The Age Of Ancient Masonic Manuscripts.

a branch of the Canons Regular of St . Austin , and who took their name from the city of Arras in France , where they were originally founded . Myrc tells us he translated his poem from a Latin work , termed "Pars Oculi , " but which so far has not been verified ,

though other books it seems mistakingly have been identified with it , as John de Burgo ' s , "Pupilla Oculi , " and the " Manuale Sacerdotis" of John Mirreus . The editor of the work for the

English Text Society states that the date of the MS . is " not later than 1450 , " " perhaps a little earlier , " " but the lanugage is of a somewhat older date . " Of this MS . onlthree ies existso

y cop , far known—one hi the British Museum , and two in the Bodliean Library . Now in this poem I have discovered , that from line 268 , to line 300 , his

words are almost an exact counterpart of the Masonic Poem , as will be seen by the parallel extract I propose to give in our archaeological corner as soon as may be . Curiously enough the Masonic expression of line 655 Masonic

Poem is not found in Myrc ' s version . There are some other lines here and there which are very much alike , and betray a common parentage . It is not quite clear that Myrc was the transcriber , though the author of the Poem . The

final . sentence tells us that the "tractatus qui clicitur 'Pars-oculi' de latino in anglicum . translates per fratrem JohanneniMyrcusCanonicumregularem Monasterii ile Lylleshall , " and then is added , " cujus animce propitieterDeus . Amen . " I

This may be a personal entreaty of Myrc himself , or ' it may be an aspiration ° f a transcriber , which is far more likely , and we have no direct evidence when Myrc did translate the poem . In all probabilitthe writer of the

y Masonic Poem had seen another copy ot Myrc ' s Poem , as there are one or two variations in the versions . This in itself is interesting , as showing We bona , tide character of the Masonic

MS . Poem , and that its antiquity may be fairly placed clearly at the end of the 14 th or beginning of the 15 th century . 2 . But Mr . Bond has also raised the

antiquity of the Additional MS ., which I will now consider . Principally on Bro . Mathew Cooke ' s opinion , that MS . has generally been placed about 100 years later than the poem , though , to say the truth , I don't

know exactly why . The " Polychronicon" to which frequent references are made ,. was printed in 1482 , and we have accepted the date as 1490 of the additional MS . thoughwhen I saw

, , the MS ., I remember pointing out that it might be any part of the 15 th century . Mr . Bond seems to make it and the

poem nearly contemporary , which fact if accepted , alters necessarily a good deal of our preconceived opinions and views as to the actual character of the MS . Any very imaginative views about

the additional MS . being the production of a Protestant are of course utterly swept away , as they were very much always of the cobweb school . 3 . Dowland's form is a very remarkable formof which the original has

, not so far been traced . I have always said , and still say , on the authority of Mr . Wallbran , that the language is older language than that of any other form so far known , except the Poem and the Additional MS .

[ Let any one take it and collate it with the Lansdowne or the Harleian , or the Sloane , or the Antiquity , or the York , and he will see at once what I mean . Its printed date is we know most late , and though Mr . Dowland gives

the MS . a 17 th century date , one should like to see the original . We have been told in one printed cojry of a Constitution , that it Avas 500 years old , and we know it to be among the Harleian MSS ., and as I prefer my own eyes to that of Mr . Dowland or anybody else , until I see the original , G 2