(such as our Brethren call Grand Masters, Wardens, &c.) being distinguished on their High Days with Red Crosses. This is said to be a worthy, tho' they affect to be thought a mystical Society, and promote cheerfully one another's Benefit in a very extraordinary manner, they meeting for better Purposes than Eating and Drinking. or glorying, like Batts, those amphibious Birds of Night, in their Wings of Leather. On this Society have our Moderns, as we have said, endeavor'd to engraft themselves, tho' they know nothing of their most material Constitutions, and are acquainted only with some of their Signs of Probation and Entrance, insomuch that 'tis but of late years (being better inform'd by some kind Rosicrucian) that they knew John the Evangelist to be their right Patron, having before kept for his Day that dedicated to John the Baptist, who, we all know, lived in a Desert, and knew nothing of the Architecture and Mystery which, with so much Plausibility, they impute to the Author of the Revelations

"Such, Sir, was the rise of Free Masonry in England, which will shew how vainly they boast of their Origin from Solomon, from Hiram, from Nimrod, or from Noah's Ark, and even, according to a venerable bard, lately entered among them, from Pandemonium, the Capital of the Infernal Regions, in Milton, in which case we will leave it to his new Brethren to judge who must be the first Grand Master. Yours, &c, A. Z."

I do not think much of the historical value of this account, but in one point it seems to be of greater interest-I mean the pretended influence of the so-called Rosicrucians on Freemasonry. Connecting our account on this point with Samber's preface to his “ Long Livers" with the preface to "The Secret History of the Freemasons" (London. 1724 and 1725), and with Bro. Oakly's speech of 1728, we are inclined to agree that during the decade from 1720 to 1730, a kind of Rosicrucian or Hermetic influence must have taken place in the Lodges of London; and there are, indeed, some things in the ritual and terminology of Masonry, after 1730, that cannot be derived at all from Operative Lodges, but are taken from the works of Rosicrucians and Cabbalists. In all cases it is of some importance to have a new proof that at that period people believed in this influence, and that Freemasons themselves boasted of their connection with Rosicrucians. DR. W. BEGEMANN.

Rostock, Mecklenburg, Germany.

Vol. 67.-No. 5.-2.

די

Notes on the Early Minute Book of the Premier Grand
Lodge of England.

A recent visit to Grand Lodge gave me opportunity to examine, more critically and in detail, the contents of the earliest Minute Book, now known as volume I., which commences in 1723. Some of the particulars I gleaned will be, I trust, of sufficient interest for publication.

One naturally regrets the absence of any authentic records prior
to 1723.
I have little doubt, however, that minutes of the prc-
ceedings and lists of Lodges were kept in some form previous to
those we now possess, but they have all disappeared. The Minutes
commence with a record of the Assembly and Feast held at Mer-
chant Taylors' Hall, on Monday June 24th, 1723, and are followed
by the proceedings of the subsequent Quarterly Communications.
But at the commencement of the volume, and prior to the recorded
minutes, there are two lists of Lodges to which I would refer. The
first commences thus :—

"This Manuscript was begun on the 25th November, 1723.
"The Rt. Honble. Francis, Earl of Dalkeith, Grand Ma'.
"Bro. John Theophilus Desaguliers, Deputy Grand Ma'.
"Francis Sorell, Esq., Grand Wardens.

Esq.,}

"Mr. John Senex,

"A list of the Regular Constituted Lodges, together with the names of the Masters, Wardens, and Members of each lodge." Then follow the names of 52 taverns or houses where the Lodges. met, arranged as a register, or in ledger form, two Lodges to a page. This list, therefore, contains one Lodge more than is noted in the engraved list of 1723, which ends with "Blue Posts, near Middle Row, Holborn," the manuscript list having, after "The Blew Posts in Holborne," a Lodge at "The Red Lyon in Richmond, in Surry."

It is, therefore, manifest that, as the Lodge at the Blue Posts in Holborn, which subsequently was numbered 27, bears date 27th March, 1724, the engraved list must be one of 1723-24, and that the manuscript received several additions after the date when it was commenced, viz., 25th November, 1723. To 36 of these 52 Lodges the names of members are subjoined, the other 16 not having any members registered.

Immediately following the foregoing list, and still previous to the entry of the regular minutes (which commence in 1723) is List No. 2.

"A List of the Regular Constituted Lodges, together with the names of the Masters and Wardens and members of each Lodge, as by Account deliver'd at a Quarterly Communication held 27th November, 1725."

This list is also entered in ledger form, but unlike its predecessor has THREE Lodges to each page [not two, as stated in Bro. Gould's valuable "Four Old Lodges," p. 49] with the exception of "The Horn at Westminster," which, from its having 71 members, required two columns.

*

It contains all the Lodges enumerated in the Engraved List of 1725, second edition, except the 30th on that List, "Ship behind ye Royal Exchange," which is omitted or dropped from the Manuscript List. It comprises, however, eight other Lodges not included in the Engraved List, viz

"Bell Tavern, Nicholas Lane.

"Cock and Bottle in Little Britain. 7th January, 1725. [35] "East India Arms at Gosport, Mr. Timothy Raggett. Febry., 1826.

[34]

[48]

Naggs head and Star in Carmarthen, South Wales.
June, 1727.

King's head in Salford near Manchester.

[49] "Castle and Leg in Holbourn.

[51] "Green Lettice Brownloe Street, Holbourn.

[52] "Wool Pack, in the Town of Warwick."

27

9

The last four names are in a different handwriting to the former part of the List, and it is very clear that these Lodges were added after the original list was transcribed. The dates given above (two of which are misprinted in "Four Old Lodges") may indicate the time of entry in this book, for they cannot mean the dates of constitution, inasmuch as to the Lodge at Carmarthen is added this significant note:-"This Lodge was first constituted by those five

*vide Masonic Records," p. 5.

†The first two of these I have not yet been able to identify, but hope to do so. The numbers I have prefixed to the other six are those which they subsesequently had in 1729.

Gent. [viz., Emanuell Bowen, Edward Oakley, Rice Davis, Henry Wilson and William Lloyd] by deputation given by his Grace the Duke of Richmond, then Grand Mar., to the said Mr. Emanuell Bowen." The Duke of Richmond having been Grand Master only from the 24th June, 1724, until 27th December, 1725, it necessarily follows that the 9th June, 1727, could not be the date of constitution of this Lodge at Carmarthen. In this Second List, as in the former, the names of members are given, but to a greater extent, as only four Lodges out of 77 have no names recorded.

After these two lists we arrive at the Minutes proper, commencing, as I have said, with 24th June, 1723, and terminating with 17th March, 173, the minutes subsequent to that date being transcribed in what is designated the new "Large folio Book of the finest writing paper for the records of the Grand Lodge, richly bound in Turkey, and gilded; on the frontispiece in vellum, the Arms of Norfolk displayed, with a Latin inscription of his titles, and at the end the Arms of Masonry likewise amply displayed and illuminated "— (Const. 1784, pp. 223-24). As the first Book was not then required. for the entry of the Minutes. it was used for the insertion of a Third List of Lodges which bears this heading :

"List of the Names of the Members of all the regular Lodges as they were returned in the year 1730. The Rt. Honble. Thomas, Lord Lovell, being then GRAND MASTER.

"And

"The Minutes and proceedings of the Grand Lodge were then begun to be entered in the New Book, which was presented by His Grace, Thos. Duke of Norfolk, the preceding Grand Master."

Then follow the names of the Taverns or Houses at which the Lodges were held, each Lodge, in this case, having an ENTIRE PAGE to itself, the "Horn Tavern in Westminster," without any names, having two whole pages.

Although this list is said to be of the year 1730, yet as it was compiled when Lord Lovell was Grand Master, it must have been commenced in 1731 at the earliest, for that nobleman was not pro. posed as Grand Master until 17th March, 1731, (173 Old Style), and he was elected and proclaimed on the 27th of the same month (1731). The List, moreover, is entered in the Volume after the Minutes of the 17th March, 173}, and hence it could not have been earlier than that period. It is very probable that the date hitherto

assigned to this List [1730-32] is wrong, in consequence of a misinterpretation of the method of denoting the "Old Style" of date; a proper allowance not having been made for that style of Chronology.

In this Third List 102 Lodges are noted, but only 54 of them contain the names of members. There are three pages entirely blank, two of them corresponding to the positions of numbers 42 and 67 on the 1729 list, whilst after number 63 a page seems to have been left for the insertion of additional members' names, sixtyfour of whom are registered under that Lodge. The list terminates with the Lodge at the "Virgins' Inn in Derby," and then follow 139 blank pages, the Volume concluding with a list of Grand Masters and Deputy Grand Masters from 1717 to 1744.

To this Third List are prefixed the numbers of the Lodges, writ ten in pencil on each page, and corresponding with the numbers on the Engraved List of 1729, but I think these were added at a very much later period. The Minute book contains no list with Lodge numbers, and their absence has proved a source of inconvenience, and in some cases, of considerable perplexity. In saying this, I am well aware that numbers are prefixed to the Lodges represented as attending Grand Lodge on several occasions; in fact. out of fourteen meetings recorded between 19th December, 1727, and 14th May, 1731, inclusive (when this peculiarity ceases altogether), the Lodges are in eleven instances numbered down in consecutive order, as in a catalogue, but these figures certainly do not represent the actual numbers assigned to or borne by the Lodges as indicative of their seniority or position, but in every case. they simply indicate the total number of Lodges in attendance, irrespective of their order of constitution or precedence, as well as of any distinctive numbering; the first positive enumeration of which we have any authentic evidence, being in the Engraved List of 1729.

That this Third List is not entirely of the year 1731, when it appears to have been commenced, is evident from the fact that it contains Lodges down to September, 1732. The entries are, however, all in the same handwriting, but a careful inspection convinced me that, in several instances, the lists of members received additions after the first or original entry; and there are three cases where the removal from one place to another has been noted by the same hand, but of course at a later period.