haupt, and dispersed about six years since, affords a modern proof of the same assertion. It was founded on masonic principles, and its chief members were freemasons of the strict observance. The original views of that secret association were to dispel the dark clouds of superstition and ignorance, which still obscure the horizon of that and many other Roman Catholic countries, to protect and to assist virtue and merit, to see the places of public trust occupied by persons of known and tried abilities and rectitude, and to destroy the baneful family influence which distributes posts of the highest consequence to subjects devoid of all merit, save what they derive from their noble parentage or the weight of their purse. The general blissful consequences such an association promised to produce, the alluring prospects of promotion, the veil of masonic mysteriousness, the hope of attaining higher knowledge, held out by the secret agents of the society, were powerful al-lurements,
