Masonic Notes And Queries.

Magister provincialis in luce nostra st . itione , jnro in presentia Numinis altisshni , Equitumque recte coustitntorum nostrorum , Fidelitatem et Obedientiam Principi Frederico , Eilio Regis , Duci de Sussex , et nobilum horum Ordimim totius Imperii Britanici Summo Magistro , Juro regere Brpiites enras mem ab Eminentissimo Magistro eommissos , cum Justitia et sodali Amore ; et si unquam Magister smnmns noster ad Defensionem Eeligionis Christians ,

Ordinis , aut Patriae nos vocare causam pntet , quod paratus in Statione qua . situs , cum snbditis Equitibus meis ad arma fngere non tardeui . " Quum vero Dilectissimi Pratres ! Siunmo Magistro Ordonis nostri jurare Obedentiam meum esse putaverim , eo quoque tempore et meum esse mihi occurrit , jurare et vohis sub Sancti Evangelii Dictis me nunquam deseraturmn fore vexilla Ordinnm nostrorirm nisi cum vita mea . Quod Deus omnipotens mihidetsemper bonam voluntatem ad servandum omnia qua ? Eminentissimo Magistro nostra , vobisque dilectissimis fratribus juravi seunt preces ferventissimaj mea ; . Amen . "— H . H . H ., Bristol .

MASONIC TOKEN . I have one of the Masonic tokens mentioned by " Denarius " in my possession , in a very perfect state . The coat of arms are , I believe , the old Masonic ones , with the motto " Amor , Honor , et Justitia , " and round this , " 24 Nov ., 1790 , Prince of Wales elected G . M . " Ou the reverse side the motto is , " Sit Lux et Lux fuifc . " There is also , round the edge of the token , ' •' Masonic token » J < J . Schichiny fecit , 1794 . " I do not consider them extremely rare , as I have seen several . —SEMIDENAKIUS .

rEEEMASOXUY AMONGST THE NATIVES OP AUSTRALIA . The Melbourne An / us of Nov . 2 , says : — " By the Aldinga we have our files from Adelaide to the 29 th ultimo . They contain no news of interest . Mr . Stuart corrects in the ' Register the telegraphic report which made him say that the natives of the northern part of Australia which he reached gave him the 'true Masonic signs . ' He states that , 'one old manwhom he supposed to be a Malay him a

, , gave Masonic sign . '" IRISH BREEMASONET . It is a curious thing , but I have searched the catalogue over and over again , and can find no account of the Irish Lodges , though I find in the American list of works , vol . 9 of the Universal Masonic Series , compiled and published by E . MorrisLodgeton , KentuckyUnited StatesentitledThe

, , , , Constitution of ilie Grand Lodges of England , Ireland , and Scotland , professes to give the history of the Grand Lodge of Ireland from the earliest time to the present . This book is not in the British Museum . Perhaps this may answer your correspondent ' s inquiry in the last number of your Magazine— B , M . HAYLEY , FEB . 26 , 1861 .

Notes On Literature, Science, And Art.

NOTES ON LITERATURE , SCIENCE , AND ART .

Mr . W . C . Bennett , in his new book , The Worn Wedding Ping and other Poems , has the following sonnet on Edgar Allen Poe : — " You knew him , friend , this wonder , ere the night Received him , and lie vanished , seen no more Of men , he who in death ' s darkness bore What radianceand what blackness from our sight

, , He form'd for our bewilderment , delight , Our admiration , loathing praise . Death tore Never so strange a page from life before ; AVhat wonder if we read it not aright ? His was a music , tender , strange , and wild ; Tire ghosts of many a weird , wan melody AVail'd from his lines ; wan faces through them smiled ; The of horror there l

sense unceasingy Haunts us , to terror and to awe beguiled By what we know not—what we feel , not see . " Mr . Matthew Arnold , M . A ., Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford , in his three lectures On Translating Homer , says : — " When I say the translator of Homer should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author—that he is eminently idthat he is eminentllain and direct both in

rap ; y p the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it , that is , both in his syntax and in his words ; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought , that is , in his matter and ideas ; and , finally , that he is eminently noble ;—I probably seem to he sayhi " what is too general to be of much service to anybody . Yet it is strictly true that , for want of duly penetrating themselves with the first-named quality of Homer , ' his rapidity , Cowper ? . vA Mr .

AVright have failed in rendering him ; that , for want of duly appreciating the seeond-named quality , his plainness and directness of style and diction , Pope and Mr . Sotheby have failed in rendering him ; that for want of appreciating the third , his plainness and directness of ideas , Chapman has failed in rendering him ; while , for a want of appreciating the fourth , his nobleness , Mr . Newman , who has clearly seen some of the faults of his predecessors , has yet failed more conspicuously than any of them . "

Professor Tagore will commence a course of twelve lectures on the Bengalli Language , on Tuesday next , the 5 th inst ., at University College , London ; and also , at the same place , a complete course on Hindu Law , to commence on Thursday next , the 7 th instant . The next examination for the degree of Doctor of Medicine , at the University of St . Andrew's , will commence on Monday , the

6 th of May . The Rev . Charles Rogers , LL . D ., in Ms recent Familiar Illustrations of Scottish . Character , says : — " A superstitious observanceof the course of the sun obtains in northern and highland districts . In proceeding to sea , the Orkney seaman would regard himself as being in imminent peril if the vessel was incidentally turned in opposition to the sun ' s course . In going to bathe , the

Highlanderapproaches the water by making a circuit from east to west on the south side ; and in this manner do they uniformly conduct their dead , to burial . So is the bride conducted , in presence of the minister , to the side of her future husband ,- and at the social meeting , the glass is in this manner handed round . There are superstitions , likewise , associated with the moon . The increase , full growth , and wane of that satellite are the emblems of a rising , flourishing , and declining fortune . No business of importance is begun during

themoon ' s wane ; if even an animal is killed at that period , the flesh is supposed to be unwholesome . A couple to think of marrying . at that time would be regarded as recklessly careless respecting their future happiness . Old people , in some parts of Argyllshire , werewont to invoke the Divine blessing on the moon after the monthly change . The Gaelic word for fortune is borrowed from that which denotes the foil moon ; and a marriage or birth occurring at that period is believed to auger prosperity . "

A Laudian Professor of Arabic is to he elected at the University of Oxford , on Tuesday , the 12 th inst . Mr . P . T . Buckland , M . A ., of the 2 nd Life Guards , and son of thelate learned Dean Buckland , has been lecturing at Oxford , on " The Curiosities of Natural History . " The Rev . George Gilfillan , in addressing a public meeting held

lately at Dundee , said : — " The time surely has gone by when it can be doubted whether talent anil genius could be reared in * warehouse or a shop . A thousand instances throng upon my recollection to prove that they can . Samuel Richardson , author of Pamela and Clarissa , a man whose power over the passions is scarcely inferior to Shakespeare , was a printer , and kept besides a stationer's shop . "William Godwin , the immortal author of Caleb

Williams , at one period of his life opened a shop of picture-books 1 for children . Smollett—a name of which Scotland is still proudwas in his early days a surgeon's apprentice in Glasgow , and saw , while selling pills and compounding potions , those humours and oddities ol life which he afterwards inscribed on the undying pages of Xoderieh ; Sandom and Humphrey Clinker . Charles Lamb , the gentle , the exquisite , the inimitable Elia , n-as a clerk in the Indiahouseand wrote at onetime invoicesand at other times

immortali-, , ties . Keats , one of the truest and divinest poets that ever breathed , was in his early days an apprentice to an apothecary , and would drop the pestle to lift the pen which wrote his Ode to the Nightingale , and his Hymn to Pan . AVordsworth was a distributer of stamps , as well as the author of the Excursion . Thomas Hood once occupied some commercial situation in this very town , living in the house of worthy old Mr . Gardiner , whom most of us remember keeping a grocer's shop in the Overgate . Alex . Smith , author of the

Life Drama , and now secretary to the University of Edinburgh , was , when I first knew him , a pattern drawer in a Glasgow warehouse , not earning a pound a week . Sidney Yendys , or Dobell , the author of the brilliant Roman , and of the incomprehensible and critic-baffling Balder , was , till within a few years ago , a wine merchant with his accomplished cousin , Alfred Mott , author of Amberhill De Slillis . Buskin ' s parents kept a shop—I fear it wasa spirit shop . AiVhensome years agoI called upon the gifted

, , Charles Swain in Manchester , I found him in a warehouse , and with a quill behind his ears . Nay , one of the best ascertained facts connected with the latter history of Shakespeare himself , is finding him selling corn and malt in his own native town of Stratford-on-Avon . So that , on the whole , literature and poetry have not been n v ; h ' it the worse , but all the better , of smelling of the shop . "