"Tis profane the cerecloth riving, 1 Where a spectre lurks beneath; Error is the law of living, Knowledge but the name for death. From mine eyes the lurid gleam; Cursed the mortal thou would'st render Mirror to thy flaming beam! "Give me back my vision bounded, And my senses' duskened sheen; But the Present turned to pain, I observe thy mournful shrine. All around me live and love Me but pain and sorrow move. Down its dark abyss has seen? "Happy in her blind delirium, In her hopes ecstatic blessed, As a bridegroom to her breast. See the sister's heart proud swelling, Cast its baleful gloom athwart. From the grisly bands to flee. "I behold the glaive descending, And the murderer's visage glare; With a conscious step repair. Felt, foreboded, fearless scanned; Stretched, a corpse Achilles lies. The protecting gods are gone, SECRET SOCIETIES. BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY. J. J. S, cites him to the bar, saying, "What's that you HAS the modern world no hoax of its own, answering to the Eleusinian mysteries of Grecian days? Oh, yes, it has. I have a very bad opin-plies, ion of the ancient world; and it would grieve me if such a world could be shown to have beaten us even in the quality of our hoaxes. I have, also, not a very favourable opinion of the modern world. But I dare say that in fifty thousand years it will be considerably improved; and, in the meantime, if we are not quite so good or so clever as we ought to be, yet still we are a trifle better than our ancestors; I hope we are up to a hoax any day. A man must be a poor creature that can't invent a hoax. For two centuries we have had a first-rate one; and its name is Freemasonry. Do you know the secret, my reader? Or shall I tell you? Send me a consideration, and I will. But stay, the weather being so fine, and philosophers, therefore, so good-tempered, I'll tell it you for nothing; whereas, if you become a mason, you must pay for it. Here is the secret. When the novice is introduced into the conclave of the Freemasons, the grand-master looks very fierce at him, and draws his sword, which makes the novice look very melancholy, as he is not aware of having had time as yet for any profaneness, and fancies, therefore, that somebody must have been slandering him. Then the grand-master, or his deputy, But how did I learn all this so accurately? Isn't a man liable to be assassinated, if he betrays that ineffable mystery or arojineo of masonry, which no wretch but one since King Solomon's days is reputed ever to have blabbed? And perhaps, reader, the wretch didn't blab the whole; he only got as far as the Forking out; and being a churl who grudged his money, he ran away before reaching the brandy. So that this fellow, if he seems to you but half as guilty as myself, on the other hand is but half as learned. It's better for you to stick by the guiltier man. yet, on consideration, I am not so guilty as we have both been thinking. Perhaps it was a mistake. Dreaming on days far back, when I was scheming for an introduction to the honourable society of the masons, and of course to their honourable And of the dove. The success was, the victory of the Christian church over the armies that waylaid its infancy. Without falsehood, without shadow of falsehood, all the benefits of falsehood—the pro secret, with the single-minded intention of instantly betraying that secret to a dear female friend (and, you see, in honour it was not possible for me to do otherwise, because she had made me promise that I would)-all this time I was sooth-foundest-were secured. Without need to abjure ing my remorse with a belief that woman was anything, all that would have raised a demoniae answerable for my treachery, she having positively yell for instant abjuration was suddenly hidden compelled me to undertake it. When suddenly out of sight. In noonday the Christian church I woke into a bright conviction that all was a was suddenly withdrawn behind impenetrable dream; that I had never been near the Free- veils, even as the infant Christ himself was masons; that I had treacherously evaded the caught up to the secrecies of Egypt and the wiltreachery which I ought to have committed, by derness from the bloody wrath of Herod. And perfidiously forging a secret quite as good, very whilst the enemies of this infant society were likely better, than that which I was pledged in roaming around them on every side, seeking for honour to betray; and that, if anybody had them, walking upon their very traces, absolutely ground of complaint against myself, it was not touching them, or divided from their victims only the grand-master, sword-in-hand, but my poor as children in bed have escaped from murderers ill-used female friend, so confiding, so amiably in thick darkness, sheltered by no screen but a credulous in my treachery, so cruelly deceived, muslin curtain; all the while the inner principle who had swallowed a mendacious account of of the church lurked as in the cell at the centre Freemasonry forged by myself, the same which, of a labyrinth. Was the hon. reader ever in a I greatly fear that, on looking back, I shall find real labyrinth, like that described by Herodotus? myself to have been palming, in this very page, We have all been in labyrinths of debt, labyrinths upon the much-respected reader. Seriously, how- of error, labyrinths of metaphysical nonsense. ever, the whole bubble of Freemasonry was shat- But I speak of literal labyrinths. Now, at Bath, tered in a paper which I myself once threw into in my labyrinthine childhood, there was such a a London journal about the year 1823 or 4. It mystery. This mystery I used to visit; and I was a paper in this sense mine, that from me it can assert that no type ever flashed upon my had received form and arrangement; but the mind so pathetically shadowing out the fatal materials belonged to a learned German, viz., irretrievability of early errors in life. Turn but Buhle, the same (Ebelison) that edited the "Bi- wrong at first entering the thicket, and all pont Aristotle," and wrote a History of philoso- was over; you were ruined; no wandering phy. No German has any conception of style. could recover the right path. Or suppose you I therefore did him the favour to wash his dirty even took the right turn at first, what of that? face, and make him presentable amongst Chris- You couldn't expect to draw a second prize; five tians; but the substance was drawn entirely turnings offered very soon after; your chance of from this German book. It was there establish- escaping error was now reduced to one-fifth of ed, that the whole hoax of masonry had been in- unity; and supposing that again you draw no vented in the year 1629 by one Andrea; and the blank, not very far had you gone before fourteen reason that this exposure could have dropped out roads offered. What remained for you to do of remembrance, is probably, that it never reach- now? Why, if you were a wise man, to lie down ed the public ear; partly because the journal had and cry. None but a presumptuous fool would a limited circulation; but much more because count upon drawing for a third time a prize, and the title of the paper was not so constructed as to such a prize as one amongst fourteen. I mention indicate its object. A title, which seemed to pro- all this, I recall this image of the poor Sidney mise only a discussion of masonic doctrines, must Labyrinth, whose roses, I fear, must long ago have repelled everybody; whereas, it ought to have perished, betraying all the secrets of the have announced (what in fact it accomplished) mysterious house, simply to teach the stranger the utter demolition of the whole masonic edifice. how secure is the heart of a labyrinth. Gibraltar At this moment I have not space for an abstract is nothing to it. You may sit in that deep graveof that paper; but it was conclusive; and here-like recess, you may hear distant steps approachafter, when I have strengthened it by facts since noticed in my own reading, it may be right to place it more effectually before the public eye. Finally, I will call the reader's attention to the most remarkable by far of all secret societies ever heard of, and for this reason, that it suddenly developed the most critical wisdom in a dreadful emergency; secondly, the grandest purpose; and, lastly, with entire success. The purpose was, to protect a jewel by hiding it from all eyes, whilst it navigated a sea swarming with enemies. The critical wisdom was the most remarkable evidence ever given by the primitive Christians of that serpent's subtlety which they had been warned to combine with the innocence No ing, but laugh at them. If you are coining, and 66 calls the thesis of that paper 'paradoxical." Now paradox is a very charming thing, and, since leaving off opium, I take a great deal too much of it for my health. But, in this case, the paradox lies precisely and outrageously in the opposite direction; that is, when used (as the word paradox commonly is) to mean something that startles by its extravagance. Else I have twice or three times explained in print, for the benefit of my female or non-Grecian readers, that paradox, being a purely Greek word, ought strictly to be read by a Grecian light, and then it implies nothing, of necessity, that may not be right. Here follows a rigorous definition of paradox in a Greek sense. Not that only is paradoxical which, the more it hides them, Even so, from the exquisite machinery of the earliest Christian society, whatever suspicions might walk about in the darkness, all efforts of fanatical enemies at forcing an entrance within the air-woven gates of these entrenchments were (as the reader will see) utterly thrown away. Round and round the furious Jews must have circumambulated the camp, like the poor gold fish eternally wheeling round his crystal wall, but, after endless cruisings, never nearer to any opening. That concealment for the Christian nursery was absolutely required, because else martyrdom would have come too soon. Martyrdom was good for watering the church, and quickening its harvests; but, at this early stage of advance, it would utterly have ex-being really false, puts on the semblance of truth; tirpated the church. If a voice had been heard from heaven, saying, "Let there be martyrs," soon the great answering return would be heard rolling back from earth, "And there were martyrs." But for this there must be time; the fire, to be sure, will never be extinguished, if once thoroughly kindled; but, in this earliest twilight of the primitive faith, the fire is but a little gathering of scanty fuel fanned by human breath, and barely sufficient to show one golden rallying star in all the mighty wilderness. but, secondly, that, also, which, being really true, puts on the semblance of falsehood. For, literally speaking, everything is paradoxical which contradicts the public doxa (da), that is, contradicts the popular opinion, or the public expectation, which may be done by a truth as easily as a falsehood. The very weightiest truths now received amongst men have nearly all of them, in turn, in some one stage of their development, been found strong paradoxes to the popular mind. Hence it is, viz., in the Grecian sense of There was the motive to the secret society which the word paradox, as something extraordinary, I am going to describe there was its necessity! but not on that account the less likely to be true, Masque, or you will be destroyed!" was the that several great philosophers have published, private signal among the Christians. "Fall flat under the idea and title of paradoxes, some firston your faces," says the Arab to the pilgrims, rate truths on which they desired to fix public atwhen he sees the purple haze of the simoom run- tention; meaning, in a short-hand form, to sayning before the wind, "Lie down, men," says "Here, reader, are some extraordinary truths, the captain to his fusiliers, "till these hurricanes looking so very like falsehoods, that you would of the artillery be spent." To hide from the never take them for anything else if you were not storm, during its first murderous explosion, invited to give them a special examination." so absolutely requisite, that, simply Boyle published some elementary principles in from its sine qua non necessity, and supposing hydrostatics as paradoxes, Natural philosophy there were no other argument whatever, I should is overrun with paradoxes. Mathematics, mechainfer that it had been a fact. Because it must have nics, dynamics, are all partially infested with been, therefore (I should say), it was. However, them. And in morals the Stoics threw their do as you like; pray use your own pleasure; con-weightiest doctrines under the rubric of parasider yourself quite at home amongst my arguments, and kick them about with as little apology as if they were my children and servants. What makes me so easy in the matter is, that I use the above argument-though, in my opinion, a strong one-ex abundanti; it is one string more than I want to my bow; so I can afford to lose it, even if I lose it unjustly. But, by quite another line of argument, and dispensing with this altogether, I mean to make you believe, reader, whether you like it or not. was doxes-a fact which survives to this day in a little essay of Cicero's. To be paradoxical, therefore, is not necessarily to be unphilosophic; and that being so, it might seem as though Mr. Gilfillan had laid me under no obligation to dissent from him; but used popularly, as naturally Mr. Gilfillan meant to use it in that situation, the word certainly throws a reproach of extravagance upon any thought, argument, or speculation, to which it is imputed. Now it is important for the reader to understand I once threw together a few thoughts upon this that the very first thing which ever fixed my obscure question of the Essenes, which thoughts sceptical eye upon the whole fable of the Essenes, were published at the time in a celebrated jour- as commonly received amongst Christian churches, nal, and my reason for referring to them here was the intolerable extravagance of the received is in connexion with a single inappropriate ex-story. The outrageousness-the mere Cyclopian pression since applied to that paper. In a short article on myself in his "Gallery of Literary Portraits" Mr. Gilfillan spoke of that little disquisition in terms beyond its merit, and I thank him for his kind opinion. But as to one word, not affecting myself but the subject, I find it a duty of sincerity to dissent from him," He enormity of its paradox-this, and nothing else, it was that first extorted from me, on a July day, one long shiver of horror at the credulity, the bottomless credulity, that could have swallowed such a legend of delirium. Why, Pliny, my excellent sir, you were a gentleman mixing with men of the highest circles-you were yourself a man of fine and brilliant intellect-a jealous in- aspect of Josephus and his character occurs to me as interesting, viz., when placed in collision with the character so different, and the position partially the same, of St. Paul. In both, when suddenly detained for inspection at an early stage of their career, we have a bigot of the most intractable quality; and in both the bigotry expressed its ferocity exclusively upon the Christians, as the newborn heretics that troubled the unity of the national church. Thus far the parties agree; and they agree also in being as learned as the limited affinities in their native studies to exotic learning would allow. But from that point, up to which the resemblance in position, ir education, in temper, is so close, how entirely opposed! Both erring profoundly; yet the one not only in his errors, but by his errors showing himself most single-minded, conscientious, fervent, devout; a holy bigot; as incapable of anything mercenary then, of anything insidious, or of compromise with any mode of self-interest, as after the rectification of his views he was incapable of compromise with profounder shapes of error. The other, a time-serving knave, sold to adulation and servile ministeries; a pimp; a liar; or ready for any worse office, if worse is named on earth. Never on any human stage was so dramatically realised, as by Josephus in Rome, the delineation of the poet : "A fingering meddling slave; One that would peep and botanise Upon his mother's grave." Yes, this master in Israel, this leader of Sanhe drims, went as to a puppet-show, sat the long day through to see a sight. What sight? Jugglers, was it? buffoons? tumblers? dancing dogs? or a reed shaken by the wind? Oh, no! Simply to see his ruined country carried captive in effigy "Wicked Will Whiston."-In this age, when Swift is so little read, it may be requisite to explain that Swift it through the city of her conqueror-to see the was who fastened this epithet of wicked to Will Whiston; sword of the Maccabees hung up as a Roman and the humour of it lay in the very incongruity of the trophy-to see the mysteries of the glorious temepithet; for Whiston, thus sketched as a profligate, was worn to the bone by the anxieties of scrupulousness: he was ple dragged from secrecy before the grooms and anything but wicked, being pedantic, crazy, and fantas- gladiators of Rome. Then when this was finishtical in virtue after a fashion of his own. He ruined his wife and family, he ruined himself and all that trusted in ed, a woe that would once have caused Hebrew him, by crotchets that he never could explain to any rational corpses to stir in their graves, he goes home to man; and by one thing that he never explained to him- find his atrium made glorious with the monuself, which a hundred years after I explained very clearly, viz., that all his heresies in religion, all his crazes in ecclements of a thousand years that had descended siastical antiquities, in casuistical morals, and even as to through the princes of Hebrew tribes; and to the discovery of the longitude, had their rise, not (as his find his luxury, his palace, and his haram, friends thought) in too much conscientiousness and too much learning, but in too little rhubarb and magnesia. In charged as a perpetual tax upon the groans of his autobiography he has described his own craziness of his brave unsurrendering countrymen, that had stomach in a way to move the gravest reader's laughter, been sold as slaves into marble quarries: they and the sternest reader's pity. Everbody, in fact, that knew his case and history, stared at him, derided him, pitied him, worked extra hours, that the only traitor to Jeruand, in some degree, respected him. For he was a man salem might revel in honour. of eternal self-sacrifice, and that is always venerable; he was a man of primitive unworldly sincerity, and that is always lovely; yet both the one and the other were associated with so many oddities and absurdities, as compelled the most equitable judge at times to join in the general laughter. He and Humphry Ditton, who both held official stations as mathematicians, and were both honoured with the acquaintance of Sir Isaac Newton, had both been candidates for the Parliamentary prize as discoverers of the longitude, and, naturally, both were found wrong which furnishes the immediate theme for Swift's savage ridicule: "The longitude mist on By wicked Will Whiston ; When first I read the account of the Essenes in Josephus, I leaned back in my seat, and apostrophised the writer thus:-" Joe, listen to me; you've been telling us a fairy tale; and, for my part, I've no objection to a fairy tale in any situation; because, if one can make no use of it oneself, one always knows a child that will be thankful for it. But this tale, Mr. Joseph, happens also to be a lie; secondly, a fraudulent lie: thirdly, a malicious lie." It was a fiction of hatred against Christianity. For I shall startle to prepare the way for this, he proceeded to translate into Latin (but with plausible variations in the expression or arrangement) some of the most memorable passages in the poem. By this means he had, as it were, melted down or broken up the golden sacramental plate, and might now apply it to his own felonious purposes. The false swindling travesty of the Miltonic passage he produced as the undoubted original, professing to have found it in some rare or obscure author, not easily within reach, and then saying-Judge (I beseech you) for yourself, whether Milton were indebted to this passage or not. Now, reader, a falsehood is a falsehood, though uttered under circumstances of hurry and sudden trepidation; but certainly it becomes, though not more a falsehood, yet more criminally, and hatefully a falsehood, when prepared from afar and elaborately supported by fraud, and dovetailing into fraud, and having no palliation from pressure and haste. A man is a knave who falsely, but in the panic of turning all suspicion from himself, charges you or me with having appropriated another man's jewel. But how much more odiously is he a knave, if with no such motive of screening him the reader a little when I inform him that, if there were a syllable of truth in the main statement of Josephus, then at one blow goes to wreck the whole edifice of Christianity. Nothing but blindness and insensibility of heart to the true internal evidence of Christianity could ever have hidden this from men. Religious sycophants who affect the profoundest admiration, but in their hearts feel none at all, for what they profess to regard as the beauty of the moral revelations made in the New Testament, are easily cheated, and often have been cheated, by the grossest plagiarisms from Christianity offered to them as the pure natural growths of paganism. I would engage to write a Greek version somewhat varied and garbled of the Sermon on the Mount, were it hidden in Pompeii, unearthed, and published as a fragment from a posthumous work of a Stoic, with the certain result that very few people indeed should detect in it any signs of forgery. There are several cases of that nature actually unsuspected at this hour, which my deep cynicism and detestation of human hypocrisy yet anticipates a banquet of gratification in one day exposing. Oh, the millions of deaf hearts, deaf to everything really impassioned in music, that pre-self, if out of pure devilish malice to us, he has tend to admire Mozart! Oh, the worlds of hypocrites who cant about the divinity of Scriptural morality, and yet would never see any lustre at all in the most resplendent of Christian jewels, provided the pagan thief had a little disguised their setting. The thing has been tried long before the case of the Essenes; and it takes more than a scholar to detect the imposture. A philosopher, who must also be a scholar, is wanted. The eye that suspects and watches, is needed. Dark seas were those over which the ark of Christianity tilted for the first four centuries; evil men and enemies were cruising, and an Alexandrian Pharos is required to throw back a light broad enough to search and sweep the guilty secrets of those times. The Church of Rome has always thrown a backward telescopic glance of question and uneasy suspicion upon these ridiculous Essenes, and has repeatedly come to the right practical conclusion-that they were, and must have been, Christians under some mask or other; but the failure of Rome has been in carrying the Ariadne's thread through the whole labyrinth from centre to circumference. Rome has given the ultimate solution rightly, but has not (in geometrical language) raised the construction of the problem with its conditions and steps of evolution. Shall I tell you, reader, in a brief rememberable form what was the crime of the hound Josephus, through this fable of the Essenes in relation to Christ? It was the very same crime as that of the hound Lauder in relation to Milton. Lauder, about the middle of the last century, bearing deadly malice to the memory of Milton, conceived the idea of charging the great poet with plagiarism. He would greatly have preferred denying the value in toto of the "Paradise Lost." But, as this was hopeless, the next best course was to say-Well, let it be as grand as you please, it is none of Milton's. And, contrived in preparation for his own lie to conceal Syria, |