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DESCENT OF FREE-MASONRY. 449
Masons, it indubitably follows that the Druids were also of
the same noble Order. As we are pleased with unwilling
witnesses, we shall again quote the Rev. Mr. Oliver.
" The Druids were schoolmasters, fortune-tellers, and Free-
Masons also, though the name was not known in the ages
when they flourished. They certainly did practise a science
derived from Free-Masonry, and adapted to the same object
THE WORSHIP OF THE DEITY, but deteriorated." (Hist. Init.)
This is granting nearly all we contend for, and overthrows in
toto the quotation taken from this author at the beginning of
our Dissertation j namely, that nothing earthly could have
saved Masonry from utter extinction, had not the Essenes
cherished it in their bosom. " The Druidical memoranda,"
says the same author, on the authority of Brother Noorthouck,
" were made in the Greek character j for the Druids had been
taught Masonry by Pythagoras himself, who had communicated
its arcana to them, under the name he had assigned to it in
his own country."
This again, if true, would annihilate the theory respecting
the Essenes being the sole preservers of Free-Masonry. But
the original author, when he wrote the above quotation, was
wandering in the dark mazes of fancy and error. And here
we may observe, that Aristobulus, who tells us that Pytha-
goras transferred the Hebrew doctrines and ceremonies into
his own system, deserves no more credit than Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth 5
his assertions on this point being of equal veracity with
those of Jamblichus, who averred that Pythagoras, in his youth,
was received by many as the Son of God.
Pythagoras
never instructed the Druids in the secrets of
Free-Masonry, nor did they stand in need of his teaching,
it having brought with them to these islands in the earliest
ages, when the Celtae came from the East.
" The story of
Pythagoras having visited the Northern Druids is so improbable
in itself, and so ill supported by evidence," says Brucker,
" that it may be dismissed without particular examination."
Now it is known and allowed that the Druids had their
mysteries and their solemn initiations. These mysteries even
the Rev. Mr. Oliver does not attempt to accuse of any inde-
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