The Poetry And Variety Of English Masonry.

ornamentation as proofs of scholastic elegance . We are thinking of the workmanship of Avhich Burleigh House is a stately type . Of much angularity and of a cold grey colour , these stones inig'ht have been wrought in our own prosaic ag-e . All that this seat gains in effect from the leafage

of its grand park and glitter of its gilded vanes and A'ariety of its enrichment is wanted to realise that it is an Elizabethan chef d'ceuvre . Turning seaAvards , could we suggest a material more declaratory of our insular position than tlie flint and freestone mural surfaces of our eastern

coast , or a more masterly manner of using it than that adopted by the builders of Early Norfolk and Suffolk churches on the coast , or of those in the lime districts in Kent ? It is , however , most appreciable in those venerable and sunbleached edifices that assume a twofold character , ancl serve

as landmarks to those that go down to the sea in ships . A score of Avhite fishing villages , with fluted red roofs and glossy black doors and palings , redolent of tar , rise before the eye like a vision out of the sea , at the mention of them . A redolence of seaweeddrying netsseasoning timber

, , and dried fish , accompanies the remembrance of unconsidered trifles , ropes , cables , oars , blocks and pulleys , and other fishing gear that form part of every seaside scene ; the crunch of footsteps on the beach , snatches of sailors' songs , ancl fragments of the longlong story the wind is

tel-, ling to the idle Avaves fall upon the ear . For 600 years men have gathered flints , broken them , bedded them in mortar , Avith the broken faces placed to form a sheeny surface , after the same fashion , vrith as little change in the mode of conducting the operation as the sea-terns have made

in scooping out their nests in the sand . The artistic portions of the fabrics SIIOAV stages of progress , but the matter-of-fact process of building appears to have been instinctively grasped . If we leave Engiand , Ave may see as much feeling and variety in masonry ; certainly not more . No echo of a " wild Irish" chant could be more

weird or moving than those hoary , mysterious , cone-topped Irish towers ; no " second sight " reversed and directed to primeval times , Avhen a few tribes wandered over the land with reindeer , could be more quick Avith strange undreamt-of life than the " sorcery halls" Avith their Runic

writings in the North of Scotland . Could a Welsh harper fire the blood in one ' s veins by any recountal more than an eye-feast upon the grand Cambrian castles of Harlech , Carnarvon , and Conway will do ? They must have been brave men to have called for so much castle-building at

the hands of EdAvard ; and all honour to the brave . On the Continent , in the cities that now occupy the sites of the A'ast old-world forests , there has been the same power of expressing thought and circumstances in stone . Here is one foreign example . About fifty miles from Baden-Baden there is a toAvn of some 10 , 000

The Poetry And Variety Of English Masonry.

inhabitants , whose principal trade is that of polishing crystals and precious stones . It is seated on a plain surrounded by distant hills . You will know it by its rows of poplar-trees , its step-gabled houses , its convents and university ; but more by the exquisite spire that rises above all these

things . You will OAVU , at once , that a mind familiar Avith other minds in daily contact with the refinement and refining of precious stones is the only one likely to have conceived the idea of lavishing so much love and labour on such an object—of treating red sandstone Avith the utmost witchery ,

and capping a toAver nearly 240 ft . high with a spire rivalling in its open-Avork tracery the effect of rich pointed lace . This Freyberg spire is exactly 155 ft . high . It rises from an octagonal stage , haAdng triangular spirelets at the angles , which , in its turnhas for a still lower stage the plain and

, simple square base containing the porch . The interior of this church does not yield anything so captivating to the imagination . There is no triforium ; but , as Ave remember Freyberg , this omission was scarcely noticeable , for the walls were hung Avith black cloth ; not a step Avas stirring ;

and , resting on trestles in the centre ambulatory , in the solemn silence and solitude , lay a coffin . But , perhaps , of all the poetry to be read in masonry , the most sublime in the world is that in the huge bevelled blocks in the Wailing-place of the JOAVS in Jerusalem , where the stones are worn aAvay with the lamentations of the Israelites . —Tlie Builder .

Sir Knt. Matthew Cooke's Lecture.

SIR KNT . MATTHEW COOKE'S LECTURE .

Sir Knt . Matthew Cooke , Grand Organist to G . ConclaA'e , and the Sup . G-. Council of the xxxiii , delivered a lecture "On the Connection between Templary and Freemasonry , " in the Hall of " The Masonic Union Company , " 14 , Bedford-row , ou Tuesday the 26 fch ulfc . It [ was specially addressed to Knights Templar only , and Avas given by the permission , and under the sanction

of the Most Eminent Supreme Grand Master , Sir Knt . William Stuart . Severalof the leadingSir Knts . attended , and remained to the close—a period of three hours and twenty minutes— -and warmly congratulated the lecturer on the vast amount and importance of the information placed before them . The subjects treated of may be indicated under the

following heads : —INTHODTJCTION : The purport of introductions and prefaces ; pleas for certain short-comings , and indulgences craved ; new theories disclaimed , and old authorities relied on ; Ereemasons taunted for want of historical documentary evidences ; the countless number of such proofs ; illiberality of craftsmen to their stepmotherTemplarydocuments favourable to Templary

, ; garbled and mangled by a vastly over-rated Craft Grand Officer ; exhortation to Templars to bring their knowledge to a common stock ; suggestion for a debating or publishing society ; conveyancing and conveyancers ; repudiation of visionary theories ; a personal anecdote ; obligations to Sir Knt . John Yarker for much valuable informationand to Sir KntShuttleworth for drawing

, . plans ; outline of the rise , progress , and decline of the crusad . es ; William of Tyre ; Robert the Monk ; contrast between the eleventh and nineteenth centuries ; end of the introduction . The LECTUBE : Templary a century ago ; ritual of the Early Grand Encampment ; the chivalric order ; pleas