The History Of Freemasonry.

THE HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY .

( Continued from page 307 . ) IN the second part of our examination of Bro . Gould's theory about Wren , we remarked that for every conjecture he might feel disposed to raise in its favour , it would probably not be very difficult to suggest another

which might be made " to tell with equal , or almost equal , effect " against it . Here , for instance , is another which may be added to the list of the suggestions we have already offered against Bro . Gould . Wren died on the 25 th February 1723 , and the Postboy for Fehrury 26—28 contains

an obituary notice of him , Avhile the same journal for March 2—5 , in speaking of his interment , designates him " that worthy Free Mason ; " the British Journal of the 9 th March following suit and applying a similar designanation to Wren . But , says Bvo . Gould , " It will be

observed that the journal announcing , in the first instance , that Wren was a ' Fremason / bad been previously selected as the advertising medium through which to recommend the sale of the ' Book of Constitutions , ' and it is hardly to be wondered at that the editor of the Postboy should have

deemed a title so lavishly bestowed by Dr . Anderson upon the persons and personages of whom he had occasion to speak , including Inigo Jones , a predecessor of Wren in the office of Surveyor General , would be fitly applied to designate the great man whose funeral obsequies he was

announcing . In other words , we are particularly invited to reject the evidence of the Postboy—so far as its statements may be held to possess any value—because ib chanced to have been selected as the medium for advertising the " Book of Constitutions" of Freemasonry . We have but

to imagine ourselves living a century and a-half hence and the Bro . Gould of that day dispassionately suggesting that some statement made by the FREEMASON ' CHRONICLE or Freemason about a contemporaneous event in Freemasonry must be looked at askance or rejected because those

organs ' had been previously selected as the advertising media " for recommending the sale of the revised " Book of Constitutions " of 1883 , in order that we may be in a position to appreciate the full significance of the remark contained in the passage we have just quoted . In 1723 there was no

Masonic Press , but the Postboy , because it took an interest in Masonic doings , or for some other equally cogent reason , appears to have been selected as a medium for making known to the world generally the existence of our "Book of Constitutions . " Argal , argues Bro . Gould , any

statements it may make about Freemasonry must be summarily dismissed , the other organs of the Press which contain no such statements , aud were not chosen as advertising media for recommending the sale of the " Book of Constitutions " being infinitely more authoritative , and therefore more

trustworth y . It must in fairness be added , that Bro . would attaches no great importance to this argument he has deduced from the evidence , or want of evidence , of contemporary journals , but we who have to examine his theory not onl y as a whole , but in its several parts , are iam

to confess that the more we look at the extreme "ifelicit y of this proposition—that the evidence of the ostboy must be rejected , because it was the chosen medium tor advertising the "Book of Constitutions "—the more amazed are we that any man in his senses could have had the hardihood to formulate it . '

The History Of Freemasonry.

As Bro . Gould advances in his argument , we find hi hostility to tho theory of Wren having been a Freemason becomes more and more pronounced . In considering the evidence afforded by the " Parentalia , " Bro . Gould expresses it as his opinion that " Ames ' s Labours " in

connection with it " were strictly of an editorial character , and that the actual writer or compiler was Christopher Wren , only son of the architect . " He also notes as a consequence that the passage , at page 306 in the said " Parentalia , " expresses " the opinion of the great architect ,

as recorded by his son , " the Freemasons not being alluded to " at first hand " by Sir Christopher , while the only mention of them is to be found at p 292 , where the last stone of St . Paul's Cathedral is said to have been laid " by the Hands of the Surveyor ' s son , Christopher Wren , ' deputed

by his Father , in the Presence of that excellent Artificer Mr . Strong , his Son , and other Free and Accepted Masons , chiefly employed in the Execution of the Work . " Bro . Gould then proceeds to argue that " if Sir'Christopher was ever admitted into the Society of

Freemasonswhether we fix the event according to the earlier date given by Dr . Anderson , or the later one of John Aubrey , is immaterial—his son Christopher must have known of it . Moreover , the son , " elected a Fellow of the Royal Society iu 1693 , at the early age of eighteen , though not admitted

until 1698 , must have frequently met Dr . Plot , who was on very intimate terms with his father ; and it is quite within the limits of probability that he was also personally acquainted with both Ashmole and Aubrey . At all events it may be assumed that he was familiar with the writings

of these three antiquaries , the reference to the elder Wren being so frequent " that without doubt Ashmole ' s ' Diary ' and ' Antiquities of Berkshire' and Aubrey ' s * Natural History of Surrey '—all published , it must be recollected , before 1720—were read with great interest by the

architect's family . " Then if we admit the possibility of Sir Christopher having been a Freemason " the entries in the ' Diary' and the learned speculations in regard to the origin of the Society prefixed to the ' Antiquities of Berkshire ' must ( on the supposition above alluded to ) have

necessarily led to his having expressed agreement or disagreement with the remarks of his friend Plot in 1686 , and it may also be as safely inferred that the statements in Ashmole ' s work ( 1719 ) would have been minutely criticised in connection , it may well have been , with the

proceedings of the Grand Lodge of England , then just two years established . " We have no objection to concede the reasonableness of these inferences or suggestions , but'it

seems scarcely necessary that we should point out to Bro . Gould that inferences and suggestions , however reasonable they may be , are not evidence , any more than arguments are facts . The absence from the " Parentalia" of such

remarks in criticism of Freemasonry , or of what some of his friends had said about Freemasonry , as we might reasonably have expected to find in the son ' s memoirs of Christopher Wren the architect will not go so far as to disprove that the architect was a Freemason . For instance

—though the case is not quite on all fours with that of Wren—we believe there is evidence in existence that the late Duke of Wellington , when he wa 3 the Hon . A . Wesley

—the name was afterwards changed into Wellesley—was initiated into Freemasonry in an Irish Lodge . But though some members of his Grace ' s family and very many of his friends were Freemasons while some among them