Stewards' Lists.

£ 215 , making with the joint list of Bros . Mount Humphries , and Graham , for the R . M . B . I ., of , £ 141 15 s ., a total for the year of some £ 695 . The total for 1 S 8 4 was slightly over £ 646 . SUFFOLK ., With its 21 lodges , has just had the misfortune to lose its popular and respected chief , R . W . Bro . Lord Waveney . Had he been still spared to us , his heart would have rejoiced at the success of his subordinates , his Prov .

G . Sec , Bro . N . Tracy , handing in the substantial amount of 100 guineas as Steward for the Province , while three of the lodges raised further sums making for the whole of Suffolk £ 295 . Last year the returns for the three Festivals together reached £ 690 , while the year previous it gave £ 627 . Considering Suffolk is an agricultural county , these are figures which redound immensely to its credit . Even the hard times wc have had of late have not damped the ardour of our Suffolk brethren .

Seeing that our respected Bro ., General Brownrigg , has undertaken it preside at the Girls' Festival iu May next , it would have surprised no one of

SURREY had been unrepresented on Wednesday , but the zeal of a good Province like this is amazing , and four of its 30 lodges sent up Stewards , the very comfortable total of £ 148 lis . representing the outcome ot their labours . Bro . Terry will the more highly appreciate this contribution , as the claims of the Girls' School , under the circumstances we have stated , are preeminent for the current year .

SUSSEX , having regard to what it did for the Girls' School in May last , when its late lamented Prov . G . Master , Bro . Sir W . VV . Burrell , Bart ., was in the chair , might also have ranged itself among the absentees , its total of £ ' 1850 on that occasion having been no doubt a somewhat exhaustive one . However , il figured moderately at the Boys' Festival the following June , when

one of its 25 lodges , per Bro . E . Broadbridge , sent up a list amounting to 70 guineas , and , on Wednesday , two lodges—the Derwent , No . 40 , Hastings , and the Royal Brunswick , No . 732 , Brighton , between them raised £ 122 ios ., Bro . Russell for the former figuring for £ 70 , and Bro . Bennett with £ 52 ios . for the latter . As regards

WARWICKSHIRE , with its 30 lodges , only one—the Rectitude , No . 502 , of Rugby—appears in the Returns for Wednesday , the total being £ 21 15 s . It is possible the Province may have been holding itself in reserve for a contingency , which , however , has not been realised , but only in this way can we account for the

contributions being on so limited a scale . There is , of course , a good deal of very serious depression in trade in the great hardware county , but the same unfortunate state of things prevails elsewhere . However , let us hope that some of the Birmingham lodges and the Province generally will make a point of helping the Schools—one or both , but the latter for choice—when their respective anniversaries come round .

WORCESTERSHIRE , unlike its more powerful neighbour of Warwickshire , makes a brave appearance , four of its twelve lodges being represented by as many Stewards , Bro . Sir E . A . H . Lechmere , Bart ., M . P ., being one of them , and there are two

others apparently unattached , Bros . A . F . Godson , D . P . G . M ., and VV . B . Williamson . The total of the six lists is £ 271 13 s ., Bro . Sir E . Lechmere ' s being £ 171 iSs . Last year it raised £ 39 6 , and the year before about £ 420 . Well done , Worcestershire ! There now remain only the two Yorkshires , and of these

YORKSHIRE—NORTH AND EAST , was represented by its senior lodge , the H umber , No . 57 , Hull , but Bro . J . Walton's list has not yet been returned . In June last it raised over £ ISI for the Boys ; in May £ 150 for the Girls ; and in February within a fraction

of £ 204 for the Benevolent ; total for the year £ 535 . In 188 4 its total was £ 559 , and in 1883 it showed to even greater advantage , thc sum of the three contributions being £ 920 , of which all but some £ 46 fell to the share of the Boy ' s School . As for its neighbour

WEST YORKSHIRE , the third of our Provinces in point of strength , its 22 Stewards on Wednesday raised amongst them £ 735 , which consorts far better with the character for generosity which the Province enjoys than the more modest £ 144 whicli fell to the lot of this Institution in February of last year . However , the

Girls in the May following received £ iGoS , including the Sir H . Edwards Presentation of 1000 guineas ( £ 1050 ) , and the Boys in June were gladdened with some £ 356 , so that the Province , if it began 1885 on a lower scale than usual , upheld its fame subsequently , and on VVednesday redeemed its shortcoming as regards this Institution with the considerable sum already mentioned .

Review. First Notice.

REVIEW . FIRST NOTICE .

THE HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY . Vol . V . By ROJIERT FREKE GOULD , P . G . S . D . London : Thomas C . Jack , 45 , Ludgate-hill , E . C . 1886 . A glance at the Contents Table of tl is further volume of Bro . Gould ' s great work will serve to show how vast i > the area of which it treats . England from thc Union , Ireland , Scotland , France , Germany , Ike , all receive

their due share of attention , while the origin and merits , or otherwise , of the different Masonic or quasi-Masonic systems which at different epochs since the beginning of last century have sprung into existence and established , or by their votaries are held to have established a claim or claims to be regarded as part and parcel of our ancient Cralt , are considered and discussed at reasonable length and with the most praiseworthy impartiality .

Yet nowhere in the progress of his work is Bro . Gould seen to greater advantage . The task of compressing immense masses of detail within manageable compass has been most successfully accomplished . Nothing seems to have been introduced to which a proper influence is not assignable , nothing overlooked which by any possibility could have changed or modified

the opinions he has felt justified in laying down . Different readers , as they study the successive chapters in this volume , will in all likelihood suggest that greater prominence might have been given to certain events , and lhat to certain others there might have devoted a less anxious scrutiny , if , indeed , it might not have been better to pass them by unnoticed altogether . Yet as each chapter is carefully weighed as a whole , we imagine those proverbially

Review. First Notice.

belter thoughts which follow a first and oftentimes hastily formed impression will decide that the pictures presented by the author are complete in all essentials , the several parts of each in their several elegrees of importance harmonising admirably wilh one another , while , as a rule , each is characterised by a most scrupulous regard for accuracy ,

In the opening chapter of the volume , which is the 2 ist of the History , is traced the progress of the Craft in Em-land from the Union till now . The space occupied is some 27 pages , the period traversed just C 2 years , yet thc story is told far more effectually than if it had been extended through half the volume , and at the end the reader understands clearly and fully how and why it is , and under whose auspices , our Socieiy has attained its present

condition of prosperity . The Unionof the rival Grand Lodges having been effected , the main object of those who brought it about was to render it as nearly as possible indissoluble , and an account of the steps taken to thii end , and by whom , is the author ' s first care . The nature of these steps is pretty well known to our readers , nor need we occupy their time wilh an account of the work done by the several administrative boards that

were established , or the important duties entrusted to the Lodge of Reconciliation in consummating the Union , and establishing a virtual unilormity of work . But the leading part played by certain prominent " Atholl " breihren , and the salutary influence they exercised in the counsels of the United Grand Lodge are not , perhaps , so generally known , and for this very important reason , that their work and

influence have never heretofore received , that we are aware of , that just measure of appreciation to which they are certainly entitled , and which Bro . Gould now , for the first time , so generously bestows upon them . These " Atholl " brethren were Bros , James Perry , James Agur , and Thomas Harper , all three of them Past Deputy Grand Masters , and , as such , not only Masons of the highest repute , but likewise possessing , each one , a

rare experience of the necessities of Masonic government . Preston ' s account of the Union reads almost as if it had been ihe work of the Dukes of Kent and Sussex and the Earl of Moira , the carrying out of the minor details being all that was left to the lesser luminaries in tlie former Grand Lodges . Bro . Gould is more just , and the picture he presents is , on that account , quite different from Preston ' s . He bestows unstinted praise , for the

part he played in the great work , on the Duke of Sussex , to whom , he tells us , " is due the singular merit of cementing , as well as promoting , the Union of the two great divisions of English Freemasonry . " But he is careful , also , to point out , that the Duke " was very loyally supported by the leading figures on the * Atholl' side . These were Perry , Agar , and Harper , Past Deputy Grand Masters , who were very regular in their attendance at

Grand Lodge , and at its Boards and Committees . " And , having briefly described the extent of their influence among the "Ancients , " he proceeds : " VVe may assume , then , that the example set by these worthies of acting up to the spirit as well as up to the letter of the Treaty ol L nion , was not thrown away upon the rank and file of their party . The most captious ' Ancient' could hardly allege that the government of the Cralt was

conducted on modern lines , when three former ' Atholl Deputies ' were present at nearly every meeting ol Grand Lodge , and which was , as often as not , presided over by one of them . Agar , moreover , was the first President of the Board of General Purposes , and among his colleagues were Perry and Harper . " There is more to the same purpose , but we have quoted enough to show that our author has a just perception of the work done , and the

influence excercised , by these leading " Atholl " worthies in consummating the act of union . He even suggests , and the suggestion is not improbable , that some disputes which arose during the last decade of the Duke of Sussex ' s administration " might have been altogether averted if the Grand Master had still had by his side such faithful and judicious counsellors " as Perry , Agar , and Harper .

Having described at some length the services rendered by the three Atholl Deputies to the Duke of Sussex in cementing the Union , Bro . Gould devotes a little space to the work achieved by the Lodge of Reconciliation , the early Constitution of the Board of General Purposes , and the brethren who had the chief hand in establishing our two famous Schools of Masonic teaching , the Stability and the Emulation Lodge of Improvement .

A knowledge of these and kindred matters is almost indispensable to a right understanding of the measures adopted for the consolidation of the two Societies . Previous writers have troubled themselves very little about what , in their opinion , no doubt , were questions of subsidiary importance , but , as we have already indicated , Bro . Gould has taken a broader and juster view of the circumstances , and the student

of our history may now learn , what he never could have learned from Preston and other writers , that the Union was by no means the one-sided arrangement it has been described as heretofore , and that the "Ancients" exercised a very decided influence in settling , so far as they could be settled at the time , the future destinies of our United Grand Lodge . There is only one little difficulty in which we find ourselves landed in j studying the particulars of this work of organization . Peter Gilkes's

death ; is mentioned as having taken place in December , 1833 , while the Emulation Lodge of Improvement was founded in 1836 , Gilkes , according to one of the versions referred to by the author , offering il " his great and most violent opposition ; " while , according to the other version , to which he gives the preference , the said brother joined it " about twelve months afterwards , " that is , in the course of 1 S 37 . From this it appears that Gilkes joined the Emulation Lodge of Improvement some three years after his death .

Among other events referred to are the Jewish difficulty—which occurred firstly , in 1845 , ar , d again , in 1877 , between our Grand Lodge and the Berlin Grand Lodges , and the course pursued by our Grand Lodye in 18 5 6 , and subsequently with reference to the Mark Degree . In both these cases Bro . Gould is content to play the part of a mere annalist , that is , he tells us what happened , but studiously refrains from passing any opinion on the

merits or otherwise of the policy that was adopted . In this we think he has shown a certain want of judgment . From the annalist we expect nothing more than a narration of facts ; to the historian we look for guidance in all matters of difficulty and delicacy , and here , though an important principle was involved in both instances , we look for that guidance in vain . We are the less able to appreciate this silence , as neither of the events specified

appears to us to come among the cases provided for at p . iS , " where the accuracy of the historian becomes subject to the criticism of actors in the events he recounts . " Subject , however , to this one qualification we fail to see how Bro . Gould could have given us a clearer or more concise sketch of Freemasonry in this country during the Co and odd years that have elapsed since the Union of the " Ancient" and " Modern " Grand Lodges .