertheless, some common principles that are generally embraced, and that serve
as a centre of union to the society. They all maintain that the dissolution of bodies by the
power of fire is the only way through which men can arrive at true wisdom, and come to
discern the first principles of things. They aU acknowledge a certain analogy and harmony
between the powers of nature and the doctrines of religion, and believe that the Deity governs
the kingdom of grace by the same laws by which He governs the kingdom of nature ; and
hence it is that they employ chemical denominations to express the truths of religion. They
aU hold that there is a kind of divine energy, or soul, diffused through the frame of the
universe, which some call Archceus, others the universal spirit, and which others mention
under different appellations. They all talk in the most obscure and superstitious manner
of what they call the ' signatures of things,' of the power of the stars over aU corporeal
beings, and their particular influence upon the human race "—here the influence of astrology
peeps out—" of the efficacy of magic, and the various ranks and orders of demons." ^

Besides the above works, we have the attack on the sect by Gabriel Naudfe, who gives
the Eosicrucian tenets, or what he supposes were such— but this is perhaps hardly reUable—
entitled " Instruction a la France, sur la vkvM de I'histoire des Freres de la Eose-Croix, Pans,
1623," and the " Confi^rences Publiques " of the celebrated French physician Ecnaudot, torn, iv.,
which destroyed whatever slight chance of acceptance the Eosicrucian doctrines bad in that
country. Morhof, however, in his " Polyhistor," lib. i., c. 13, speaks of a diminutive society
or offshoot of the parent folly, founded, or attempted to be founded, in Dauphin^ by a
visionary named Eosay, and hence called the Collegium Eosianum, a.d. 1630. It consisted
of three persons only. A certain Mornius gave himself a great deal of trouble to be the
fourth, but was rejected. AU that he could obtain was to be a serving brother. The chief
secrets were perpetual motion, the art of changing metals, and the universal medicine.^*

1 See also the story in Voltaire's " Diction. Pliilosph. s.v. Alcheniiste,"of a rogue who cheated the Duke de BouUlon
out of 40,000 dollars by pretended Rosicrucianisra, which, however, he would doubtless have lost elsewhere.

' Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History, edit. 1823, vol. ii., p. 164, note.

3 I may mention also the essays of C. F. Nicolai, at whose fanciful theory I have already glanced (ante, Chap. I.,
p. 9) ; of C. G. Von Murr (1803), who assigns to the Freemasons and the Hosicrucians a common origin, and only fixes
the date of their separation into distinct sects at the year 1633 ; and Solomon Semler's " Impartial Collections for the
History of the Kosy Cross," Leipzig, 1786-88, whicli gives them a very remote antiquity; also a curious little tract
entitled " Hermetischcr Hoscnkreutz," Frankfurt, 1747, but apparently a reprint of a much earlier work. I may here
state that several Kosicrucian writings, some translated from the Latin aud others not, are to be found iu the Ilaileian
MSS. (6481-86), Brit. Mus. Library.

96 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

Lastly we have the famous jm d'esprit entitled " The Coimt de Gabalis," being a diverting
history of the Eosicrucian doctrine of spirits, viz., Sylphs, Salamanders, Gnomes, and Demons,
translated from the Paris edition, and printed for B. Lintott and E. Curll, in 1714. It
is subjoined to Pope's " Eape of the Lock," which gave rise to a demand for this translation.
The piece is said to have been written by the French Abb^ de Villars, in ridicule of the
German Hermetic associations, 1670, and Bayle's account of them is prefixed to the translation.
I should scarcely call it a parody or a piece written in ridicule, inasmuch as the doctrines,
as far as I know of them in the original Hermetic, Cabbalistic, or Eosicrucian books, are utterly
incapable of being parodied in any similar way, althougli certainly the doctrines may have
been much altered and disfigured since the commencement. The work, which is very short,
is simply that of a witty and licentious French Abbe, for the diversion of the courtiers of the
Grand Monarque, and the literary world by which they were surrrounded. Some say that it
was founded on two Italian chemical letters written by Borri ; others affirm that Borri ^ took
the cliief parts of the letters from it, but after discussing it, Bayle, as usual, leaves the case
undecided. Gabalis is supposed to have been a German nobleman, with estates bordering on
Poland, who made the acquaintance of the writer, and so far honoured him with his confidence
as to explain the most occult mysteries of his art. He informed him that the elements were
full of ethereal, or rather semi-ethereal beings — Sylphs, Gnomes, and Salamanders, of exquisite
beauty, but unendowed with souls, which they could only obtain by union with a human
being ; — that there were, therefore, great numbers of these beings who were also anxious to
unite themselves with those of the opposite sex among us, and that therefore there was no
trouble for the initiated to obtain a husband or wife, or indeed half-a-dozen of the most
exquisite, and, what is better, of the most unfading beauty, but on one condition, that they
must have no union with their fellow-creatures, which indeed they would be in no hurry to
have, once they had seen the others. He added, however, that numbers of these sprites, seeing
the trouble into which the possession of a soul had led so many mortals, had wisely concluded
that it was better to remain without one. Still it was always the case that there were large
numbers pining for what they had not. Hence we see that poor Dr Faustus was very much
behind the age, and not really an adept at all, since he could easily have secured the affections
of a bevy of infinitely more beautiful and unchanging Marguerites, and that without the aid of
so very questionable and dangerous an old matchmaker as Mephistopheles. However, we
ought not to be angry with a conceit which has given us, besides the " Eape of the Lock,"
"Ariel," and the " Masque of Comus " — " Undine," one of the loveliest of the creations of romance,
and may have aided in inspiring Madame d'Aunay, the mother of the fairy tales of our youth.

Bayle's account in the preface ends as follows : "Afterwards, that Society, which in Eeality,
is but a Sect of Mountebanks, began to midtiply, but durst not appear publickly, and for that
Eeason was sir-nam'd the Invisible. The Inlightncd, or Illuminati, of Spain proceeded from
them ; both the one and the other have been condemn'd for Fanatics and Deceivers. "We must
add, that John Bringeret printed, in 1615, a Book in Germany, which comprehends two Treatises,
Entituled the ' Manifesto [Fama] and Confession of Faith of the Fraternity of the Eosicrucians
in Germany.' These persons boasted themselves to be the Library of Ptolemy Philadelplius, the
Academy of Plato, the Lyceum, etc., and bragg'd of extraordinary Qualifications, whereof the least

1 Joseph Francis Borri was a famous quack, chemist, and heretic. A Milanese by birth, he was imprisoned in the
Castle of St Angelo, where he died 1695, in his seventy-uiuth year.

SIR E.A.H. LECHMERE E .-. _

>R-OVINCIAL GRAND MASTER OF WORC E S T E RS HI RK.

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 97

was that tliey could speak all Languages ; aud after, in 1G22, they gave this Advertisement to the
Curious : ' We, deputed by our College, the Principal of the Brethren of the Eosicrucians, to
make our visible and invisible Abode in this City, thro' the grace of the Most High, towards whom
are turned the Hearts of the just. We teach without Books or Notes, and speak the Language of
the Countries wherever we are ; ^ to draw Men, like ourselves, from the Error of Death.' This
Bill [which was probably a mere hoax] was Matter of ^Merriment. In the meantime, the Eosicru-
cians have dissapear'd, tho' it be not the sentiment of that German chymist, the author of a book,
'De Volucri Arborea,' and of anotlier, who hath composed a treatise stiled ' De Philosophia Pura.' '
But nothing can give so clear an idea of what true Eosicrucianism really was, whether an
account of a sect then actually existing, or the sketch of a sect which the projector hoped to
form, or to which of the two categories it belongs, than of course the " Pama " itself, and as it is
either — I am not now arguing on either side — the parent or the exponent of a very celebrated
denomination, and one which, in some men's minds at least, has] had considerable influence on
Freemasonry, I trust that I shall be pardoned if I present an abstract as copious as my space
will allow, and as accurate as my abilities will enable me to perform. The translation which
I have used is " printed by J. M. for Giles Calvert, at the Black Spread Eagle at the vxst end
of Paul's, 1652," and is translated by Eugenius Philalethes, "with a preface annexed thereto,
and a short Declaration of their (E. C.) Physicall work." This Eugenius Philalethes was one
Thomas Vaughan, B.A. of Jesus College, Oxford, born in 1621, and of whom Wood says:
"He was a great chymist, a noted son of the fire, an experimental philosopher, and a zealous
brother of the Eosie-Crucian fraternity."^ He pursued his chemical studies in the first
instance at Oxford, and afterwards at London under the protection and patronage of Sir Eobert
Moray or Murray, Knight, Secretary of State for the Kingdom of Scotland. That this
distinguished soldier and philosopher was received into Freemasonry at Newcastle in 1641,
has been already shown ; * and in the inquiry we are upon, the circumstance of his being in later
years both a Freemason and a Eosicrucian, will at least merit our passing attention. Moray's
initiation, which preceded by five years that of Elias Ashmole, vms the first that occurred
on English soil of which any record has descended to us. In this connection, it is not a Little
remarkable, that whereas it has been the fashion to carry back the pedigree of speculative
masonry in England, to the admission of Elias Ashmole, the Eosicrucian philosopher, the
association of ideas to which this formulation of belief has given rise, wiU sustain no shock,
but rather the reverse, by the priority of Moray's initiation. Sir Eobert Moray, a founder and
the first president of the Eoyal Society, "was universally beloved and esteemed by men of all
sides and sorts ; " * but as it is with his character as a lover of the occult sciences we are
chiefly concerned, I pass over the encomiums of his friends, John Evelyn ^ and Samuel Pepys,"

• We ought not to forget that at the present day we have Irvingites in our midst who still "speak with tongues."
' Athena! Oxonienses, vol. iii., col. 719.

3 Ante, Chap. VIII., p. 409. For further details, see Lyon, History of the Lodge of Ediuburgh, p. 90 ; aiul
Law.ie, History of Freemasonry, 1804, p. 102.

* Burnet, vol. i., p. 90.

' "July 6, 1673. — This evening I went to the funerall of my deare aud excellent friend, that good man and
accomplish'd gentleman, Sir Robert Murray, Secretary of Scotland. He was buried by order of His Majesty in West-
minster Abbey" (Evelyn's Diary). See, however, Lyon, op. cit., p. 99, who names the Canongate Churchyard as tlie
place of interment ?

' "Feb. 16, 1667. — To my Lord Broucker ; and there was Sir Robert Murrey, a most excellent man of reason aud
learning. Here came Mr Hooke, Sir George Ent, Dr iVren, and many others " (Diary of Samuel Pepys).
VOL. II. N

98 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

and shall merely adduce iu this place the short description given of him by Anthony a Wood,
who says, " He was a single man, an abhorrer of women, a most renowned chymist, a great
patron of the Eosie-Crucians, and an excellent mathematician." ^ Whether Ashmole and
Moray, who must constantly have been brought together at meetings of the Eoyal Society,
ever conversed about the other Society of which they were both members, cannot of course be
determined. It is not likely, however, that they did. The elder of the two "brothers" or
"fellows" died in 1673, nine years before the celebrated meeting at Mason's Hall, London,
which I shall more closely consider in connection with Ashmole. Had this assembly of
London masons taken place many years before it did, the presence or the absence of Sir
Eobert Moray from such a gathering of the fraternity, might be alike suggestive of some
curious speculation. In my opinion, however. Masonry in its general and widest sense —
herein comprising everything partaking of an operative as well as of a speculative character
— must have been at a very low ebb about the period of Moray's death, and for some few
years afterwards.

It is highly improbable, that lodges were held in the metropolis with any frequency, until
the process of rebuilding the capital began, after the great fire. Sir Christopher Wren, indeed,
went so far as to declare, in 1716, in the presence of Hearne, that " there were no masons in
London ivhen he was a young man." ^ From this it may be plausibly contended that, if our
British Freemasonry received any tinge or colouring at the hands of Steinmetzen, Compagnons,
or Eosicrucians, the last quarter of the seventeenth century is the most likely (or at least
the earhest) period in which we can suppose it to have taken place. Against it, however,
there is the silence of all contemporary writers, excepting Plot and Aubrey, and notably of
Evelyn and Pepys, with regard to the existence of lodges, or even of Freemasonry itself.
Both these latter worthies were prominent members of the Eoyal Society, Pepys being
president in 1684, a distinction, it may be said, declined times without number by Evelyn.
Wren, Locke, Ashmole, Boyle,^ Moray, and others, who were more or less addicted to
Eosicrucian studies, enjoyed the distinction of F.E.S. Two of the personages named we know
to liave been Freemasons, and for Wren and Locke the title has also been claimed, though, as
I have endeavoured to show, without any foundation whatever in fact. Pepys, and to a
gi'eater extent Evelyn,* were on intimate terms with all these men. Indeed, the latter, in a
letter to the Lord Chancellor, dated March 18, 1667, evinces his admiration of the fraternity
of the Eosie Cross, by including the names of William Lilly, William Oughtred, and George
Eipley, in his list of learned Englishmen, with whose portraits he wished Lord Cornbury to
adorn his palace. On the whole, perhaps, we shall be safe in assuming, either that the persons
addicted to chemical or astrological studies, whom in the seventeenth century it was the

' Athens Oxonienses, vol. iii., col. 726.

' Philij) Bliss, Eeliquiae Heamianis, vol. i., p. 336.

> Athena; Oxonienses, vol. i. (Life of Anthony k ^yood, p. Iii.). The Oxford Antiquary himself went through "a
course of chimistry under the noted chimist and Eosicrucian, Peter Sthael of Strasbm-gh " (Ibid. ).

* John Evelyn of Sayes Court, in Kent, lived in the busy and important times of King Charles I., Oliver Crom-
well, King Charles II., King James II., and King William, and he early accustomed himself-to note such things as
occurred which he thought worthy of remembrance. Peter the Great— to whom he lent Sayes Court,— when that piince
was studying naval architeetui-e in 1698— having no taste for horticulture,— used to amuse himself by being wheeled
through his landlord's ornamental hedges, and over his borders in a wheel-barrow. Cf. Diary, Jan. 30, 1798 ; Athenai
Oxonienses, vol. iv., col. 467; and D. Lysons, Environs of Loudon, 1792-1811, vol iv., j). 363.

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 99

fasliion to style Eosicrucians, kept aloof from the Freemasons altogether, or if the sects in
any way commingled, their proceedings were wrought under an impenetrable veil of secrecy,
against which even the light of modern research is vainly directed. These points may be
usefully borne in mind during the progress of our inquiry, which I now resume.

Sir Eobert Moray was accompanied to Oxford by Vaughan at the time of the great
plague, and the latter, after taking up his quarters in the house of the rector of Albury, died
there, "as it were, suddenly, when he was operating strong mercury, some of which, by chance
getting up into his nose, killed him, on the 27th of February 1666."^ He was buried in the
same place, at the charge of his patron.

Vaughan was so great an admirer of Cornelius Agrippa that — to use the words of honest
Anthony h. Wood — " nothing could relish with him but his works, especially his ' Occult
Philosophy' which he would defend in all discourse and writing." The publication of the
" Fama " in an English form is thus mentioned by the same authority in his life of Vaughan
— " Large Preface, with a short declaration of the physical work of the fraternity of the B. C,
commonly of the Bosie Cross. Lond. 1652. Oct. "Which Fame and Confession was translated
into English by another hand ; " but whether by this is meant that Vaughan made one trans-
lation and somebody else another, or that Vaughan's share in the work was restricted to the
preface. Wood does not explain. He goes on to say, however, — " I have seen another book
entit. TJiemis Aurea. The Laws of the Fraternity of the Eosie Cross. Lond. 1656. Oct.
Written in Lat. by Count Michael Maier, and put into English for the information of those
who seek after the knowledge of that honourable and mysterious society of wise and renowned
philosophers. This English translation is dedicated to Elias Ashmole, Esq., by an Epistle

subscribed by ' ' j- H. S., but who he or they are, he, the said El. Ashmole, hath utterly

forgotten." *

Eugenius Philalethcs,^ whoever he was, commences with two epistles to the reader, which,
with a preface, or rather introduction, of inordinate length for the size of the book, a small
18mo of 120 pages in all, occupies rather more space than the "Fama" and "Confession"
together (61 pages as against 56), and the whole concludes with an "advertisement to the
reader," of five pages more. This introduction is principally occupied by an account of the
visit of Apollonius of Tyana to the Brachmans * [Brahmens], and his discourse with Jarchas,
theu' chief.

The "Fama."

The world will not be pleased to hear it, but will rather scoff, yet it is a fact that the
pride of the learned is so great that it will not allow them to work together, which, if they

' Atliente Oxonienscs, vol. iii., col. 723. - Ihid., vol. iii., col. 724.

* Although rather a favourite pseudonym, there can hardly be a doubt as to Vaughan having written under it in the
case before ns.

* The " Brachmans " were to the people of Western Europe of the seventeenth century, what the Chinese with
their Mandarins and Bonzes were to Montesquieu and the men of the eighteenth, but when distance no longer lent
enchantment to the view, the pretty stories to which they gave rise have not been exactly corroborated by East Indian
ollicials or Hong Kong and Shanghai merchants. Kevertheless, there is actually, I believe, at the present moment
somewhere in Bengal a Theosophic society for the restoration of true religion, founded on the Brahminical precepts.
But I do not know the exact address, nor do I intend to inquire.

loo EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

did, they might collect a Librum Natura, or perfect method of all arts. But they still keep
on their old course with Porphyry, Aristotle, and Galen, who, if they were alive and had
our advantages, would act very differently; and though in theology, physic, and mathe-
matics, truth opposes itself to their proceedings as much as possible, yet the old enemy is
still too much for it. For such general reformation, then, C. K., a German, and the founder
of our fraternity, did set himself. Poor, but nobly born, he was placed in a cloister when five
years old, and, in his growing years, accompanied a brother P. A. L. to the Holy Land. The
latter dying at Cyprus, C. R. shipped to Damasco for Jerusalem, but was detained by illness
at Damasco, where the Arabian wise men appeared as if they had been expecting him, and
called him by name. He was now sLxteen, and after remaining three years, went to Egypt,
where he remained but a short time, and then went on to Fez, as the Arabians had directed
him. Constant philosophic intercoiirse was carried on for mutual improvement between
Arabia and Africa, so that there was no want of physicians, Cabbalists, magicians, and
philosophers, though the magic and Cabbala at Fez were not altogether true.^ Here he stayed
two years, and then " sailed with many costly things into Spain, hoping well ; he himself had
so well and profitably spent his time in his travel that the learned in Europe would highly
rejoice with him, and begin to rule and order all their studies, according to those sound and
sure foundations." [C. E. was now twenty-one years of age.]^ He showed the Spanish
learned "the errors of our arts, how they might be corrected, how they might gather the
true hidicia of the times to come ; he also showed them the faults of the Church and of the
whole Philosopliia Moralis, and how they were to be amended. He showed them new
growths, new fruits, and new beasts, which did concord with old philosophy, and prescribed
them new Axiomata, whereby all things might fully be restored," and was laughed at in
Spain as elsewhere. He further promised that he would direct them to the "only true
centrum, and that it should serve to the wise and learned as a Eule " [whatever this might
be] ; also that there might be a " Society in Europe which should have gold, silver, and
precious .stones enough for the necessary purposes of all kings," "so that they might be
brought up to know all that God hath suffered man to know " [the connection is not quite
clear]. But failing in all his endeavours, he returned to Germany, where he built himself
a house, and remained five years, principally studying mathematics. After which there
"came again into his mind the wished-for Eeformation," so he sent for from his first cloister,
to which he bare a great affection, Bro. G. V., Bro. J. A., Bro. J. 0.— by which four was
begun the fraternity of the Bosie Cross. They also made the " magical language and writing,
with a large dictionary, ' which we yet daily use to God's praise and glory, and do find great
wisdom therein ; ' they made also the first part of the book M., but in respect that that labour
was too heavy, and the unspeakable concourse of the sick hindred them, and also whilst his
new building called Sancti Spiritus was now finished," they added four more [all Germans
but J. A.], making the total number eight, " all of vowed virginity ; by them was collected a
book or volumu of all that which man can desire, wish, or hope for."

Being now perfectly ready, they separated into foreign lands, "because that not only

1 Fez wa-s actually, or had been, the seat of a great Saracenic school, and, I believe, that philosoiihio interchanges of
views were carried on between different parts of the Arabian Empire.

» Andrea was born in 1586, which + 21 = 1607. The " Fama " is said to have been published in 1609 or 1610,
but the real date is uncertain. It was probably wriUcn before.

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. loi

tbeir Axiomata might, in secret, be more profoundly examined by the learned, but that they
themselves, if in some country or other they observed anything, or perceived any error, they
might inform one another of it."

But before starting they agreed on six rules —

1. To profess no other thing, than to cure the sick, " and that gratis."

2. To wear no distinctive dress, but the common one of the country ■where they mifht
happen to be.

3. " That every year on the day C. they should meet at the house S. Spiritus," or write
the reason of absence.

4. Every brother to look about for a worthy person, who after his death might succeed him.

5. " The word C. E. should be their Seal, Mark, and Character."

6. The fraternity should remain secret 100 years.

Only five went at once, two always staying with Father Fra ; E. C, and these were relieved
yearly.

The first who died was J. 0., in England, after that he had cured a young earl of
leprosy. " They determined to keep their burial places as secret as possible, so that ' at
this day it is not known unto us what is become of some of them, but every one's place
was supplied by a fit successor.' What secret, soever, we have learned out of the book M.
(although before our eyes we behold the image and pattern of all the world), yet are there
not shown our misfortunes nor the hour of death, but hereof more in our Confession,
where we do set down 37 reasons wherefore we now do make known our Fraternity, and
proffer such high mysteries freely, and without constraint and reward : also we do promise
more gold than both the Indies bring to the Bang of Spain ; for Europe is with child, and will
bring forth a strong child who shall stand in need of a great godfather's gift."

Not long after this the founder is supposed to have died, and " we of the third row " or
succession "knew nothing further than that which was extant of them (who went before) in
our Philosophical BiUiotheca, amongst which our Axiomata was held for the chiefest, Eota
Ilundi for the most artificial, and Protlieus the most profitable."

" Now, the true and fundamental relation of the finding out of the high illuminated man
of God, Fra ; C. E. C, is this." D., one of the first generation, was succeeded by A., who, dyintr
in Dauphiny, was succeeded by N. N". A., previously to his death, " had comforted him in
telling him that this Fraternity should ere long not remain so hidden, but should be to aU the
whole German nation helpful, needful, and commendable." . . . The year following after
he (N. N.) had performed " his school, and was minded now to travel, being for that purpose
sufficiently provided with Fortunatus' purse," ^ but he determined first to improve his building.
In so doing he found the memorial tablet of brass containing the names of all the brethren,
together with some few things which he meant to transfer to some more fitting vault, " for
where or when Fra E. C. died, or in what country he was buried, was by our predecessors
concealed and unknown to us." In removing this plate he pulled away a large piece of
plaster disclosing a door. The brotherhood then completely exposed the door, and found
written on it in large letters " Post 120 annos Patebo " [I shall appear after 120 years]. " We
let it rest that night, because, first, we would overlook our Eotani ; but we refer ourselves again

' Andruii was a great traveller. Ilis excursions bcgau in 1G07, when he was twenty-one years old.

I02 EA RL Y BRITISH FREE MA SOiYR Y— ENGL A ND.

to the Coufession, for ^vhat we here pubUsh is done for the help of those that are worthy,
but to the unworthy (God willing) it will be small profit. For, like as our door was after so
many years wonderfully discovered, so also then shall be opened a door to Europe (where the
wall is removed which already doth begin to appear), and with gi-eat desire is expected of

many." .

"In the morning we opened the door, and there appeared a Vault of seven sides, every
side 5 feet broad and 8 high. Although the sun never shined in this vault, nevertheless it
was enlightened with another sun, which had learned this from the sun, and was situated in
the centre of the ceiling. In the midst, instead of a tombstone, was a round altar covered
with a plate of brass, and thereon this engraven—

" A. C. K. C. Hoc universi compendiun] unius mihi sepulchrum feci
[I have erected this tomb as an epitome of the one universe].

" Eound about the first circle was —

" Jesus mihi omnia
[Jesus is all things to me].

" In the middle were four figures inclosed in circles, whose circumscription was —

" 1. Nequaquam 1 vacuum 2. Legisjugum 3. Libertas Evangelii 4. Dei g]oria intacta

[There is no vacuum]. [The yoke of the law]. [The liberty of the Gospel]. [The immaculate glory of God].

" This is all clear and bright, as also the seventh side and the two heptagons, so we knelt
down and gave thanks to the sole wise, sole mighty, and sole eternal God, who hath taught
us more than all men's wit could have found out, praised be His holy name. This vault we
parted in three parts— the upper or ceiling, the wall or side, the floor. The upper part was
divided according to the seven sides ; in the triangle, which was in the bright centre [here the
narrator checks himself], but what therein is contained you shall, God willing, that are desirous
of our society, behold with your own eyes. But every side or wall is parted into ten squares,
every one with their several figures and sentences as they are truly shown here in our book
[which they are not]. The bottom, again, is parted in the triangle, but because herein is
described the power and rule of the inferior governors, we forbear to manifest the same, for
fear of abuse by the evil and ungodly world. But those that are provided and stored with
the heavenly antidote, they do without fear or hurt, tread on, and bruise the head of the old
and evil serpent, which this our age is well fitted for. Every side had a door for a chest,
wherein lay divers things, especially all our books, which otherwise we had, besides the
Vocahdary of Theophrastus Paracelsus, and these which daily unfalsifieth we do participate.
Herein also we found his ' Itinerarium ' and ' Vitam,' whence this relation for the most part
is taken. In another chest were looking glasses of divers virtues, as also in other places
were little bells, burning lamps, and chiefly wonderful artificial Songs ; generaUy all done to
that end, that if it should happen after many hundred years, the Order or Fraternity should
come to nothing, they might by this onely Vault be restored again."

> The primary meaning o{ ncquaquam is, of course, "in vain." I have ventured on a free translation, as seeming
to possess slightly more meiming.

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 103

They now removed the altar, found a plate of brass, which, on being lifted, they found
" a fair and worthy body, whole and unconsumed, as the same is here lively counterfeited [was
the original illustrated ?] with all the Ornaments and Attires : in his hand he held a parchment