"----'aery tongues that syllable mens' names On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses."
but beneficent spirits, the friends of man. The _peris_ of eastern romance, the _fées_, the _fatas_, and the fairies of European legends, were names which, in their ignorance, the people of different countries had given to the Sylphs. Vulcan, Bacchus, and Pan, though the Greeks did not know it, were Gnomes; Neptune and Venus, and all the Naiads and Nereids, were but the Undines of the Rosicrucians; Apollo was a Salamander, and Mercury a Sylph; and not one of the personages of the multifarious mythology of the Greeks and Romans, but could be ranged under one or other of these classes.
_The Hermetick Romance; or Chymical Wedding._
A remarkable work was published at Strasbourg, in the year 1616, entitled, "The Hermetick Romance: or the Chymical Wedding. Written in High Dutch by Christian Rosencreutz." This book though not given out to the world until the above year, is said to have existed in manuscript for some time previously, as far back in fact as 1601, thus making it the oldest Rosicrucian book extant. A modern writer says: The whole Rosicrucian controversy centres in this publication, which Buhle describes as a comic romance of extraordinary talent.
Owing to its importance, we shall have to make some lengthy extracts from the translation made in 1690, by E. Foxcroft of King's College, Cambridge. It is arranged in chapters, denominated days, marked from one to seven.
On an evening before Easter Day, I sate at a Table, and having (as my custom was) in my humble prayer sufficiently conversed with my Creator, and considered many great mysteries (whereof the Father of Lights his Majesty had shewn me not a few) and being now ready to prepare in my heart, together with my dear Paschal Lamb, a small unleavened, undefiled cake; all on a sudden ariseth so horrible a tempest, that I imagined no other but that through its mighty force, the hill whereon my little house was founded, would fly in pieces. But in as much as this, and the like from the devil (who had done me many a spite) was no new thing to me; I took courage and persisted in my meditation, till somebody (after an unusual manner) touched me on the back; whereupon I was so highly terrified, that I durst hardly look about me; yet I shewed myself as cheerful as (in the like occurrences) human frailty would permit. Now the same thing still twitching me several times by the coat, I looked back, and behold it was a fair and glorious lady whose garments were all skye colour, and curiously (like Heaven) bespangled with golden stars. In her right hand she bare a trumpet of beaten gold, whereon a name was engraven (which I could well read in) but am as yet forbidden to reveal it. In her left hand she had a great bundle of letters of all languages, which she (as I afterwards understood) was to carry into all countries. She had also large and beautiful wings, full of eyes throughout, wherewith she could mount aloft and fly swifter than any eagle. I might perhaps have taken further notice of her, but because she staid so small a time with me, and terror and amasement still possessed me, I was fain to be content. For as soon as I turned about, she turned her letters over and over, and at length drew out a small one, which with great reverence she laid down upon the table, and without giving one word departed from me. But in her mounting upwards, she gave so mighty a blast on her gallant trumpet, that the whole hill echoed thereof, and for a full quarter of an hour after, I could hardly hear my own words.