_Priests of Eleusis_, were chosen from the aristocracy; and to them it was made known that _this revolution was near at hand_; and, also, that there were in the society higher ranks than their own. The fourth class was that of the _prelates_; and to this order, which never exceeded the number of one hundred and sixteen, and comprehended the leading men of the nation, the most unreserved information was given upon all the secrets of the Hetæria; after which they were severally appointed to a particular district, as superintendent of its interests, and as manager of the whole correspondence on its concerns with the Grand Arch. This, the crowning order and key-stone of the society, was reputed to comprehend sixteen "mysterious and illustrious names," amongst which were obscurely whispered those of the Czar, the Crown Prince of Bavaria and of Wurtemburg, of the Hospodar of Wallachia, of Count Capodistria, and some others. The orders of the Grand Arch were written in cipher, and bore a seal having in sixteen compartments the same number of initial letters. The revenue which it commanded must have been considerable; for the lowest member, on his noviciate, was expected to give at least fifty piastres (at this time about two pounds sterling); and those of the higher degrees gave from three hundred to one thousand each. The members communicated with each other, in mixed society, by masonic signs. It cannot be denied that a secret society, with the grand and almost awful purposes of the Hetæria, spite of some taint which it had received in its early stages from the spirit of German mummery, is fitted to fill the imagination, and to command homage from the coldest. Whispers circulating from mouth to mouth of some vast conspiracy mining subterraneously beneath the very feet of their accursed oppressors; whispers of a great deliverer at hand, whose mysterious _Labarum_, or mighty banner of the Cross, was already dimly descried through northern mists, and whose eagles were already scenting the carnage and "savor of death" from innumerable hosts of Moslems; whispers of a revolution which was again to call, as with the trumpet of resurrection, from the grave, the land of Timoleon and Epaminondas; such were the preludings, low and deep, to the tempestuous overture of revolt and patriotic battle which now ran through every nook of Greece, and caused every ear to tingle.