Reviews.

fashions of the civilised world since Edward I . and his lovely bride Eleanor found a quite retreat in the Priory of St . John * and the old systems which regulate the affairs of men and nations have been frequently revolutionised since Wat

Tyler and his undisciplined band of patriots made the Priory pass through the ordeal of their insurrectionary fires in 1381 . St . John ' s Gate was not erected to he a mere ornament to the Priory , like the lodge to agentleman ' s hall its great strength and large proportions were well calculated

to enable it to resist a powerful besieging party . As time wore on and the ' muscular Christianity ' of the Knights Templars had become unfashionable , and the Priory , as a religious institution , had ceased to exist , the good old gate was left to battle against time and the innovations of a restless people .

" About the middle of the last century Mr . Cave , the printer and publisher of the Gentleman's Magazine , carried on his business in the apartments of the gate , three of which are of considerable size . After that great egotist and

literary autocrat Dr . Johnson came to London , he found occasional employment at the gate . For some time after coming to town we have reason to believe that he had a hard struggle to keep soul and body together ; and , though lie suffered

much for the importunities of his stomach , his false notions of manly independence were often the means of keeping his dental machinery out of healthy employment . Mr . Cave , who was said to have been a man of kindly feeling , had

occasionally some difficulty in getting the surly self-willed doctor to take the goods the gods had sent him in the shape of food . While at the gate , the doctor ' s life was not all gloom after his old schoolfellow Garrick came to town , though

they were both struggling for a living ; they spent many happy hours together , and as the world with its blank and prizes was all before them , they frequently found comfort in speculating upon their chances in the great lottery of life . It

was in one ofthe rooms of the gate that Garrick submitted his dramatic powers to the critical judgment of his friend . We believe that it was during the time the doctor was engaged in writing for the Gentleman ' s Magazine that he became

acquainted with Goldsmith . " The first number of the Gentleman ' s Magazine was published in 1731 . How long Mr . Cave continued in business at St . John ' s Gate we have not learnt * but when he removed , another change

in the character of the business carried on there took place . The gate-house at the present time , and beyond the memory of the ' olde > t inhabitant , ' has been a licensed place of refreshment . "The late Mr . Benjamin Foster , who occupied

the gatehouse during several years , was a man of considerable talent , and had a decided taste for ancient lore . While acting in the capacity of landlord , he compiled a very interesting history ofthe gate and the Knights of St . John of

Jerusalem . This work is both tastefully and artistically illustrated . He had copies of these illustrations handsomely framed in chronological order , and hung round the walls of his publicroom , and to these were added valuable

drawings and the portraits of many eminent men who were contemporary with the ponderous lexicographer . In this room , too , there is a plain , wood-bottomed armchair , which is still retained as a relic of the doctor .

"St . Johns Gate is not only a landmark between civilisations of a very dissimilar character , but it remains a living memorial of a society whose name and fame hold no smill spice in t ' hepige . s of the world ' s history . Th . gat . * is n . -j- . v kept ' liy

a son-in-law ofthe late Mr . Foster . He is also a man of antiquarian tastes , and has done much to decorate the house with souvenirs of the past . To people with arehxologiiul predilections the interior of thc building will alford no ordinary

treat ; there is certainly no other house in London in which a stranger will find himself surrounded with so many associations of the past history of both the Knights of St . John and their once magnificent and richly-endowed Prion * . "

Altogether , we can safely commend this book as one of the best literary shilling ' s worth wc have sc *„* n fo : * a very long time '

Freemasonry & Israelitism.

FREEMASONRY & ISRAELITISM .

BY BRO . WILLIAM CARPENTER , P . M . & P . Z . 177

XXII . I feel much indebted to an anonymous brother , who , at page 664 of THE FREEMASON of 28 th October , has favoured us

with his thoughts on " The Israelitish Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race . " On a subject so interesting and important , and which , as he observes , "has puzzled the

learned for many generations , " every contribution intended for its elucidation should ' be received with thankfulness , and be read and studied with care . I am , of course ,

gratified to learn that one who has not only given a good deal of attention to the subject , but who has also ransacked libraries and examined works , ancient and

modern , to obtain information thereon , should , in great measure , adopt my conclusions , which have been worked out without the important aids of which he has had the

opportunity of availing himself , not any of them having been within my reach while writing the papers on " Freemasonry and Israelitism . " I have , no doubt , missed

many important points in thc inquiry , both because I have been unable to give the time necessary to the full discussion of thc subject , and because I have , all along , felt

that I was occupying a very large space in THE FREEMASON " , which might reasonably have been claimed by others . But I had not overlooked the point on which our

brother has dwelt in his very interesting paper ; that is , thc completeness of the deportation ofthe Israelitish nation by their Assyrian conquerors . That point presented

itself to my mind at a very early stage of the inquiry , and I made some progress in collecting thc data for estimating thc numbers occupying thc land at the time of thc

final conquest of Samaria . For the reasons already adverted to , however , I put them aside , and assumed what I ought , perhaps , to have attempted to prove . The same

reasons compel me to abstain from making the attempt now ; but a few words on the subject may not be without their use , and I interrupt the regular course of investigation to offer them hero .

Our brother , taking , as I do , " his stand on the Bible , " will permit me to call his attention to the fact , that , not only is the nationalc : \ v )\ . \ v \ t \ - of Israel—that is , such a

deportation of the people as should extinguish the nation , as a nation—threatened as the consequence of their prolonged disobedience to the requirements of the Divine

law , and their addiction to the foul practices of idolatry , but it is also attested by thc pen of the sacred historians . When the wife of Jcreboam went to consult the

prophet Ahijah , as to what should befall the child and hope of the king , the old prophet , looking forward to the time when thc Divine judgment should fall on Israel ,

for going after and making " other gods and molten images , " and casting their covenant God ' behind theirback , " uttered , under

Divine inspiration , as tlie sequel . show . ; , tin ' - ; terrible threat : "The Lord shall smite Israel , as a reed is shaken in the water ; and

Freemasonry & Israelitism.

He shall root up Israel out of this good land , which He gave to their fathers ; and shall scatter them beyond the river , because they have made their groves , provoking the Lord to anger" ( 1 Kings xiv . 15 , 16 ) . No

chosen words could , I think , more explicitly declare- the deportation , not of " the flower of the land " only , but of the nation itself . It would not be necessary that every individual should be carried away , to justify the

interpretation I put upon these words . But it would be necessary that so large a proportion of the nation should be rooted up and carried off , as should utterly extinguish it , as a nation . With this the language used

by the Avriter of the second Book of Kings fully agrees , for , after describing the enormities of which thc people were guilty , " selling themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord , " he says , " Therefore the Lord

was very angry with Israel , and removed them out of His sight . ; there was , none left , but the tribe of Judah only . . . . And thc Lord rejected all thc seed of Israel , and afflicted them , and delivered them into the

hand of spoilers , until he had removed Israel out of His sight , as he had said by all his servants , the prophets . So was Israel carried away out of their own land into Assyria , unto this day" ( chap . xvii . 18-22 ) .

It has been pertinently observed , that the words , " unto this day , " lead to the conclusion , that this portion of thc history was not drawn up until some considerable time

after the destruction of thc kingdom of Samaria—a conjecture which seems fully confirmed by the last verse in the chapter , which thus describes the conduct of the

heathen colonists of Samaria : " Lo , these nations feared thc Lord , and served their graven images , both their children and their children ' s children ; as did their fathers , so did they unto this day" ( vcr . 41 ) . If we

take thc time of three generations , literally , thc statement was probably written in the reign of Josiah ; but if , as is likely , the phrase is used only to summarily describe several generations , it is probable that this

portion of history was compiled after the return from the captivity , and not later than thc days of Ezra and Nehemiah . If so , we have a biblical testimony , says a writer in the Journal of Sacred Literature ( vol . 1 ,

p . 202 ) , later then the return from thc Babylonian captivity , to the important fact , that captive and exiled Israel still resided , as a distinct and separate body from Judah and Benjamin , in the remote lands in which

their fathers had been located by their Assyrian conquerors . It is to be observed , too , that this was the Jewish historical tradition , long after the close of the Scripture canon , for loscphus , in thc eleventh

book of his Jewish History , written about A . D . 93 , says , with reference to thc return from captivity of those who came back with

Zerubbabel : " The entire body of the people of Israel ( the ten tribes ) remained in that country ( beyond the Euphrates ) , ' wherefore there are but two tribes in Asia

and Europe subject to the Romans , while the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates till now , and arc an immense multitude , not to be estimated by numbers . " This sho . vs , at least , the probability of thc opinion , that

the Jewish historical tradition concerning tlie removal of the ten tribes beyond the Euphrates , and their continuance in those eastern regions , as a separate and distinct people from Judah and Benjamin , had

remained unchanged from the day in which the hitter portion ofthe seventeenth chapter ofthe 2 nd Book of Kings was penned , even unto the tini-jofthe Christian era ; or 1 might bring it down to the fourth century , by quoting jcrqme , who says , in his notes on