gh once more at those invisible gentlemen
and their fantastic doctrines. Gabriel Naude at that conjuncture brought
out his _Avis a la France sur les Freres de la Rose-croix_, in which he
very successfully exposed the folly of the new sect. This work, though not
well written, was well timed. It quite extinguished the Rosicrucians of
France; and after that year little more was heard of them. Swindlers in
different parts of the country assumed the name at times to cloak their
depredations; and now and then one of them was caught and hanged for his
too great ingenuity in enticing pearls and precious stones from the
pockets of other people into his own, or for passing off lumps of gilded
brass for pure gold, made by the agency of the philosopher's stone. With
these exceptions, oblivion shrouded them.

The doctrine was not confined to a sphere so narrow as France alone; it
still nourished in Germany, and drew many converts in England. The latter
countries produced two great masters in the persons of Jacob Boehmen and
Robert Fludd--pretended philosophers, of whom it is difficult to say which
was the more absurd and extravagant. It would appear that the sect was
divided into two classes--the brothers _Roseae Crucis_, who devoted
themselves to the wonders of this sublunary sphere, and the brothers
_Aureae Crucis_, who were wholly occupied in the contemplation of things
divine. Fludd belonged to the first class, and Boehmen to the second. Fludd
may be called the father of the English Rosicrucians, and as such merits a
conspicuous niche in the temple of Folly.

He was born in the year 1574 at Milgate, in Kent, and was the son of Sir
Thomas Fludd, Treasurer of War to Queen Elizabeth. He was originally
intended for the army; but he was too fond of study, and of a disposition
too quiet and retiring, to shine in that sphere. His father would not
therefore press him to adopt a course of life for which he was unsuited,
and encouraged him in the study of medicine, for which he early manifested
a partiality. At the age of twenty-five he proceeded to the continent; and
being fond of the abstruse, the marvellous, and the incomprehensible, he
became an ardent disciple of the school of Paracelsus, whom he looked upon
as the regenerator not only of medicine, but of philosophy. He remained
six years in Italy, France, and Germany, storing his mind with fantastic
notions, and seeking the society of enthusiasts and visionaries. On his
return to En