to show the world that he had reinvented the ever-burning lamps of the ancients, though he was resolved no one should reap any advantage from the discovery."

We have chosen the above story as the introduction to our curious history.

Christian Rosencreutz died in 1484. To account for Rosicrucianism not having been heard of until 1604, it has been asserted that this supposed first founder of Rosicrucianism bound his disciples not to reveal any of his doctrines until a period of one hundred and twenty years after his death.

The ancient Romans are said to have preserved lights in their sepulchres many ages by the oiliness of gold (here steps in the art of the Rosicrucians), resolved by hermetic methods into a liquid substance; and it is reported that at the dissolution of monasteries, in the time of Henry the Eighth, there was a lamp found that had then burnt in a tomb from about three hundred years after Christ-nearly twelve hundred years. Two of these subterranean lamps are to be seen in the Museum of Rarities at Leyden, in Holland. One of these lamps, in the Papacy of Paul the Third, was found in the Tomb of Tullia, Cicero's daughter, which had been shut up fifteen hundred and fifty years (Second edition of N. Bailey's Dinéhoyos, 1731).

NOTES.

In the Papacy of Paul the Third, in the Appian Way, where abundance of the chief heathens of old were laid, a sepulchre was opened, where was found the entire body of a fair virgin swimming in a wonderful juice, which kept it from putrefaction so well, that the face seemed no way impaired, but lively and very beautiful. Her hair was yellow, tied up artificially, and kept together with a golden circlet or band. Under her feet burnt lamps, the light of which was extinguished at the opening of the sepulchre. By some inscriptions found about the tomb it appeared that she must have lain there fifteen hundred years. Who she was was never known, although many concluded her to be Tulliola, the daughter of Cicero. This discovery has been reported from various hands.

Cedrenus makes mention of a lamp, which, together with an image of Christ, was found at Edessa in the reign of Justinian the Emperor.

It was set over a certain gate there, and elaborately enclosed and shut out from the air. This lamp, as appeared from the date attached to it, was lighted soon after Christ was crucified. It was found burningas in fact it had done for five hundred years-by the soldiers of Cosroes, king of Persia; by whom, at this strange discovery and plunder, the oil was taken out and cast into the fire. As it is reported, this wild act occasioned such a plague as brought death upon numbers of the forces of Cosroes, sufficiently punished for their sacrilegious mischief.

At the demolition of our monasteries here in England, there was found in the monument which was supposed to be that of Constantius Chlorus, father to the great Constantine, a burning lamp, which was thought to have continued burning there ever since his burial, which was about three hundred years after Christ. The ancient Romans are said to have been able to maintain lights in their sepulchres for an indefinite time, by an essence or oil obtained from liquid gold; which was an achievement assumed to have been only known to the Rosicrucians, who boasted this among some other of their stupendous arts.

Baptista Porta, in his treatise on Natural Magic, relates that about the year 1550, in the island of Nesis, in the Bay of Naples, a marble sepulchre of a certain Roman was discovered; upon the opening of which a burning lamp, affording a powerful illumination, was discovered. The light of this lamp paled on the admission of the air, and it was speedily extinguished. It appeared from undoubted tokens in the mode of inscription that this wonderful lamp had been placed in its present receptacle before the advent of the Saviour. Those who saw the lamp declared that the effulgence was of the most dazzling character; that the light did not flicker or change, but burnt marvellously steadily.

A most celebrated lamp, called that of Pallas, the son of Evander, who, as Virgil relates, was killed by Turnus (the account will be found in the tenth book of Virgil's Æneid), is that reported as discovered not far from Rome, as far forward in time as the year 1401. It is related that a countryman was digging in the neighbourhood, and that delving deeper than usual, he came upon a stone sepulchre, wherein there was discovered the body of a man of extraordinary size, as perfect and natural as if recently interred. Above the head of the deceased there was found a lamp, burning with the supposed fabulous perpetual fire. Neither wind or water, nor any other superinduced means, could extinguish it; but the flame was mastered eventually by the lamp being bored at bottom and broken by the astonished investigators of this consummate light. The man enclosed in this monument had a large wound in the breast. That this was the body of Pallas was evident from the inscription on the tomb, which was as follows:

"Pallas, Evander's son, whom Turnus' spear

In battle slew, of mighty bulk, lies here."

A very remarkable lamp was discovered about the year 1500 near Ateste, a town belonging to Padua, in Italy, by a rustic who in his explorations in a field came upon an urn containing another urn, in which last was deposited one of these much-doubted miraculous lamps. The aliment of this strange lamp appeared to be a very exquisite crystal liquor, by the ever-during powers of which the lamp must have continued to shine for upwards of fifteen hundred years. And unless this lamp had been so suddenly exposed to the action of the air, it is supposed that it might have continued to burn for any time. This lamp, endowed with such unbelievable powers, was discovered to be the workmanship of an unknown contriver named Maximus Olibius, who must have possessed the profoundest skill in chemical art. On the greater urn some lines were inscribed in Latin, recording the perpetuation of this wonderful secret of the preparation and the starting of these (almost) immortal flames.

St. Austin mentions a lamp that was found in a temple dedicated to Venus, which, notwithstanding that it was exposed to the open weather, could never be consumed or extinguished.

Ludovicus Vives, his commentator, in a supplementary mention of ever-burning lamps, cites an instance of another similar lamp which was discovered a little before his time, and which was considered to have been burning for a thousand and fifty years.

It is supposed that the perpetuity of the flame of these wonderful lamps was owing to the consummate tenacity of the unctuous matter with which the light was maintained; and that the balance was so exquisitely perfect between the feeding material and the strength of the flame, and so proportioned for everlasting provision and expenditure, that, like the radical moisture and natural heat in animals, neither of them could ever unduly prevail. Licetus, who has advanced this opinion, observes that in order to effectually prevent interference with this balance, the ancients hid these lamps in caverns or in enclosed monuments. Hence it happened that on opening these tombs and secret places, the admission of fresh air to the lamps destroyed the fine equilibrium and stopped the life (as it were) of the lamp, similarly as a blow or a shock stops a watch, in jarring the matchless mechanism.

Mark of the "Triune.

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

INSUFFICIENCY OF WORLDLY OBJECTS.

T is a constant and very plausible charge offered by the general world against the possession of the power of gold-making as claimed by the alchemists, who were the practical branch of the Rosicrucians, that if such supposed power were in their hands, they would infallibly use it, and that quickly enough; for the acquisition of riches and power, say they, is the desire of all men. But this idea proceeds from an ignorance of the character and inclinations of real philosophers, and results from an inveterate prejudice relative to them. Before we judge of these, let us acquire a knowledge of the natural inclinations of very deeply learned men. Philosophers, when they have attained to much knowledge, which wearies them of merely mundane matters, hold that the ordering of men, the following of them about by subservient people, and the continual glitter about them of the fine things of this world, are, after all, but of mean and melancholy account, because life is so brief, and this accidental pre-eminence is very transitory. Splendour, show, and bowing little delight the raised and abstract mind. That circuit of comfort formed by the owning of money and riches is circumscribed by the possessor's own ken. What is outside of this sight may just as well be enjoyed by any

other person as by the owner, since all is the thinking of it; only granting that a man has sufficient for his daily wants, letting the "morrow, indeed, take thought for itself." One dinner a day, one bed for each night, in the alternations of sun and darkness, one of everything that is agreeable to (or is desirable for) man, is sufficient for any one man. A man's troubles are increased by the multiplication even of his enjoyments, because he is then beset with anxiety as to their repetition or maintenance. Reduction of things to attend to, and not multiplication, is his policy, because thinking of it is all that can affect him about anything in this world.

By the time that the deep, philosophical chemist has penetrated to the control and conversion of the ultimate elements, so as to have in his view the secret operations of Nature, and to have caught Nature, as it were, preparing her presentments and arranging her disguises behind the scenes, he is no more to be amused with vain book-physics. After his spying into the subtle processes of Nature, he cannot be contented with the ordinary toys of men; for are not worldly possessions, honour, rank, money, even wives and numerous or any children, but toys in a certain sense? Where sink they in importance to him when the great unknown sets in which awaits every man? He who can work as Nature works-causing the sunshine, so to speak, to light fire up independently in itself, and to breed and propagate precious things upon the atmosphere in which it burnscausing the growing supernatural soul to work amidst the seeds of gold, and to purge the material, devilish mass until the excrement is expelled, and it springs in health into condensating, solid splendour, a produce again to be sown, to fructify into fresh harvests-the alchemist, or prince of chemists, who can do this, laughs at the hoards of kings. By the time that the artist is thus so much more than man, is he the less desirous of the gratifying things to the ordinary man. Grandeur fades to him before such high intellectual grandeur. He is nearer to the angels, and the world has sunk infinitely below. His is the sky, and the bright