April 17, 1805.-From a member of the Union Lodge at Elbing-"A Modern? not able to make himself known as an Antient Mason."

Sometimes very interesting points of Masonic Law were discussed or determined at the meetings of this body, e.g.,—

April 16, 1777.-Dermott stated, that "although the Grand Master had full power and authority to make (in his presence, or cause to be made) Masons, when and where he pleased, yet he could not oblidge any Lodge to admit the persons (so made) as members, without the unanimous consent of such Lodge, and if the Grand Master made use of his privelidge in making of Masons, he ought to have made a sufficient number of them to form a Lodge and grant them a warrant, by which means they wou'd be intitled to Registry, otherwise not.” 1

December 18, 1811.—A memorial was read from No. 225, complaining that one of their members had been refused admittance by No. 245, "on the ground of his being a Quaker, when, tho' regularly admitted on his solemn affirmative, the officers of No. 245 contended was a violation of the principles of the Constitution." The stewards were of opinion “that there did not appear any censure to either of the Lodges in what had been done, but upon a question so novel and peculiar, recommended that the final disposal of the matter be postponed till next Steward's Lodge." The subject is not again mentioned in these records, but the minutes of the Royal Gloucester Lodge, No. 130, inform us, that in a letter dated April 13, 1796, the Grand Secretary of the "Ancients" had communicated to that body the decision of Grand Lodge, that a Quaker was ineligible for initiation.2

It has been shown that the laws and customs of the "Ancient" Masons were based on Irish originals. The former, Dermott simply appropriated from Spratt, and the latter he appears to have gradually introduced into the ritual of the Seceders. But the author of Ahiman Rezon" was by no means content to follow in the footsteps of any guide, and boldly struck out a path of his own, which has become the well beaten track traversed by the Freemasons of England. The epithet of "Moderns" which he bestowed on the brethren, under whose laws and customs he had been admitted into Masonry in his native country, was singularly out of place, and had the "journeyman printer" been as well skilled in polemical exercises as the "journeyman painter," the former might have completely turned the tables on the latter. As it was, however, whilst Preston's slip respecting the "dropped forms "3 served as a never-failing text for the denunciations of the Seceders, Dermott's more serious blunders and misstatements have not, up to the present day, been fully refuted. Some of his errors in history and chronology have been already noticed, but it has yet to be pointed out, that by adopting the Regulations-Old and New-of the premier Grand Lodge of England, and at the same time denying the legality of that body, he placed himself on the horns of a dilemma.

This, however, he appears to have entirely overlooked, and in the first edition of his "Ahiman Rezon," " observes with regard to the New Regulations," "they have been wrote at different Times, by Order of the whole Community," an admission which it would have taxed

1 This ruling, slightly amplified, was afterwards inserted by Dermott as a note to "Old Regulation XIII.,” in "Ahiman Rezon," 1778, and the latter has served as the foundation of authority, upon which a strange doctrine called "Making Masons at Sight" has been erected.

2 This ruling is now obsolete.

5 Ante, pp. 36, 287, 456.

3 Ante, p. 456.

6 P. 87.

Ahiman Rezon, 1807, p. 127.

7 Cf. ante, pp. 454, 455.

his resources to explain, had the slip been harped upon with the same wearisome iteration as in the somewhat parallel case of William Preston.

The extent to which Dermott added to, or improved upon, the ceremonies of the Craft, can only form the subject of conjecture, though the balance of probability inclines strongly in one direction.

Whatever customs or ceremonies Dermott had acquired a knowledge of in his Lodge, No. 26, Dublin, we may take for granted that he assisted in passing on-very much as they were taught to him-in this country. The by-laws of the Lodge in question were adopted as a standard for the guidance of the "Ancient" Lodges before Dermott had been two months installed as Grand Secretary. From this source (or from Scotland) must have been derived the office of "deacon," which was unknown to the older Grand Lodge of England until the Union.

The degree of Installed Master, as well as that of the Royal Arch, may have been wrought in the Dublin Lodges before Dermott severed his connection with the Irish capital. But neither of them derived at that time any countenance from the Grand Lodge of Ireland, by which body, indeed, if we may believe a writer in the Freemason's Quarterly Review,2 the proposal of their Grand Master, the Earl of Donoughmore, in 1813, to acknowledge the Royal Arch degree, met with such little favour, that they passed a vote of censure upon him, and were with difficulty restrained from expelling him from Masonry altogether.

It is abundantly clear, however, that during the pendency of the Schism no other degrees were recognised by the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland, than the simple three, authorised by the earliest of Grand Bodies.

1 Cf. ante, p. 441. Deacons are first named in the Minutes of the Seceders on July 13, 1753.

21844, p. 420.

CHAPTER XX.

HISTORY OF THE GRAND LODGE OF ENGLAND-1761-1813.

T is now essential to return to the proceedings of the earlier or original Grand Lodge of England, the narrative of which was interrupted at p. 397, in order that the records of two contemporary bodies might be placed under examination.

We left off at the year 1760, but before proceeding to relate the further events of importance which occurred during the presidency of Lord Aberdour, some remarks of a general character will be offered.

The first lodge to adopt a distinctive title, apart from the sign of the tavern where it met, was the “University" Lodge, No. 74, in 1730. This was followed by the "Grenadiers" Lodge, No. 189, in 1739; after which, the constitution in the latter year of the "Parham," the "Court-House," the "Bakers," and the "Basseterre" Lodges, in the West Indies, led to the usage becoming a more general one. Inasmuch, however, as the "signs of the houses" where the lodges met were shown in the Engraved Lists, these, in some instances at least, must doubtless have been substituted for distinctive titles, in cases even where the latter existed.1 This view is borne out by the list for 1760, wherein, out of 245 lodges, one English lodge only -the last on the roll-No. 245, the Temple Lodge, Bristol, appears with what may be termed in strictness a distinctive name. Nos. 1 and 70 are indeed styled respectively the "West India and American" and the "Steward's" Lodges, but in each case the sign of the tavern is shown, and these designations appear to have merely meant that the former lodge was frequented by one class of persons, and the latter by another. The same remark will hold good as regards the "Scott's Masons' Lodge," No. 115,2 which, according to the Engraved List for 1734, met at the Devil, Temple Bar, in that year.

But although only a single English lodge has a name affixed to it in the list for 1760, no less than twelve lodges in the West Indies, as well as four in Germany, and the same number in Holland, appear with distinctive titles in the same publication. The majority of the West

3

1 Thus the "Grenadiers" and the "Absalom" Lodges, Nos. 110 and 119, are only described in 1760 as meeting at the "King's Arms and Tun, Hyde Park Corner," and the "Bunch of Grapes, Decker St., Hamburgh," respectively. 2 Described in a MS. list of Dr Rawlinson for the year 1733 (circa) as "a Scotch Masons' Lodge," which designation is withheld in the Engraved List for 1736, where the following entry appears opposite the No. 115: "Daniel's Coffee House, Temple Bar." Extinct in 1737.

3 The titles of Nos. 113 ("La Parfaite Union des Étrangers ") and 119 ("Absalom ") are omitted in this list. The former was constituted February 2, 1739, at Lausanne, in the Canton of Berne.

Indian lodges bore saintly appellatives. Those in Germany were the "Union of Angels," Frankfort (1742);1 the "St George," Hamburgh (1743); the "St Michael's," Mecklenburg (1754); and the "Grand Lodge Frederick," Hanover (1755). In Holland there were the lodges of "Orange," Rotterdam, and of "Charity, Peace, and Regularity," at Amsterdam. Other lodges, for example, "Solomon's Lodge," Charles Town, South Carolina (1735), and "Providence Lodge," in Rhode Island (1757), bore distinctive titles before 1760, but in these and many similar cases the later lists are misleading, as both the lodges named were only given places corresponding with their actual seniority, some years after the publication of the list under examination, the former being assigned No. 74, and the latter No. 224, which were filled in the first instance by lodges at Bristol and Santa Croix respectively.

In 1767, the lodge of which the Duke of Beaufort, Grand Master, was a member,2 assumed a distinctive title in lieu of the "sign of the house"-the Sun and Punch Bowl-whereby it had previously been described, and the practice soon became very general. The happy designation bestowed on the "New Lodge at the Horn," may have helped to set the fashion, but at any rate, the "Old Lodge at the Horn" became the "Old Horn Lodge" in 1768. In the same year original No. 3 took the title of the "Lodge of Fortitude," and in 1770 the senior English lodge assumed the now time-honoured designation of the "Lodge of Antiquity."

The lodges were re-numbered in 1740, 1756, 1770, 1781, and 1792, and as the same process was resorted to at the Union (1813), and again in 1832 and 1863, much confusion has been the result, especially when it has been sought to identify lodges of the past century with those still existing in our own. Some of the difficulties of this task have been removed, but the immethodical way in which vacant numbers were allotted during the intervals between the general re-numberings, will always render it a somewhat puzzling undertaking to trace the fortunes of those lodges of bygone days, which are undistinguished from the others, save by numbers and the names of the taverns where they assembled.

The positions on the roll during the numeration of 1756-69 of the lodges at Charlestown and Rhode Island have been already noticed. The former found a place on the roll in the first instance as No. 251, and is described in the Engraved List for 1761 as "Solomon's Lodge, Charles Town, S. Carolina, 1735.” Immediately above it, strange to say, at the Nos. 247-250, are four other South Carolina lodges, stated to have been constituted, the two earliest in 1743 and 1755, and the two latest in 1756 respectively. In the list for the following year, however, a vacant niche was available at the No. 74, and "Solomon's" lodge was accordingly shifted there from its lower position, the lodge immediately below it being described as "No. 75, Savannah, In the Province of Georgia, 1735." In the same way the Nos. 141-143 on the list of 1756 were filled by Minorca lodges up to the year 1766, but in 1768 they were assigned to lodges in Boston and Marblehead (Mass.), and in Newhaven (Connecticut) respectively. At the next change of numbers (1770) the four remaining lodges in South Carolina, misplaced in

1 Constituted, according to the official list, June 17, 1742, but the actual warrant (which is in the French language, and will be printed in the Appendix) bears date February 8, 1743. It is there styled, "fille de notre bonne Loge de l'Union de Londres," and the "Mother Lodge" referred to was apparently No. 87 on the 1740 list, which then met at the "Union Coffee House," in the Haymarket. Lodge "Absalom," at Hamburgh, was of still earlier origin-viz., 1740. It first appeared in the Engraved Lists (as No. 119) in 1756, but dropped out at the re-numbering in 1770, and again found a place on the roll, as No. 506, in 1787.

2 Cf. ante, p. 341, note 3, and post, p. 471.

Also styled "Solomon's Lodge" in later lists. Cf. Freemasons' Chronicle, April 9, 1881.

3 Cf. ante, p. 344.

the official list, were lifted to positions on the roll tallying with their respective seniority. "St John's Lodge," New York, which was first entered in the Engraved List of 1762, was on the same occasion placed-according to the date of its constitution-among the lodges of 1757.

Certificates signed by the Grand Secretary were first issued in 1755, in which year, it may be stated, the practice of "smoaking tobacco" in Grand Lodge during the transaction of business was forbidden, the D.G.M. (Manningham) observing, "that it was not only highly disagreeable to the many not used to it, But it was also an Indecency that should never be suffered in any solemn assembly."

Lodges, more particularly during the first half of the eighteenth century,1 were, in many instances, formed long before they were constituted. The latter ceremony was of a very simple character. Usually it was performed by the Deputy Grand Master in person, and a record of the circumstance, duly attested by the signatures of the grand or acting grand officers, forms, not uncommonly, the first entry in a minute-book. The officers were elected quarterly or half-yearly, the former practice being the more frequent of the two. But one method was substituted for the other, with very little formality, as the following entries attest: March 1, 1762.-" Agreed that every quart'. it be a ballotten for a new Master and Wardens."

December 20, 1762.-"This night it was agreed that Election-night should be every six months." 2

The installation of officers was devoid of the ceremonial observances peculiar to the "Seceders," and though the novelties of one system ultimately penetrated into the other, they were not considered orthodox or regular by brethren of the "Older School" until the somewhat "unconditional surrender" of their Grand Lodge which preceded the Union. In what is now

the "Friendship Lodge," No. 6, we learn from the minutes that, March, 16, 1758, "it being Election Night, the Sen'. Ward". took the Chair; the Jun' Ward" [the] S.W.; y Secretary [the] Jr. W".; and Br. J. Anderson was Elected Secretary." In the "Moira," No. 92, on March 6, 1760," Br Dodsworth, by desire, accepted of the Master's Jewell.”

The services of the "Right Worshipful Master," as the presiding officer was then styled, were frequently retained throughout several elections, whilst in case of illness, or inability to attend the meetings, they were as summarily dispensed with. Thus, in a London lodge, on February 2, 1744, the Master having "declared on the box," being sick, another brother was forthwith elected in his room.4

Wine and tobacco were often supplied in the lodge-room. In one of the country lodges it took several bottles to audit the Treasurer's account, and when that was done, and the balance struck and carried out, it was a common practice to add a postscript of "One bottle more," and deduct that from the balance.5 The following by-law was passed by a London lodge in

1 As late as 1760 a lodge was constituted at Canterbury (No. 253, now extinct), which had met since 1756 (J. R. Hall, Freemasonry in Canterbury, 1880, p. 9).

2 Minutes of the Moira Lodge, No. 92.

* Dec. 19, 1763.-"It being Ellexcion night, Br Garrett whas reallextled has master of this Lodge in Dew forme" (Minutes of the Moira Lodge, No. 92).

4 Minutes of No. 163, now extinct.

5 T. P. Ashley, History of the Royal Cumberland Lodge, Bath, No. 41, p. 25.