TO THE LEARNED OF EUROPE TO THE HEADS OF ITS SEVERAL UNIVERSITIES TO THE TEACHERS OF RELIGION AND THE LOVERS OF HISTORY MORE ESPECIALLY TO THE ALIBENISTIC ORDER OF FREEMASONS TO THE FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY TO THE FELLOWS OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES TO THE EDITORS OF THE ARCHÆOLOGIA SCOTICA TO THE COMMITTEES OF THE SOCIETIES FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL AND THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE AND TO THE COURT OF THE HONOURABLE THE EAST INDIA COMPANY THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED AS A NOVEL EXPOSITION OF LITERARY INQUIRIES IN WHICH THEY ARE SEVERALLY INTERESTED AND AS AN INTIMATION OF RESPECT FROM THE AUTHOR PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION In _Fraser’s Magazine_ for the month just expired, there has appeared an article headed the “Arcana of Freemasonry,” which will save me the trouble of an introductory dissertation. The style is quaint, but that will be overlooked; its author is evidently a true mason and a good man; and, initiated as he is in all the fundamentals of his fraternity, he will be the more ready to recognise the truth of my disclosures, as well as to admit the originality of the proofs which I adduce. To him, therefore, whoever he is, do I with confidence refer. “In the spirit of the mighty dead,” says he, “the great ones of the earth, that seem ever and anon to look down through the clouds of this murky atmosphere and to beckon us heavenward, nothing strikes more keenly, in our conviction, than that passion for divine truth which burned unquenchably within them. With what hallowed devotion they worshipped it, with what intense aspirations they loved it, we must remember but too painfully, when we converse with men as they are, and read the writings they applaud. “Yes--it must be so! The first and noblest object to which the ambition of man can aspire is the discovery and propagation of truth, on which the felicity of all created thinkers absolutely depends; and, fortunately, the glory of its discovery is nothing superior to the joy of its communication. And therefore have the finest and freest souls, that have caught the brightest glimpses of truth’s eternal radiation, ever most earnestly sought to lead their brethren and kindred to the same difficult and solitary height from which they themselves first witnessed the dawnings of the prophetic dayspring.