ASHMOLE, ELIAS, a celebrated antiquarian, was born at Litchfield in 1617. After receiving his educa tion in the country, he went to London, where he prose cuted his studies, and was articled as an attorney. At the commencement of the civil war he entered into the army, and served in the ordnance department, both at Oxford and Worcester. During his residence at Ox ford, he enrolled himself in Brazen-nose college, and prosecuted with ardour the study of mathematics, natu ral philosophy, and astrology.
In the year 1646, Mr Ashmole, along with colonel Mainwaring, was admitted into the society of free ma sons at Warrington, (Ashmole's Diary, p. 15,) which Dr Robison (Proofs of a Conspiracy, p. 21,) maintains is the first distinct and unequivocal instance of a person being admitted into the fraternity who was not an archi tect by profession. This, however, is not the case ; for it appears from the minutes of St Mary's chapel, Edin burgh, which we have consulted, that Thomas Boswell, Esq. of Auchinleck, was made a warden of that lodge in the year 1600, and that the Hon. Robert Moray, quarter-master-general to the army in Scotland, was created a master mason in 1641. Mr Ashmole seems to have put a high value upon the mark of distinction conferred upon him by the free masons, and endeavoured to requite the favour, by a diligent enquiry into the ori gin and history of the fraternity.* At the surrender of Worcester, Ashmole came to London, and became acquainted with Lilly, Moore, and Booker, the famous astrologers of these times. In 1649, he was married, for the second time, to a rich widow in Berkshire, and removing with her to London, his house became a favourite lounge for all the alchemists and astrologers of the capital. Having been initiated into the mysteries of alchemy during his stay in Berkshire, he sheaved his zeal for that study, by publishing a trea tise on alchemy under a feigned name ; another by an anonymous author; and a collection of the manuscript works of English chemists, which appeared in 1652, under the title of Theatrunz Cliymicum Britannicum. Satiated, as it would seem, by these unprofitable re searches, Ashmole now dedicated the whole of his lei sure to the study of antiquity, and acquired great repu tation by his first work on this subject, in 1672, entitled, " The Institutions, Laws, and Ceremonies of the most AsiA, one of the four quarters or great divisions into which geographers have divided the earth. In extent of surface it is inferior to America, but surpasses all the other divisions in the antiquity of its population, the beauty of its climate, the richness of its soil, and in its luxuriant and delicious productions. In the career of
political importance, Europe, though later in starting, b.
has now left Asia far behind ; but in an historical and philosophical point of view, this is still the most inte resting portion of the globe. Here were transacted the most important events both of sacred history and of profane. Here the human race first made their appear ance. This was the theatre of their earliest achieve ments; the grand centre from which population, sci ence, and all the arts of civilized life, have gradually diffused themselves over the other regions of the world.
Asia forms with Europe, from which it is separated only by an imaginary line, one vast continent, which is connected with the continent of Africa by a neck of land about 60 miles over, and has lately been discovered to be separated in the north eastern extremity from the new continent of America by a tract of about only 40 miles in breadth. The western limits of Asia, there fore, are partly arbitrary, but are now generally under stood by geographers to proceed advancing from north to south along the Uralian chain of mountains, the small river Karporka. the great river Don, the Black Sea, and the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, which are the boundaries between this continent and Europe; and af terwards across the isthmus of Suez, and down the Red Sea or Arabian Gulf, by which it is separated from Africa. On the south it is bounded by the great Indian Ocean, under a variety of names, derived from the dif ferent parts of the Asiatic coast washed by its waters. Its boundary on the east is the Pacific Ocean, under the names of the Chinese Sea, the Yellow Sea, the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Kamsehatka, &c. And the whole of its northern side is bounded by the Arctic Ocean, form ing obscure gulfs and promontories, of which little knowledge has yet been obtained, and which can never be of great importance to mankind. The continent of Asia is thus situated between the 26° and the of longitude east from Greenwich, and between the 2° and 77° of northern latitude. It extends in length from the Dardanelles to Bhering's Straits, about 7583 British miles ; and in breadth, from the southern cape of the pe ninsula of Malacca to the most northern parts of Siberia, about 5250.