An Early Masonic Book.

dragon ; leave these as elements to your Tyrones . The object of your wishes and desires ( some of you may , perhaps , have attained it , I speak as a fool , ) is that admirable thing which hath a substance , neither too fiery nor altogether earthy nor simply

watery ; neither a quality the most acute , or most obtuse , but of a middle nature , and light to the touch , and in some manner soft , at least not hard ; not having asperity , but even in some sort sweet to the taste , odorous to the smell , grateful to the sight ,

agreeable and delectable to the hearing and pleasant to the thought ; in short , that one only thing besides which there is no other , and yet everywhere possible to be found , the blessed and most sacred subject of the square of wise men , that is , . I had

almost blabbed it out and been sacrilig iously perjured . I shall therefore speak of it with a circumlocution yet more dark and obscure , that none but the Sons of Science , and those who are illuminated with the sublimest mysteries and profoundest secrets of Masonry may understand . It is then what brings you ,

my dearest Brethren , to that pellucid diaphanous palace of the true disinterested lovers of wisdom , that triumphant pyramid of purple salt more sparkling and radiant than the finest orient ruby , in the centre of which reposes inaccessible light epitomizedthat incorruptible celestial fire

, , blazing like burning crystal and bri ghter than the sun in his full meridian glories , which is that immortal , eternal , neverdying Pyropus , the King of gemms , whence ] 5 roceeds everything that is great , and wise , and happy .

These things are deeply hidden from common view , and covered with pavilions of thickest darkness , that what is sacred may not be given to clogs , or your pearls cast before swine , lest they trample them under footand turn again and rent you .

, The body of the work which follows this long dedication is of no interest to the Masonic student , as it is merely a treatise on longevity , containing lists of long livers in all ages , interspersed with Hermetic prescriptions for the renewal of

youth and the indefinite prolongation of life . It is the dedication alone that will attract attention , because having been

written , according to the date appended to it , on March 1 st , 1721 , although not printed till 1722 , it gives incontestible proof that at that early period of the revival of Masonry in England , and the establishment of a Grand Lodge , there were some who extended the Masonic

system much further than the publicly recognized degrees of the lodge , and connected the Institution with higher degrees , and more exalted knowledge , derived from the Hermetic philosophers or Alchemists . Neither Anderson nor Desaguliers give the slightest indication that there was in

their day a higher Masonry than that described in the Book of Constitutions of 1723 . The Hermetic element , it has been hitherto supposed , was not introduced into the Masonic system until , at least , the middle of the 18 th century . The fact

, therefore , that a book is in existence , printed iu 1722 , but written in March , 1721 , two years before the appearance of Anderson's edition of the Masonic

Constitutions , and one year before the publication of the edition of Roberts , —which book contains a dedication to the Grand Master and Officers and Members of the recently organized body of Freemasons , in which Dedication the connection of

Masonry with an operative element and with Architecture , is wholly passed over , while there are continual references to its possession of higher degrees , iu which the symbolism of the Hermetic philosophy is constantly referred to—all this , so very different from what we might have

expected from the tenor of the early English publications on Freemasonry , makes this Dedication a matter of much importance aud interest to the investigator of Masonic history . If , as Eugcuius Philalethes plainly

indicates , there were , in 1721 , higher degrees , or at least a higher degree in which knowledge of a Masonic character was hidden from a great body of the Craft " who were not far illuminated , who stood in the outward place and were not worth y to

look behind the veil , " by which it is clearly implied that there were at that period , another class , who were far illuminated , who stood luithin the inward place , and loolced behind the veil , why is it that neither Anderson , nor Desaguliers , nor any of the writers of that clay , nor anv of the early