kings should keep at a great distance." This passage is of particular
interest as showing that Bacon recognized the divergence between the
ancient secret tradition descending from Moses and the perverted Jewish
Cabala of the Rabbis, and that he was perfectly aware of the tendency
even among the best of Jews to turn the former to the advantage of the
Messianic dreams.

Mrs. Pott, who in her _Francis Bacon and his Secret Society_ sets out to
prove that Bacon was the founder of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry,
ignores all the previous history of the secret tradition. Bacon was not
the originator but the inheritor of the ideas on which both these
societies were founded. And the further contention that Bacon was at the
same time the author of the greatest dramas in the English language and
of _The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosengreutz_ is manifestly
absurd. Nevertheless, Bacon's influence amongst the Rosicrucians is
apparent; Heydon's _Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians_ is in fact a
mere plagiarism of Bacon's _New Atlantis_.

Mrs. Pott seems to imagine that by proclaiming Bacon to have been the
founder or even a member of the Order of Freemasonry she is revealing a
great masonic secret which Freemasons have conspired to keep dark. But
why should the Craft desire to disown so illustrious a progenitor or
seek to conceal his connexion with the Order if any such existed?
Findel, indeed, frankly admits that the _New Atlantis_ contained
unmistakable allusions to Freemasonry and that Bacon contributed to its
final transformation.[325] This was doubtless brought about largely by
the English Rosicrucians who followed after. To suggest then that
Freemasonry originated with the Rosicrucians is to ignore the previous
history of the secret tradition. Rosicrucianism was not the beginning
but a link in the long chain connecting Freemasonry with far earlier
secret associations. The resemblance between the two Orders admits of no
denial. Thus Yarker writes: "The symbolic tracing of the Rosicrucians
was a Square Temple approached by seven steps ... here also we find the
two pillars of Hermes, the five-pointed star, sun and moon, compasses,
square and triangle." Yarker further observes that "even Wren was more
or less a student of Hermeticism, and if we had a full list of
Freemasons and Rosicrucians we should probably be surprised at the
numbers who belonged to both systems."[326]

Professor Buhle emphatically states that "Freemaso