Music As A Masonic Accomplishment.

without a just and well founded system ; to form such a system is to create , according to the Platonic sense of that word , by taking the confused elements of things and bringing them to order . To do this , to make them the object of

knowledge ; for kn owledge , properly speaking , is seeing the properties , connections , and dependency of one thing to another ; it is seeing effects in their causes , —forseeing natural events , —and consequently , it is knowing the use of things , and

in what manner they are to be applied , in order that we mey render them of use to us . —The Evergreen .

The Knights-Errant.

THE KNIGHTS-ERRANT .

Translated fromVictor Hugo ' s' Legend of the Ages ' The earth of old saw paladins wander ; they flashed like sudden lightnings , then faded away , leaving on men ' s faces the dread and the gleam of their

unlooked-for passing . They were , in those times of oppression , mourning , shame the spectres of honour , of right , of justice ; they struck down crime as with , thunder-bolts , they buffetted vice on the cheek ; you could see theft flee , imposture

hesitate , treason turned pale , and all unjust , inhuman , usurped power become disconcerted , before those sinister judges of the sword . Woe to whosoever did evil!—one of those arms came forth out of darkness , with the cry , Thou shalt perish !

Against mankind and before nature they attempted the adventure of sovereign equity . Ready for work , always , everywhere , fierce , they were knights

of God Their lordship was guardian of the cottages . They were just , good , awful ( labugi-es ) , dark . Though guarded by them , though avenged by them , the people in their presence had the disquiet of the crowd , before pale solitude ; for

one is afraid of those who Avalk dreaming whilst the north wind plunging down from the heights of heaven , roars , and the rain pours its urn out in floods over their head , scarcely seen in the depths of the night-wrapped wood . They passed , dreadful ,

dumb , masked in iron ; some resembled infernal larvasj their crests rose up ill shapen on their helmets . One never knew whence these phantoms Avent forth ; men said , " Who are they ? whence come they ? " " They are those who punish , those who judge , those who go . " ,.. 0 the blackriders !

0 the marchers without cease . Wherever gleamed the steel of their corslet—Avherever one of them , calm and grave , appeared , resting his spear in the dark corner of the hall—wherever up rose their colossal shadow—one felt the terror of unknown

lands . This one comes from the Rhine , that one from the Cydnus . Behind them w alked death , a bald skeleton . It seemed as if in the nostrils of

their red mare one heard of the noise of the sea or the forest ; and it was of the four winds you had to ask if the passer-by were king of Alba or of Brittany , if he came from the plain or from the mountains , if he had triumphed over the Moor , or

over the kennel of monstrous peoples that howl near the Nile—what town his arm had taken or saved—of what monster he had crushed the

brood . The folloAving resume of the " Legend of the Satyr "—from the same poem—will give the reader some idea of Bro . Hugo's " appalling creative power . "

A satyr dwelt in Olympus , in the great wild wood at the foot of the holy mount ; he lived there , hunting , dreaming amid the leafage , night and day pursuing there the vague white forms , unknown to all the terror of all nature through his

sensualism . Psyche , surprised by him , made complaint in the empyrean , and Hercules was sent to bring him by the ear before Jupiter . The description of the derm-brute introduced into the Olympian Court , though too long , is wonderful . All burst into laughter at the sight of the monster , who , nothing daunted , goes straight to Venus , and

solicits her favours . The laughter of the Gods , becomes a tempest , Jupiter tells the rascal that he deserves to be changed to marble , or imprisoned in a tree ; but that , having laughed , he forgives him , on condition he will sing . The goat-foot

replies that his pipes are broken , through Hercules having trod upon them . Mercury lends him his . flute , and he goes to sing behind a cloud . He sings nature with its horrors , nature with its life ,, nature with its secrets , till he flings the flute

aAvay , and sings on in turn the holiness of nature , of the tree , of the brute , of man . Phcebus offers him the lyre , which he takes , and stands up " with two resplendent depths in his eyes , " while "Venus , terrified , murmurs "Beautiful , " Then he

sings man , and the horrors of his destiny , and the possibility of his future . The Gods become anxious ; Jupiter is amazed . Still the satyr con-