Page 176 - Foundations

magnificently when so viewed.
[Source: Letters of Miss Frances Rolleston of Keswick, Caroline Dent]

This excitement of Miss Rolleston’s was exhibited in this letter more than three decades before she
finally published the first edition of Mazzaroth. She had largely completed her study of the subject
by 1840, but was prevented by her financial situation from publishing the book until near the end of
her life in the early 1860s. She likely would have had the funds available, except that she was quite
generous in giving alms to the needy whenever she was able.

From 1840 to the end of her life she continued to refine and perfect her material on Mazzaroth, a fact
which is very evident from her correspondence that is preserved to this day. Miss Rolleston’s
presentation of the matter was convincing to many who were lovers of truth, including Joseph Seiss
and Ethelbert Bullinger. Both of these men confessed the benefit they derived from Miss Rolleston’s
labors. Joseph Seiss lived during the same time as Frances Rolleston, though his book does not
indicate that he knew her personally. He writes:

A more valuable aid to the study of the subject as treated in this volume is Frances Rolleston’s
“Mazzaroth: Or, the Constellations” - a book from an authoress of great linguistic and general
literary attainments, whom Providence rarely favored for the collection of important facts and
materials, particularly as respects the ancient stellar nomenclature. The tables drawn up by Ulugh
Beigh, the Tartar prince and astronomer, about A.D. 1420, giving Arabian astronomy as it had come
down to his time, with the ancient Coptic and Egyptian names, likewise the much earlier
presentations, made about A.D. 850 by Albumazer, the great Arab astronomer of the Caliphs of
Grenada, and Aben Ezra’s commentaries on the same, are, to a considerable extent, reproduced in
her book. Facsimilies of the Dendera and Esne Zodiacs are also given in the last edition (1875) of
her work. And from her tables and references the writer of these Lectures was helped to some of his
best information, without which this book could hardly have become what it is.
[Source: Preface to The Gospel in the Stars, Joseph A. Seiss]

Bullinger similarly declares his reliance upon the work of Frances Rolleston.

Some years ago it was my privilege to enjoy the acquaintance of Miss Frances Rolleston, of Keswick,
and to carry on a correspondence with her with respect to her work, “Mazzaroth or, the
Constellations.” She was the first to create an interest in this important subject. Since then Dr.
Joseph A. Seiss, of Philadelphia, has endeavored to popularize her work on the other side of the
Atlantic; and brief references have been made to the subject in such books as “Moses and Geology,”
by Dr. Kinns, and in “Primeval Man”; but it was felt, for many reasons, that it was desirable to make
another effort to set forth, in a more complete form, the witness of the stars to prophetic truth, so
necessary in these last days.

To the late Miss Rolleston, however, belongs the honor of collecting a mass of information bearing
on this subject; but, published as it was, chiefly in the form of notes, unarranged and unindexed, it
was suited only for, but was most valuable to, the student. It was she who performed the drudgery of
collecting the facts presented by Albumazer, the Arab astronomer to the Caliphs of Grenada, AD 850;
and the Tables drawn up by Ulugh Beigh, the Tartar prince and astronomer, about AD 1450, who