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PROGRESS OF ROSICRUCIANISM IN GERMANY. 249
Eosea Cruce," and forms part of a larger " Examen Philo-
sophise Novas, quse veteri abrogandae Opponitur."
Professor Buhle is one of those interesting literary cha-
racters, by no means uncommonly met with, whose luminous
hypotheses completely transfigure every fact which comes
within the range of their radiation. Few persons who have
taken the pains to labour through the ponderous folios of
Libavius would dream of terming him a powerful writer,
and personally I have failed to discern much of that
" homely good sense " which manifested itself so gratuitously
before the discerning eyes of the acute German savant. The
criticisms, on the contrary, are weak, verbose, and tedious,
and the investigations, as a whole, appear to have little
raison d'etre. It may, in fact, be impartially declared that
there is only one thing more barren and wearisome than the
host of pamphlets, elucidations, apologies, epistles, and
responses written on the Rosicrucian side, and that is the
hostile criticism of the opposing party, and the dead level
of unprofitable flatness which characterises its prosaic com-
monplace is an infliction which I honestly
trust will be
spared to all my readers.
Master Andreas Libavius, though he wrote upon Azoth,
was a practical thinker, and he refused to contemplate the
projected universal reformation through the magic spec-
tacles of the Rosicrucian. He had not read Wordsworth,
and he had no definite opinions as to " the light that never
was on land or sea." So he penned what Professor Buhle
might call a searching criticism ; he was right in so far as
the reformation is still to come, but in these days we have
read Wordsworth, and we prefer the vague poetry of Rosi-
crucian aspirations to the perditional dulness of Master
Libavius' prose. Still we respect Professor Buhle, chiefly