Zanoni

s since in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden; I say a few, for certainly there was little enough to attract the m

It absolutely went to his heart when a customer entered his shop: he watched the movements of the presumptuous intruder with a vindictive glare; he fluttered around him with uneasy vigilance,- he frowned, he groaned, when profane hands dislodged his idols from their niches. If it were one of the favourite sultanas of his wizard harem that attracted you, and the price named were not sufficiently enormous, he would not unfrequently double the sum.

was rich, not only in black-letter, but in manuscripts, might contain some more accurate and authentic records of that famous brotherhood,- written, who knows? by one of their own order, and confirming by authority and detail the pretensions to wisdom and to virtue which Bringaret had arrogated to the successors of the Chaldean and Gymnosophist. Accordingly I repaired to what, doubtl

ing over the leaves of the catalogue,-"sir, you are the only man I have met, in five-and-forty years that I have spent in these researches, who is worthy to be my customer. How - where, in this frivolous age, could you have acquired a knowledge so profoun

y say that my attention had been at once aroused,

have ever consigned, except by obscure hint and mystical parable, their

somewhat abruptly, to the collector, "I see nothing, Mr.

Rosicrucian could explain the Rosicrucian mysteries! And can you imagine that any members of that sect, the most j

ernity' of which you spoke. Heaven be praised! I c

ays one can hazard nothing in print without authority, and one may scarcely quote Shakes

aps, at least, I may direct your researches to the proper source of intelligen

in Mr. D-'s bookshop. I was riding leisurely towards Highgate, when, at the foot of its classic hill, I re

ou have not gone far in your object before you have gained the top. In short, so well did I succeed, that on reaching Highgate the old gentleman invited me to rest at his house, which was a little apart from the village; and an excellent house it was,- small, but c

levated in his theories of art than an adept in the practice. Without fatiguing the reader with irrelevant criticism, it is necessary, perhaps, as elucidating much of the design and character of the work which these prefatory pages introduce, that I should briefly observe, that he insisted as much upon the connection of the arts, as a

s the Dutch School, th

the Dutch is the

haps," answered my hos

Betty Foy; and our critics hold it the highest praise of a work of imaginati

HERE the high ideal must

have not seen Souter Jo

, "I live very much out of the world, I see. I

are the excuse for attacking everybody else. But then o

be met with in actual life,- who has never once descende

as growing a little out of temper. And he who wishes to catch a Rosicrucian, must take c

; "you promised to enlighten my

hat purpose? Perhaps you desire only to ente

to all men not to treat idly of the realms of the Salamander and the Sylph. Everybody knows how mysteriously t

into the vulgar error, and translate litera

ry erudite relation, of the tenets of the Rosicrucians, some of whom, he asserted, still existed, and st

the practice of moral precepts, or more ardent in Christian faith,- this fraternity is but a branch of others yet more trans

r labyrinth," said I. "Faith, they are r

e initiatory learning, not only of the Rosicrucians, but of the nobler brotherhoods I have referred to. More solemn and

oster of Tyanea! are

my host; "Apollo

his character, I will believe him to have been a very respectable man, who only

id the old gentleman; "if

, nor have I ever been able to penetrate the darkness in which they were concealed. He seemed to have seen much of the world, and to have been an eye-witness of the first French Revolution, a subject upon which he was equally eloquent and instructive. At the same time he did not regard the crimes of that stormy period with the philosophical leniency with which enlightened writers (their heads safe upon their shoulders) are, in the present day, inclined to treat the massacres of the past: he spoke not as a student who ha

isit I paid the Sage, if so I may be permitt

young and inexperienced student. And at that time I sought his advice upon a work of imagination, intended to depict the effects of enthusiasm upon different modifications of character. He listened to my conception, which was su

siasm and the inspiration of the gods: Firstly, the musical; secondly, the teles

cover and seize, as it were, on sciences and theorems with almost intuitive rapidity, by another, through which high art is accomplished, like the statues of Phidias,- proceeded t

e soul to its first divinity and happiness; but that there is an intimate union with them all; and that the ordinary progress through which the soul asce

to these intricate sublimities, my adviser closed the volume, and said with

ngly fine, but, Heaven forgive me,- I don't understand a word of it. The mysteries of your

understand the higher theories of the Rosicrucians, or of th

. Why not, since you are so well versed in the

ook with that thesis for its theme,

pleasure," said I

anuscripts. From what you say of the prevailing taste in literature, I cannot flatter you with the hope that y

work a

t is a truth for those who can comprehend it

with a brief note from my deceased frie

cket and trimmed my lamp. Conceive my dismay when I found the whole wr

strange c

t was no easy task, and two years elapsed before I had made much progress. I then, by way of experiment on the public, obtained the insertion of a few desultory chapters, in a periodical with which, for a few months, I had the honour to be connected. They appeared to excite more curiosity than I had presumed to anticipate; and I renewed, with better heart, my laborious undertaking. But now a new misfortune befell me: I found, as I proceeded, that the author had made two copies of his work, one much more elaborate and detailed than the other; I had stumbled upon the earlier copy, and had my whole task to remodel, and the chapters I had written to retranslate. I may say then, that, exclusive of intervals devoted to more pressing occupations, my unlucky promise cost me the toil of several years before I could bring it to adequate fulfilment. The task was the more difficult, since the style in the original is written in a kind of rhythmical prose, as if the author desired that in some degree his work should be regarded as one of

Januar

the editor. I have occasionally (but not always) marked the distinction; where,

NO