Notes On Literature, Science And Art.

eat at these places , they tell yon point blank that they can't , or they won't do it ; and if they do comply with your request , you get black looks for a dessert , when they find you don ' t take any beer . " It has always seemed to me but' fair lay to the true "Licensed Victuallers "

p , who really make their houses into inns for travellers , where bed and board may be procured with that home-like comfort which Washington Irving so well describes , that the mere drunkeries should be deprived of their licencesand only the true

, host and hostess allowed to keep taverns . If we are not prepared to grant licenses to every one who will pay for them , but are all agreed in some way to regulate the traffic , then surely the privilege should be confined to well-conducted hosteleries ,

whore the stranger can not only have bed and food at reasonable charges , but find his interests cared for , and all kindly usage so long as he proves worthy of it . I never remember being insulted by a publican in his own house-but onceand he was a man

, whose ill-temper often got the mastery of his poor intellect , and said what he knew to be false , simply to annoy the first person ho could vent his spleen on , because somebody had annoyed him . But even as far back as the days of Sir Thomas More we

find complaints of taverns being prostituted for purposes they were never intended ; and Shakspere makes Falstaff exclaim , in that immortal Boar ' s Head Tavern in

Fastcheap : " You rogue , here ' s lime in this sack too . " So that the vintner ' s business has long been open to abuse . Now that drunkenness is spreading so alarmingly among tho female portion of the community , and our judges and magistrates have for years been publicldeclaring that

y the excessive use of intoxicating drinks is the principal cause of crime , it is high time that the subject was energetically grasped . Bro , Woodford ' s laborious work in editing for Bro . George Kenning a new

Encyclopedia of Freemasonry is fast drawing to a close . With our reverend Brother , energetic ancl untiring exertions for the welfare of our beloved Craft have become habitual , and apparently will be so " while this machine is to him "—AYoodford . -. 'TV treat fully and fairly upon Masonic History and Archteology , when

so much myth has been mixed up with them by well-meaning but too credulous writers , such as Preston and Oliver ; to endeavour to winnow the chaff from the grain ; to give traditions as legends merely , and to assert only as stubborn

facts what will really bear historical investigation ; to preserve all that is good of the old , rejecting the unsound stones and timber , and adding new materials for the temple , which are likely to endure through ages of school-boards and cheap literature ,

and thinking peoples , in which Freemasonry must be subject to the most searching critical examination , and come out with greater glory than ever , or be classed amongst the shams and impostures of benighted ages ; this is no easy task , to be done by a careless hand , but one requiring the nicest discrimination , learning , and research . On the manner in which

Bro . AVoodford discharges his very onerous duties in this Encyclopedia , more than on all his previous labours , will his reputation as a Masonic author depend , " not for an age , " as Ben Jonson said of Shakspere , " but for all time . " For the sake of the Craftas well as for our good brother ' s

re-, putation , or for Bro . Kenning ' s great risk in the pecuniary speculation , every true Mason will wish him success . Time , however , will soon show . Two original papers , on interesting subjects , are to be read at the meeting of the

Royal Historical Society , at No . 11 , Chandos Street , Cavendish Square , London , on Thursday , the 12 th of April . The first , on " Lancashire in the time of Queen Elizabeth , " is by Lieut . Col . Henry Fishwick , F . S . A ., whose able antiquarian and historical works I have more than once

noticed in the MASONIC MAGAZINE . The second , on " The Visitation of the Plague at Leicester , " is by our well-known Brother , William Kelly , for many years one of the'leading Masons in the midland counties . Both gentlemen are Fellows of the Royal Historical Society , which , under

the indomitable Secretaryship of the Rev . Charles Rogers , L . L . D ., has rapidly risen to be one of the best societies in Europe . The Masterton Nmvs Letter , a New Zealand paper , of November 14 th , 1876 , says : — " Radishes of six weeks' growth , and measuring eleven inches in length , and two-and-a-half in circumference , are not