are told that the eldest son of Adam built a city; Nimrod the mighty Tower of Babel; and the Egyptians their imperishable Pyramids, we know little or nothing about the details of Masonry proper, or, in other words, operative Masonry, till the construction of the Temple at Jerusalem, respecting which our archives contain an abundance of traditions, which, sooth to say, are, few of them, borne out by the evidence of accredited history, although they form a portion of our claims to public credence as an ancient institution. Who, at the present day, believes the incidents which form the staple of the Mark and Third Degrees to be historically true? Our traditions speak of Lodges and degrees, of which all authentic records, both sacred and profane, are silent, until the arrival

of a period comparatively modern. Even the members of the COLLEGIE FABRORUM, or societies of Operative Masons in Italy, who are accounted, by our historians, the genuine descendants of Solomon's workmen, although associated as a Fraternity, are never supposed to have been arranged into Lodges and degrees.

It is certain, however, that amongst such a vast congregation of operatives as were necessarily gathered together at the building of magnificent edifices, order and regularity could alone be preserved and subordination ensured by some such expedient as a division into classes, each under a lawfully appointed and responsible head or Master, who was accountable to the chief architect for the correct conduct and good behaviour of his company. These Masons are denominated by the authors of Decem Scriptores,

ARTIFICES, and consisted naturally of masters or overseers, skilled craftsmen, and serving men or apprentices.

The ancient Charges of Euclid, teste Noorthouck, direct that "the workmen should ordain the wisest of them to be the master of the work, and neither for love nor lineage, riches or favour, to set another that hath but little cunning to be master of the Lord's work; whereby the Lord should be evil served and they ashamed; and also that they should call the governor of the work MASTER in (or during) the time that they should work with him."1

It will be observed that in the above paragraph the Magister operis is mentioned only as a grade of rank, and not as being the incumbent of a separate and superior degree of Masonry, for the distinctive title was strictly limited to the time the craftsmen under his orders work with him; for at the expiration of that period he was no longer entitled to the distinction of a master of the work. He was, in fact, only an operative Fellow-craft like themselves, although entrusted with the government until the building was completed, during which period only he was to be distinguished by that honorary title. Indeed the ancient Master Masons mentioned by writers on ecclesiastical architecture were the talented craftsmen who had been constituted overseers of their respective works; for to none others could the details. be safely entrusted. Our present Third Degree is not architectural, but traditionary, historical, and legen

1 Noorth. Const., p. 47.

dary; its traditions being unfortunately hyperbolical, its history apocryphal, and its legends fabulous; and, therefore, if it had been in existence at that period, it would have conferred no accession of scientific knowledge on those celebrated men.

LECTURE XXXVI.

ORIGIN OF DEGREES IN MASONRY.

"The first Master Mason whose works are extant in England, and his name authenticated, is William of Sens, who was assisted and succeeded by William the Englishman, in the completion of the choir of Canterbury Cathedral, in the year 1179. At the commencement of the next century we may consider the fraternity to have been consolidated in this kingdom, as it had been for some years previously both in Germany and France."-DALLAWAY.

We learn from accredited history that Master Masons and Craftsmen (Magistri et OPIFICES) first appeared in France about the eighth century of Christianity; and we find General Assemblies, and, probably, private Confraternities, which we now call Lodges, recognized in England by Athelstan, who founded a Grand Lodge or General Assembly at York, and constituted his brother Edwin its Grand Master. But in his Constitutions we find no allusion to distinctive degrees, for the society was strictly operative, although its Charges and moral Lecture contain rules of behaviour for the observance of the workmen, both as Christians and artisans, during the hours of labour and refreshment, as well as at church and sacrament, all of which were stringently enforced.

These Constitutions formed the basis on which our present laws were constructed, but they afford no hint to direct our researches into the existence of

speculative grades amongst the workmen. It is true they mention apprentices and craftsmen; but the former were merely under a preparatory course of training to attain a competent knowledge of the art, which gave them a title to admission into the more secret and recondite branches of the mystery (as every trade was called), and qualified them for employment as certified workmen. It is admitted that "the craft or mystery of architects and operative Masons was involved in secrecy, by which a knowledge of their practice was carefully excluded from the acquirement of all who were not enrolled in their Fraternity."1 These secrets, however, were not legendary, but scientific, including certain arcane mysteries with which the architects of the present day are unacquainted, and consequently they are lost to the world. In the above Constitutions we find it strictly provided by the 14th Article that "the Master shall teach his apprentice the secrets of his trade,' -not of any one particular part or degree, but of the entire Craft.

I readily allow that the overseers called CEMENTARII, literally Ghiblim or Stone Squarers, were sometimes dignified with the honorary title of Master Masons, although profoundly ignorant of the traditional fate of the reputed architect who built the temple at Jerusalem; but they were in reality only Fellow-crafts, nor could they possibly be

1 Dallaway, p. 410.

2 The same writer says that Shakspeare has expressed an accurate idea of a Master Mason by the words chief architect and plotter, i.e. the layer of a foundation.