curiosity was roused, and one or two resolved to satisfy themselves by looking at the picture attentively the next morning. But to obtain an opportunity to see the picture on this next morning, it was necessary to see the Signor Gualdi somewhere, and to have the invitation of so reserved a man to his lodgings for the purpose. The only likely place to meet with him was at the coffee-house; and thither the gentlemen went at the usual time, hoping, as it was the Signior's habit to present himself, that he would do so. But he did not come,-nor had he been heard of from the time of the visit of the nobleman the day before to the Signior's house,-which absence, for the first time almost that he had been in Venice, surprised everybody. But as they did not meet with him at the coffee-house,-as they thought was sure, one of the persons who had the oftenest conversed with the Signior, and therefore was the freer in his acquaintance, undertook to go to his lodgings and inquire after him, which he did; but he was answered by the owner of the house, who came to the street-door to respond to the questioner, that the Signior had gone, having quitted Venice that morning early, and that he had locked up his pictures with certain orders, and had taken the key of his rooms with him.

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This affair made a great noise at the time in Venice and an account of it found its way into most of the newspapers of the year in which it occurred. In these newspapers and elsewhere, an outline of the foregoing particulars may be seen. The account of the Signor Gualdi will also be met with in Les Mémoires Historiques for the year 1687, tome i. p. 365. The chief particulars of our own narrative are extracted from an old book in our collection treating of well-attested relations of the sages, and of life protracted by their art for several centuries: "Hermippus Redivivus; or, the Sage's Triumph over Old Age and the Grave. London, Second Edition, much enlarged. Printed for J. Nourse, at the Lamb,' against Catherine Street in the Strand, in the year 1749."

And thus much for the history of Signor Gualdi, who was suspected to be a Rosicrucian.

We shall have further interesting notices of these unaccountable people as we proceed.

The Egyptian Eve trampling the Dragon.

HE following passages occur in a letter published by some anonymous members of the R.C., and are adduced in a translation from the Latin by one of the most famous men of the order, who addressed from the University of Oxford about the period of Oliver Cromwell; to which university the great English Rosicrucian, Robertus de Fluctibus (Robert Flood), also belonged, in the time of James the First and Charles the First. We have made repeated visits to the church where Robert Flood lies buried.

"Every man naturally desires superiority. Men wish for treasures and to seem great in the eyes of the world. God, indeed, created all things to the end that man might give Him thanks. But there is no individual thinks of his proper duties; he secretly desires to spend his days idly, and would enjoy riches and pleasures without any previous labour or danger. When we" (professors of abstruse sciences) "speak, men either revile or contemn, they either envy or laugh. When we discourse of gold, they assume that we would assuredly produce it if we could, because they judge us by themselves; and when we debate of it, and enlarge upon it, they imagine we shall finish by teaching them how to make gold by art, or furnish them with it already made. And wherefore or why should we teach

them the way to these mighty possessions? Shall it be to the end that men may live pompously in the eyes of the world; swagger and make wars; be violent when they are contradicted; turn usurers, gluttons, and drunkards; abandon themselves to lust? Now, all these things deface and defile man, and the holy temple of man's body, and are plainly against the ordinances of God. For this dream of the world, as also the body or vehicle through which it is made manifest, the Lord intended to be pure. And it was not purposed, in the divine arrangement, that men should grow again down to the earth. It is for other purposes that the stars, in their attraction, have raised man on his feet, instead of abandoning him to the 'all-fours' that were the imperfect tentatives of nature until life, through the supernatural impulse, rose above its original condemned levelbase and relegate.

"We of the secret knowledge do wrap ourselves in mystery, to avoid the objurgation and importunity or violence of those who conceive that we cannot be philosophers unless we put our knowledge to some ordinary worldly use. There is scarcely one who thinks about us who does not believe that our society has no existence; because, as he truly declares, he never met any of us. And he concludes that there is no such brotherhood because, in his vanity, we seek not him to be our fellow. We do not come, as he assuredly expects, to that conspicuous stage upon which, like himself, as he desires the gaze of the vulgar, every fool may enter: winning wonder, if the man's appetite be that empty way; and, when he has obtained it, crying out, 'Lo, this is also vanity!

Dr. Edmund Dickenson, physician to King Charles the Second, a professed seeker of the hermetic knowledge, produced a book entitled, De Quinta Essentia Philosophorum; which was printed at Oxford in 1686, and a second time in 1705. There was a third edition of it printed in Germany in 1721. In correspondence with a French adept, the latter explains the reasons why the Brothers of the Rosy Cross concealed themselves. As to the universal medicine,

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Elixir Vitæ, or potable form of the preternatural menstruum, he positively asserts that it is in the hands of the "Illuminated," but that, by the time they discover it, they have ceased to desire its uses, being far above them; and as to life for centuries, being wishful for other things, they decline availing themselves of it. He adds, that the adepts are obliged to conceal themselves for the sake of safety, because they would be abandoned in the consolations of the intercourse of this world (if they were not, indeed, exposed to worse risks), supposing that their gifts were proven to the conviction of the bystanders as more than human; when they would become simply intolerable and abhorrent. Thus, there are excellent reasons for their conduct; they proceed with the utmost caution, and instead of making a display of their powers, as vain-glory is the least distinguishing characteristic of these great men, they studiously evade the idea that they possess any extraordinary or separate knowledge. They live simply as mere spectators in the world, and they desire to make no disciples, converts, nor confidants. They submit to the obligations of life, and to relationshipsenjoying the fellowship of none, admiring none, following none, but themselves. They obey all codes, are excellent citizens, and only preserve silence in regard to their own private convictions, giving the world the benefit of their acquirements up to a certain point; seeking only sympathy at some angles of their multiform character, but shutting out curiosity wholly where they do not wish its imperative eyes.

This is the reason that the Rosicrucians passed through the world mostly unnoticed, and that people generally disbelieve that there ever were such persons; or believe that, if there were, their pretensions are an imposition. It is easy to discredit things which we do not understand-in fact, nature compels us to reject all propositions which do not consist with our reason. The true artist is supposed to avoid all suspicion, even on the part of those nearest to him. And granting the possibility of the Rosicrucian means of the renewal of life, and supposing also that it was the desire of the hermetic philosopher, `it would not be difficult for