dom in its highest form, and that vulgar magia, or magic, which was taught by the devil to his disciples. Nature, they contended, was still only half unveiled, many of her creations and modes of working, particularly in regard to medicine, being still mysteries, for our unassisted senses are not able to understand them. Great thanks therefore were due to the Rosicrucians, those indefatigable enquirers, who have so assiduously laboured to find out the key to such knowledge. Their most important secret was an universal medicine, a polychrest lying hid in nature, as their mysteries in general were nothing but her unre chanters shall be punished by the gibbet or by fire. But since Libau seems to be fixed in that judgment and opinion, and by no means to be moved from it, &c."-therefore he goes on to enquire whether the brethren are inspired by God or the devil. The result is that they are acquitted of all dealings or packings with Diabolus, to the satisfaction of every one except the aforesaid Andrew Libau and his followers. But in truth Master Andrew never gave any quarter to the poor Rosicrucians, whom he pelted with his satirical tracts for years, and perhaps not altogether disinterestedly, for he was himself a physician of eminence, and seems to have heartily detested Paracelsus and all his doctrines. Still, if he were not inspired by the demon of contradiction, and really wrote from knowledge, he must have been far beyond his age, for in a time of the grossest superstition he rises above quackery and prejudice of every kind. In addition to his other merits in the cause of truth be demolished, so far as reasoning could demolish, two of the most popular fallacies-namely, that wounds might be cured by anointing the weapon that had inflicted them; and that the body of the murdered would bleed anew in the presence of the murderer; nor will it be considered as any substantial drawback on his merits, that his arguments were somewhat coloured by the feelings of his age. At the same time I do not see why he should so particularly connect these two superstitions with Paracelsus, as if they had originated with him, when one at least of them most assuredly belonged to a much earlier period. Paracelsus was not born till 1493, and the bleeding of corpses in the presence of the murderers is mentioned by Ficinus in 1490, not to mention that, we find repeated notice of it in the Anglo-Saxon records, not as an idle superstition, but in connection with the judgments of the law. vealed powers. It was not however a single means, nor did it render a theoretical knowledge of medicine unnecessary. Specious as such replies might be, they did not convince, or even soften their adversaries. The attack continued as hot as ever, but for a long time without producing any visible effect.* The belief in a Rosicrucian brotherhood, which had grown out of the FAMA, was exceedingly general, and numerous were the pamphlets addressed to them to participate in their secrets.† In many cases the writers gave their names, while others again * This is particularly the case throughout the Fama Remissa, a pamphlet published in answer to the Fama Fraternitatis of Andreä. + Buhle has given short extracts from a multitude of these letters preserved in the library at Göttingen, (p. 181, et seq.) We have moreover ample testimony to the fact in the Speculum Sophicum Rhodo-Stauroticum of Schweighart, a strange title, but it pleased him to atticise the name of the Rosicrucian by the ingenious adaptation of two Greek words,—pódov, a rose; and σravρòs, a stake-and thus produce this formidable title-page. In the very outset of his work he says, "Mir ist nicht unwissend, treuherziger Leser, mit wass grossem Appetit, doch mehr theils vergeblicher Hoffnung, nach dem Collegio, Losament, und Wohnhaus der so weit beschreiten Rosen-creutzerischen Brüderschaft von hoch-und-nider-Standts Personen bis dahero ist gebracht worden, in erachtung schier kein Tag zu Frankfört, Leipzig, und andern bekanten Orthen, sonderlich aber in der Stadt Prag, vergehen kann, da nit 10, 12, ja wol 20, oder mehr underschiedliche Personen bey Kunsthändlern, Buchführern, Kupferstechern, &c. solcher Sachen sich wass besser zuerholen vermeindlich understehen, &c."-" I am not unaware, true-hearted reader, with what eager, but for the most part fallacious hopes, enquiries have been made up to the present hour after the College, or dwelling of the so much talked of Rosicrucians, and that by people both of high and low rank; I am not unaware of this, I say, seeing that scarcely a day passes at Frankfort, Leipzig, and other known places, but particularly in the city of Prague, when ten, twelve, nay twenty, or even more, persons of all sorts do not faney they can get information of such matters from printsellers, book-keepers, engravers, &c." withheld them, innocently, or sarcastically, observing that so wise a brotherhood could have no difficulty in discovering who were their correspondents. There are few of our readers, we suspect, who will feel much surprise at being told that no one received any answer to such enquiries, however earnestly or craftily he might frame them. Yet to say the truth, there was little want either of ardour or cunning amongst the curious. Some protested that they possessed secrets of great value, and were quite ready to enter into an exchange of philosophic commodities with the Rosicrucians; others ingeniously put forth suppositions as to the whereabouts and objects of the brotherhood, manifestly with the hope of drawing them into a correspondence, if it were only to contradict such surmises. It was the sun and the wind alternately shining and blowing upon the traveller to make him fling off his cloak, but in this case the fable proved no true precedent. At length some doubting spirits entered into the fray, and pointed out the improbabilities and contradictions of the story-that is, so far as regarded the existence of a so-called Rosicrucian brotherhood; they could not attempt to deny that the cabalistical and alchemical juggle was an old affair. In truth the whole question lies in a nutshell, and may be easily disposed of, though partly as a matter of curiosity, and partly to leave no room for doubt or cavil in what is to be hereafter said of the Freemasons, I have entered somewhat fully-perhaps too fully-into the details. If such a thing ever were in Germany as a society of Rosicrucians, it could not have been before the date assigned to it in the FAMA, since that is the only authority we have for its existence; the first part of the enquiry then is settled at once; but the more important half, that which regards the entity of the brotherhood, must depend upon the character and intention of the FAMA. Upon this subject there can hardly be a reasonable doubt; the whole work bears the strongest internal evidence of being nothing more than a playful effusion of the fancy, the subject being naturally enough borrowed from one of the most popular superstitions of the day. I can see no symptoms of satire in it more than in any fairy tale, and still less can I agree with Buhle that Andreä, or whoever was its author, wished to pave the way for the formation of a moral and philosophical society, and, to make his design more generally palatable, sweetened it by the introduction of alchemy. But whatever theory we adopt in this respect, it still comes to the same end; the FAMA was not intended to describe a society really existing. It would signify little whether Andreä was, or was not, the author of the FAMA, except that in connection with him a derivation of the word Rosicrucian has been given, which does not seem wanting in probability. His family arms were a Saint Andrew's cross with four roses, and Buhle, as well as others, has supposed that it was to them and their symbolical interpretation that he owed the idea of the phrase, Rosa-Crux. In this they alluded to Luther's well-known lines, "Des Christen Herz auf Rosen geht Wenn's mitten unter'm Kreutze steht."* But allowing that Andreä coined the name of his new sect from his own arms, I doubt much Luther's lines having any thing to do with the matter. Both in ancient and modern times the rose was a religious symbol. It was carried by the Pope in his hand when walking in procession on Mid-lent Sunday, and it was worn at one time by the English clergy in their buttons. Fuller, too, in his Pisgah sight of Palestine, calls Christ "that prime. * "The heart of the Christian goes upon roses rose and lily."* Its connection, therefore, with Christianity as an emblem is obvious; but for its meaning we must go back to the Greeks and Romans, from whom it was borrowed, like so many other things of the same kind. Est rosa flos Veneris," says the poet. And why was it so because it originally meant that generative power which was typified in Venus, the whole class of heathen deities being only so many personifications of the attributes of the ONE. Thus Minerva symbolized his wisdom; Jove, his power; Hercules, his strength; and so on, till the temples became full of gods. It adds not a little to the force of this theory that we find the holy Virgin of the Mexicans called Sochiquetzal,‡ which signifies the "lifting up of roses." The same name too was given to their Eve, Ysnextii, who is said to have sinned by eating roses, which roses are elsewhere termed, Fruta del arbol, Fruit of the tree,-i. e., I suppose, the Tree of Life. Throughout it is easy to see that the idea of the creative power was intimately connected with the rose. If, moreover, the Lotus be a water-rose, as Higgins maintains in his Anacalypsis, the question is set at rest. At the same time I must own I know no authority for such a supposition except it be in Vallancy, who in giving examples of the proper names of men derived from the names of trees says, "Susan, lilium vel rosa, uxor Joacim." § But feasible as the conjecture may seem, which derives Rose-Crux from the roses and cross in the arms of Andreä, we may well hesitate to adopt it, in spite of all *P. 143,-under the head of, Zebulon. Valcknaer in his notes upon the Adoniaz. of Theocritus, p. 2811, explains to podov, the rose, to mean mulieb. pudend.-so too Hesychius sub voce. Mexican Antiq. vol. vi. p. 120. § Vallancey. Collect. de Rebus Hibern. vol. iv. p. 264. |