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ANTIQUITY OF ROSICRUCIAN FRATERNITY. 215
and visionary ramblings in " The Rosicrucians : their Rites
and Mysteries." Mr Jennings may congratulate himself
on being "that distinguished esoteric litterateur," who
writes the worst English of this or any century, but he is
a great man, a magician of the first order, in the important
matter of titles. I freely confess that his work on this
subject is so attractively labelled that it exercises an irre-
sistible charm over the student.
" The Rosicrucians : their
Rites and Mysteries, with chapters on the ancient Fire and
Serpent Worshippers, and explanations of the Mystic Sym-
bols represented on the monuments and talismans of the
Primeval Philosophers," is a label not otherwise than
superb. It is a " strong delusion " which tempts the hesi-
tating purchaser, and has often prompted the too credulous
reader, by the subtlety of its mystic charm, " to believe "
at least the very opposite of what is true.
The book, so far as the Rosicrucians are concerned,
begins with an account of an " historical adventure in Staf-
fordshire," which is curiously distorted in the interests
of an inexpensive sensationalism, and after much loquacity
on " the insufficiency of worldly objects," we are introduced
in the seventh chapter, without preface or apology, to the
" Mythical history of the Fleur-de-lys" Druidic Cromlechs,
and Gnostic Abraxas Gems. The rest of the work is Rosi-
crucian certainly, so far as the titles of the chapters are
concerned, but not further. Thus we have "The Rosy-
Cross in Indian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Medieval
monuments," " Presence of the Rosicrucians in Christian
Architecture," &c., but the chapters themselves are devoted
to the lingam and the great pyramid, Persian fire-worship,
phallic and serpent symbolism, and etymological specula-
tions which would have astonished even Godfrey Higgins,