book called I., the which next unto the Eible is our gi-eatest treasure, which ought to be

delivered to the world." At the end of the book was the eulogium of Fra, C. E. C, which,
however, contains nothing remarkable, and underneath were the names, or rather initials, of
the different brethren in order as they bad subscribed themselves [lOce in a family Bible].^

The graves of the brethren, I. 0. and D., were not found [it does not appear that some
of the others were either], but it is to be hoped that they may be, especially since they were
remarkably well sldlled in physic, and so might be remembered by some very old folks.

" Concerning Minutmn Mundum, we found it under another little altar, but we will leave
him [query ifi] undescribed, until we shall truly be answered ujwn this our true hearted
Fama. [So they closed up the whole again, and sealed it], and ' departed the one from the
other, and left the natural heirs in possession of our jewels. And so we do expect the answer
and judgment of the learned or tmkarned.' " [These passages seem to indicate the purpose
of the book.]

"We know after a time that there will be a general reformation, both of divine and
human things, according to our desire, and the expectation of others, for 'tis fitting that before
the rising of the Sun there should appear an Aurora ; so in the meantime some few, which shall
give their names, may joyn together to increase the number and respect of our Fraternity,
and make a happy and wished-for beginning of our Philosophical Carions, prescribed by our
brother E. C, and be partaken of our treasures (which can never fail or be wasted), in all
humility, and love to be eased of this world's labour, and not walk so blindly in the know-
ledge of the wonderful works of God."

Then follows their creed, which they declare to be that of the Lutheran Church, with two
sacraments. In their polity they acknowledge the [Holy] Eoman Empire for their Christian
head. " Albeit, we know what alterations be at hand, and would fain impart the same with
all our hearts to other godly learned men. Our Philosophy also is no new invention, but as
Adam after ' his fall hath received it, and as Moses and Solomon used it : also she ought
not much to be doubted of, or contradicted by other opinions ; but seeing that truth is peace-
able, brief, and always like herself in all things, and especially accorded by with Jesus in
omni parte, and all members. And as he is the true image of the Father, so is she his
Image. It shall not be said, this is true according to Philosophy, but true according to
Theology. And wherein Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and others did hit the mark, and
wherein Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Solomon, did excel [here we have traces of the Cabbala], but
especially wherewith that wonderful book the Bible agreeth. All that same concurreth
together, and make a Sphere or Globe, whose total parts are equidistant from the Center, as
hereof more at large and more plain shall be spoken of in Christiauly Conference ' " [Christian
conversation].

• One cannot help Being reminded of the old Monk and William of Deloraine uncovering the body of the wizard
Michael Scott, which lay with the " mighty book " clasped in his arm. Scott there indulges in one of his not unusual
anachronisms. Michael Scott is mentioned by Dante, henco the Monk, who had been his companion, must have been
200 years old on a moderate calculation. Similarly, Ukica who in "Ivauhoo " lived temp. Kich. I., and "had also
seen the Conciuest, must have been 150."

104 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

Gold making is the cause of many cheats, and even " men of discretion do hold the trans-
mutation of metals to be the highest point of philosophy;" but the "true philosophers are far of
another minde, esteeming little the making of gold, which is but a -parergon ; for besides that,
they have a thousand better things ; " for " he [the true philosopher] is glad that he seeth the
heavens open, and the angels of God ascending and descending, and his name written in the
Book of Life." Also, under the name of chemistry, many books are sent forth to God's
dishonour, " as we will name them in due season, and give the pure-hearted a catalogue of them;
and we pray all learned men to take heed of that kind of books, for the enemy never resteth.
. . . So, according to the will and meaning of Fra, C. R. C, we, his brethren, request again
all the learned in Europe who shall read (sent forth in iive languages) this our Fama and Con-
fessio, that it would please them with good deliberation to ponder tJiis our offer, and to ex-
amine most nearly and sharply their Arts, and behold the present time with aU diligence, and
to declare their minde, either comviunicato concilio, or singulatim, by print.

" And although at this time we make no mention either of our names or meetings, yet
nevertheless every one's opinion shall assuredly come into our hands, in what language soever
it be ; nor shall any body fail, who so gives but his name, to speak with some of us, either by
word of mouth or else by writing. Whosever shall earnestly, and from his heart, bear affection
unto us, it shall be beneficial to him in goods, body, and soul ; but he that is false-hearted, or
only greedy of riches, the same shall not be able to hurt us, but bring himself to utter ruin and
destruction. Also our building (although 100,000 people had very near seen and beheld the
same) shall for ever remain untouched, undestroyed, and hidden to the wicked world, sub
umbra alarum tuarum Jeliova." ^

The " CoNFEssio."

After a short exordium, there being a preface besides, it goes on to say that

They cannot be suspected of heresy, seeing that they condemn the east and the west — i.e.,
the Pope and Mahomet — and offer to the head of the Eomish Empire their prayers, secrets, and
oreat treasures of gold. [Andrea and his colleagues had some method in their- madness.]

Still they have thought good to add some explanations to the Fama, " hoping thereby that
the learned will be more addicted to us."

" "We have sufficiently shown tliat philosophy is weak and faulty," ..." she fetches
her last breath, and is departing."

But as when a new disease breaks out, so a remedy is generally discovered against the
same ; " so there doth appear for so manifold infirmities of philosophy," the right means of
recovery, which is now offered to our country.

" No other philosophy, we have, than that which is the head and sum, the foundation and
contents, of all faculties, sciences, and arts, the which contaiueth much of theology and
medicine, but little of the wisdom of lawyers, and doth diligently search both heaven and
earth, or, to speak briefly thereof, which doth manifest and declare sufficiently, Man ; whereof,
then, aU Learned who wiU make themselves known imto us, and come into oiu' brotherhood, shall
attain more wonderful secrets than they did heretofore attain unto, or know; believe, or utter."

Wherefore we ought to show why such mysteries and secrets should yet be revealed unto

• This latter jiassage corroborates all the others italicised above, as to the iuteut and ^mriiose of the book.

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAAW. 105

the many. It is because we hope that our offer will raise many thoughts in men who never
yet knew the Miranda sextm cetatis [the wonders of the sixth age], as well as in those who live
for the present only.

" "We hold that the meditations, knowledge, and inventions of our loving Christian father
(of all that which, from the beginning of the world, man's wisdom, either through God's revela-
tion, or through the service of angels and spirits, or through the sharpness and deepness of under-
standing, or through long observation, hath found out and till now hath been propagated), are
so excellent, worthy, and great, that if all books should perish and all learning be lost, yet that
posterity would be able from that alone to lay a new foundation, and bring truth to light
again."

To whom would not this be acceptable ? " Wherefore should we not with all our hearts
rest and remain in the only truth, if it had only pleased God to lighten unto us the sixth
Candclalrum ? Were it not good that we needed not to care, not to fear hunger, poverty,
sickness, and age ?

" Were it not a precious thing, that you could always live so, as if you had lived from the
beginning of the world, and as if you should stiU live to the end ? " That you should dweU in
one place, and neither the dwellers in India or Peru be able to keep anything from you ?

" That you should so read in one onely book," and by so doing understand and remember
all that is, has been, or will be written.

" How pleasant were it, that you could so sing, that instead of stony rocks [like Orpheus]
you could draw pearls and precious stones ; instead of wild beasts, spirits ; and instead of hellish
Fluto, move the mighty Princes of the world ? "

God's counsel now is, to increase and enlarge the number of our Fraternity.

If it be objected that we have made our treasures too common, we answer that the grosser
sort will not be able to receive them, and we shall judge of the worthiness of those who are to
be received into our Fraternity, not by human intelligence, but by the rxdc of our Revelation
and Manifestation.

A government shall be instituted in Europe, after the fashion of that of Damear [or
Damcar] in Arabia, where only wise men govern, who " by the permission of the king make
particular laws (whereof we have a description set down by our Christianly father), when
first is done, and come to pass that which is to precede."

Then what is now shown, as it were " secretly and by pictures, as a thing to come, shall be
free, and publicly proclaimed, and the whole world filled withal." As was done with the
" Pope's tyranny, . . . whose final fall is delayed and kept for our times, when he also
shall be scratched in pieces with nails, and an end be made of his ass's cry " [a favourite
phrase of Luther].

Our Christian father was bom 1378, and lived lOG years [his remains being to be concealed
120, brings us to 1604, when Andrea was 18].

It is enough for tliem who do not despise our Declaration to prepare the way for their
acquaintance and friendship with us. " None need fear deceit, for we promise and openly say,
that no man's uprightness and hopes shall deceive him, whosoever shall make himself known
unto us under the Seal of Secrecy, and desire our Fraternity."

But we cannot make them known to hypocrites, for " they shaU certainly be partakers of all
the punishment spoken ot in our Fama [utter destruction, vide supra], and our treasures sliall

io6 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

remain untouched and unstirred until the Lion doth come, who will ask them for his use,
and employ them for the coniirmation and establishment of his kingdom." God will most
assuredly send unto the world before her end, which shall happen shortly afterwards, " such
Truth, Light, Life, and Glory as Adam had ; " and all " lies, servitude, falsehood, and darkness,
which by little and little, with the great world's revolution, was crept into all arts, works, and
governments of man, and have darkened the most part of them, shall cease. For from thence
are proceeded an innumerable sort of aU manner of false opinions and heresies ; all the which,
when it shall once be abolished, and instead thereof a right and true Eule instituted, then
there will remain thanks unto them which have taken pains therein ; but the work itself shall
be attributed to the blessedness of our age."

As many great men will assist in this Eeformation by their writings, " so we desire not to
have this honour ascribed to us." ..." The Lord God hath already sent before certain
messengers, which should testify His Will, to wit, some new stars, which do appear in the
firmament in Serpentarius and Cygnus, which signify to every one that they are powerful
Signacula of gi'eat weighty matters."

Now remains a short time, when all has been seen and heard, when the earth will awake
and proclaim it aloud.

" These Characters and Letters [he does not say what], as God hath here and there incor-
porated them in the Holy Scriptures, so hath he imprinted them most apparently in the wonderful
creation of heaven and earth — yea, in all beasts." As astronomers can calculate eclipses, "so we
foresee the darkness of obscurations of the Church, and how long they shall last."

"But we must also let you understand; that there are some Eagles' Feathers in our way, which
hinder our purpose." Wherefore we admonish every one carefully to read the Bible, as being
the best way to our Fraternity. " For as this is the whole sum and content of our Paxle, that
every Letter or Character which is in the world ought to be learned and regarded well ; so those
are like, and very near allyed unto us, who make the Bible a Eule of their life. Yea, let it be
a compendium of the whole world, and not only to have it in the mouth, but to know how to
direct the true understanding of it to aU times and ages of the World."

[Diatribe against expounders and commentators, as compared with the praises of the Bible :]
" But whatever hath been said in the Fama concerning the deceivers against the transmutation
of metals, and the highest medicine in the world, the same is thus to be understood, that this
so great a gift of God we do in no manner set at naught, or despise. But because she bringeth
not with her always the knowledge of Nature, but tliis bringeth forth not only medicine, but
also maketh manifest and open unto us innumerable secrets and wonders; therefore it is
requisite, that we be earnest to attain to the understanding and knowledge of philosophy ; and,
moreover, excellent wits ought not to be dravm to the tincture of metals, before they be
exercised weU. in the knowledge of Nature."

As God exalteth the lowly and pulleth down the proud, so He hath and wiU do the Eomish
Church.

Put away the works of all false alchemists, and turn to us, who are the true philosophers.
We speak unto you in parables, but seek to bring you to tlie understanding of all secrets.

" We desire not to be received of you, but to invite you to our more than kingly houses,
and that verily not by our own proper motion, but as forced unto it, by the instigation of the
Spirit of God, by His Admonition, and by the occasion of this present time."

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 107

An exhortation to join the Fraternity, seeing that they profess Christ, condemn the Pope,
addict themselves to the true philosophy, lead a Christian life, and daily exhort men to enter
into the order. Then follows a renewed warning to those who do so for worldly motives, for
though " there be a medicine which might fully cure all diseases, nevertheless those whom
God hath destinated to plague with diseases, and to keep them under the rod of correction,
shall never obtain any such medicine."

" Even in such manner, although we might enrich the whole World, and endue them with
Learning, and might release it from Innumerable Miseries, yet shall we never be manifested
and made known unto any man, without the especial pleasure of God ; yea, it shall be so far
from him whosoever thinks to get the benefit, and be Partaker of our Pdches and Knowledg,
without and against the Will of God, that he shall sooner lose his life in seeking and searching
for us, then to find us, and attain to come to the wished Happiness of the Fraternity of the
Rosie Cross."

I have given these abstracts at considerable length, in order to afford my readers a com-
plete idea of the substance of the two publications. As will easily be seen, the " Confessio "
professes to give an account of the doctrines of the society, the " Fama " — rather resembling a
history — is totally unintelligible, in spite of the care which I have taken to give an accurate
and copious abridgment. It is impossible to believe that Andrea, or whoever else may have
been the writer, was describing a sect that actually existed, and difficult indeed to believe
that he had any serious object. Indeed the " Confessio " sounds more like a nonsensical
parody on the ordinary philosophical jargon of the day, and there are many passages in it
as well as some in the "Fama," which will especially bear this interpretation, like the
celebrated nautical description of a storm in Gulliver. I shall not, however, attempt to
deny that Andrea was a man of talent, and one sincerely desirous of benefiting mankind,
especially German-kind, but in the ardour of youth he must have been more tempted to
satire than in his maturer years, and may have sought to clear the ground by crushing
the existing false philosophers with ridicule, as Cervantes subsequently did the romancists.
He may also, as Buhle says — and there are repeated traces of this in both works — have
sought to draw out those who were sincerely desirous of effecting a real and lasting
reformation. The answers doubtless came before him in some form or another through
his friends and associates, of whom one account says that there were thirty, and the
answers, if they were all like those preserved at Gottingen, which, in spite of the solemn
warnings in both the " Fama " and " Confessio," chiefly related to gold finding, must have been
suilicieutly discouraging to induce him to relinquish, for the time at least, any such scheme as
that which has been ascribed to him. His efforts, however, only ceased with his life,^
though his plans, which at first embraced all science and morality, seem ultimately to
have been reduced to the practical good of founding schools and churches. Was he after all a
dreamy Teutonic and very inferior Lord Bacon ?^ As for the "Fama" itself, it seems to have

' It has been a.sserted that the dates given in connection with C. R. C. by some German writers are imaginary, but
this is not so, since the jkeciso date of his supposed birth is given in the "Confessio." It is not in the " Fama," and
hence the mistake.

" Lord I?acon's political is lost in his scientific genius, nevertheless it was very great. So was also his leg.nl
capacity. There is a passage in his works wherein ho laments the non-]iublication of liis judgments, which he says
would have shown him at least equal, if not superior, to his rival. Coke. I know of no greater loss.

io8 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

been based on the " Master Nicholas " of John Tanler, with a little taken from the early life
of LuUy — not forgetting his own personal career — and coupled with certain ideas drawn from
the Cabbala, the Alchemists, the seekers after Universal Medicine, and the Astrologers.

At the end of this edition comes a short advertisement, I imagine by Eugeniiis Philalethes
himself to the reader, inviting him, says the writer, " not to my Lodjing, for I would give thee
no such Directions, my Nature being more Melanclwly than Sociable. I would only tell thee
how Charitable I am, for having purposely omitted some Necessaries in my former Discourse. I
have upon second Thoughts resolved against that silence." After this he goes on to say that
" Philosophic hath her Confidents, but in a sense different from the Madams" among whom it
appears that he flatters himself to be one ; and he is so much in her confidence that he even
knows the right way of preparing the philosopher's salt, which would seem to be the long-
sought-for universal medicine, a medicine the true mode of preparing which was known to
few, if any, not even to Tubal Cain himself — though Eugeuius must have been very much in
the confidence of Philosophic to have known anything about the secret practices of the great
antediluvian mechanic*

This whole passage is so curious, and is so illustrative, in a small space, of the ideas and
practices of these so-called philosophers, that I shall here introduce it, preserving, as far as
possible, both the textual and typographical peculiarities of the original.

" The Second Philosophicall work is commonly called the gross work, but 'tis one of the
greatest Subtilties in all the Art. Cornelius Agrijjpa knew the first Prceparation, and hath
clearly discovered it ; but the Difficulty of the second made him almost an enemy to his own
Profession. By the second work, I understand, not Coagulation, but the Solution of the
Philosophical Salt, a secret which Agrippa did not rightly know, as it appears by his practise at
Malincs; nor would Natalius teach him, for all his frcquejit and serious intrcaties. This was it,
tjiat made his necessities so vigourous, and his purse so weak, that I can seldome finde him in a
full fortune. But in this, he is not alone: Raj/mond Lully, the best Christian Artist that ever
was, received not this Mystcrie from A^'noldus, for in his first Practises he followed the tedious
common process, which after all is scarce profitable. Here he met with a Drudgerie almost
invincible, and if we add the Task to the Time, it is enough to make a Man old. Norton was so
strange an Ignoravms in this Point, that if the Solution and Purgation were performed in three
years, he thought it a happy work. George Ripley labour'd for new Inventions to putrific this
red salt, whicli he enviously cals his gold : and his knack is, to expose it to altcrnat fits of cold
and heat, but in this he is singular, and Faber is so wise he will not understand him. And
now that I have mention'd Faber, I must needs say that Tubal-Cain himself is short of the
right Solution, for the Process he describes hath not anything of Nature in it. Let us return

^ After all we ought not to wonder at the facility with which dupes were then made. It is only a very few months
ago, that an appeal was made in the newspapers for subscriptions to excavate the hill of Tara, near Dublin, in order to
discover the Jewish Ark, alleged to have been carried by tlie prophet Jeremiah, on the conquest of Jerusalem by the
Assyrians, first to Egypt and subsequently to Ireland, where it was lodged in the aforesaid hill of Tara. Now this liill
was the latest site of the supposed royal Irish palace, and some human work such as a "rath" or camp, fortified by
eartliworks, and enclosing wattled huts after the manner of the New Zealanders, only on a larger scale, certainly e.xisted
there. But before Tara, which was of a comparatively late date, was Emania, and before Euiania some other abiding
place whose name I forget, and it must have been the first that was in existence (if ever) when Jeremiah may have
landed in Ireland. The prophet showed his prophetic instinct in placing the ark in the last seat of Irish royalty. The
subscription was actually begun, for there was, if I remember rightly, some dispute about it quite lati.'Iy.

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. 109

then to Eaymund Lullie, for he was so great a Master, that he perform'd the Solution, intra
novem dies [in nine days], and this Secret he had from God himself. . " . . '. . ". It seems,
then, that the greatest Difficulty is not in the Coagulation or 2^^'oduetion of the Philosophicall
Salt, but in the Putrefactioii of it when it is 2>roduced. Indeed this agrees best with the sence
of the Fhilosophers, for one of those Prcccisians tels us : " Qui scit SALEM, [et] ejus
SOLUTIONEM, scit SECBETUM OCCULTUM antiquorum Philosophorum" ["he who knows
the salt, and its solution, knows the hidden secret of the ancient philosophers "]. Alas, then !
what shall we do ? Whence comes our next Intelligence ? I am afraid here is a sad Truth for
somebody. Shall we run now to Lucas Eodargirus, or have we any dusty Manuscripts, that
can instruct us 1 Well, Reader, thou seest how free I am grown ; and now I could discover
something else, but here is enough at once. I could indeed tell thee of the first and second
sublimation, of a double Nativity, Visible and Invisible, without which the matter is not alterable,
as to our purpose. I could tell thee also of Sulphurs simple, and compounded, of three Argents
Vive, and as many Salts ; and all this would be new news (as the Book-men phrase it), even to
the best Learned in England. But I have done, and I hope this Discourse hath not demolished
any man's Castles, for why should they despair, when I contribute to their Building "i I am a
hearty Dispensero, and if they have got anything by me, much good may it do them. It is my
onely fear, they will mistake when they read ; for were I to live long, which I am confident I
shall not [of what use, then, was the salt ?], I would make no other wish, but that my years
might be as many as their Errors. I speak not this out of any contempt, for I undervalue no
man ; it is my Experience in this kind of learning, which I ever made my Business, that gives me
the boldness to suspect a, possibility of the same faylings in others, which I ha.ye found in my self.
To conclude, I would have my Reader know, that the Philosophers, finding this life subjected
to Neccssitie, and that Necessity was inconsistant with the nature of the Soul, they did therefore
look upon Man, as a Creature originally ordained for some better State than the present, for this
was not agreeable with his spirit. This thought made them seek the G-round of his Creation,
that, if possible, they might take hold of Libertie, and transcend the Dispensations of that Circle,
which they Mysteriously cal'd Fate. Now what this recdly signifies not one in ten thousand
knows — and yet we are all Philosophers.

" But to come to my purpose, I say, the true Philosophers did find in every Compound a
double Complexion, Circumferential, and Central. The Circumferenticd was corrupt in all
things, but in some things altogether venomous. The Central not so, for in the Center of every thing
there was a perfect Unity, a miraculous indissoluble Concord of Fire and Water. These tiuo
Complexions are the Manifestum and the Occultmn of the Arabians, and they resist one
another, for they are Contraries. In the Center itself they found no Discords at all, for the
Difference of Spirits consisted, not in Qualities, but in Degrees of Essence and Transcendency. As
for the Water, it was of kin with the Fire, for it was not common but wthereal. In all Centers
this Fire was not the same, for in some it was only a Solar Spirit, and such a Center was called,
Aqua solis. Aqua Calestis, Aqua Auri, Aqua Argenti : In some again the Spirit was more than
Solar, for it was super-Cmlestial and Metaphysical : This Spirit purged the very rational Soul,
and awakened her Root that was asleep, and therefore such a Center was called, Aqua Igne tincta.
Aqua Serenans, Candelas Aecenden^, et Donium illumin/uis. Of both these Waters have I
discoursed in these small Tractates I have published ; and though I have had some Dirt cast
at me for my pains, yet this is so ordinary I mind it Twt, for whiles we live here we ride in a

no EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

High-way. I cannot think him wise who resents his Injuries, for he sets a rate iipon things
that are worthless, and makes use of his Spleen where his Seorn becomes him. This is the
Entertainment I provide for my Adversaries, and if they think it too coarse, let ^emjudg where
they understand, and they may/a?'6 better."

Andrea's labours with respect to the Eosicrucians are said to have been crowned by the
foundation of a genuine society for the propagation of truth, named by him the " Christian
Fraternity," ^ into the history of which, however, I shall not proceed, as it would needlessly
widen the scope of our present inquiry. Buhle's theory is — to rush at once wt mcdias res —
that Freemasonry is neither more nor less than Eosicrucianism as modified by those who
translated it into England. Soane ^ goes a step further, and says that the Eosicrucians were
so utterly crushed by Gassendi's reply to Fludd, not to mention the general ridicule of their
pretensions, that they gladly shrouded themselves under the name of Freemasons ; and both
seem to agree that Freemasonry, at least in the modern acceptance of the term, did not exist
before Fludd. I will pass over for the present the fact, that the works of Mersenne, Gassendi,
Naude, and others, were but little likely to have been read in England ; and that no similar
compositions were issued from the press in our own country, on the one hand; while, on the
other, that the Masonic body, as at jDresent existing, undoubtedly took its origin in Great
Britain — so that the Eosicrucians concealed themselves where there was no need of conceal-
ment, and did not conceal themselves where there was — also that Masonry undoubtedly
existed before the time of Fludd, and the Eosicrucians never had an organised existence.
So that men pursuing somewhat similar paths without any real organisation, but linked
together only by somewhat similar crazes, spontaneously assumed the character of a pre-
existing organisation, which organisation they could only have invaded and made their own
by the express or tacit permission of the invaded ? I shall next show Buhle's theory some-
what at length, on which and its confutation to build my subsequent arguments.

To the objection that the hypothesis of the Gottingen professor is utterly untenable — I
reply, and equally so are all the visionaiy speculations, however supported by the authority
of great names, wliich in any form link the society of Freemasons with the impalpable
fraternity of the Eosie Cross. Yet as a connection between the two bodies has been largely
believed in by writers both within* and without* the pale of the craft, and in a certain sense
— for Hermeticism and Eosicrucianism are convertible terms® — still remains an article of
faith with two such learned Masons as Woodford and Albert Pike," it is essential

' A list of the memliers composing this Christian Brotherhood, which continued to exist after Andrea's death, ir
still preserved, and the curious reader is referred for furtlier particulars concerning it to a series of works cited by
Trofessor Buhle, and reprinted by De Quincey in a note at the end of cliapter iv. of his abridgment (De Quincey's
Works, 1863-71, vol. xvi., p. 405).

^ New Curiosities of Literature, loc cil.

s W. Sandys, A Short History of Freemasonry, 1829, p. 52. See also the article "Masonry, Free," by the same
author, in the "Encyclopaedia Metropolitana," vol. xxii., 1845 ; and the " Auacalypsis " of Godfrey Higgins.

* Buhle, De Quincey, Soane, King, etc.

^ I.e., Hermeticism — as a generic term — now represents what in the seventeenth century was styled lio^icrucianism.
Writers of the two centuries preceding our own, constantly refer to the Hermciick learning, -science, philosophy, or
mysteries ; but the word Hermeticism, which signifies the same thing, appears to be of recent coinage.

* In the opinion of Mr Pike, " Men who were adepts in the Hei-metic philosophy, made the ceremonials of the blue
[i.e., craft] degrees." The e.vpression "blue degrees" or "lodges" — in my opinion a most objectionable one — ajipears
to have been coiiicd early in the century by Dr Dalcho of Charleston, South CaroUna.

EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND. iii

to carefixlly examine a theory of Masonic origin or development, so influeutially,
albeit erroneously, supported. In order to do this properly, I shall put forward Professor
Buhle as the general exponent of the views of what I venture to term the Eosicrucian
(or Hermetic) school.^ Mackey says : " Higgins, Sloane, Vaughan, and several other writers
have asserted that Freemasonry sprang out of Eosicrucianism. But this is a great
error. Between the two there is no similarity of origin, of design, or of organisation. The
symbolism of Eosicrucianism is derived from an Hermetic philosophy : that of Freemasonry
from an operative art." This writer, however, after the publication of his " EucyclopaBdia,"
veered round to an opposite conclusion, owing to the influence produced upon his mLad by a