In the feast of St. John the Baptist, the 24th of June, in the year 1717, the principal members of the four old Operative Lodges in London, who had previously met in February and agreed to constitute a Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, assembled at the "Goose and Gridiron Tavern" in St. Paul's Churchyard with some other old Masons, and there and then organized the new Grand Lodge.

This was accomplished by electing a Grand Master and two Grand Wardens, after which the Brethren proceeded to partake of a dinner, a custom which has ever since been continued under the name of the Grand Feast.

As the written minutes in the record book of the Grand Lodge do not begin before November, 1723, we are indebted for all that we know of the transactions on that eventful day to the meager account contained in the 2d edition of Dr. Anderson's Constitutions, with a few additional details which are given by Preston in his Illustrations.

Preston cites no authority for the facts which he has stated. But as the meeting of the Grand Lodge was held in the room of the lodge which afterward became the Lodge of Antiquity, and of which Preston was a prominent member, it is not improbable that some draft of those early proceedings may have been contained in the archives of that lodge, which have been since lost. To these Preston would naturally, from his connection with the lodge, have had access. If such were the case, it is very certain that he must have made use of them in compiling his history.

I am disposed, therefore, from these circumstances, together with the consideration of the character of Preston, to accept his statements as authentic, though they are unsupported by any contemporary authority now extant. *

(* Preston is, however, sometimes careless, a charge to which all the early Masonic writers are amenable. Thus, he says that Sayer appointed his Wardens. But these officers were, like the Grand Master, elected until 1721, when, for the first time, they were appointed by the Grand Master.)

The first indication of a change, though not purposely intended, by which the Operative system was to become eventually a Speculative one, is seen in the election as presiding officers of three persons who were not Operative Masons.

Mr. Anthony Sayer, the first Grand Master, is described by Anderson in his record of the election by the legal title of "Gentleman," a title which, by the laws of honor, was bestowed upon one who can live without manual labor and can support himself without interfering in any mechanical employment. Such a person, say the heralds, "is called Mr., and may write himself Gentleman." *

(* "Laws of Honor," p. 286.)

"Anthony Sayer, Gentleman," as he is described in the record, was undoubtedly a mere Theoretic member of the Masonic association and not an Operative Mason.

Of the two Grand Wardens who were elected at the same time, one was Captain Joseph Elliot. Of his social position we have no further knowledge that what is conveyed by the title prefixed to his name, which would indicate that he was of the military profession, probably a retired or half-pay officer of the army.

The other Grand Warden was Mr. Jacob Lamball, who is designated as being a Carpenter.

Thus we see that the first three officers of the Grand Lodge were not Operative members of the Craft of Masonry.

The choice, however, of a Carpenter, a profession closely connected with that of the Masons, affords proof that it was not intended to confine the future Speculative society altogether to persons who were not mechanics.

At the succeeding election in 1718 George Payne, Esq., was elected Grand Master. He was an Antiquary and scholar of considerable ability, and was well calculated to represent the Speculative character of the new association.

The Wardens were Mr. John Cordwell and Mr. Thomas Morrice. The former is described as a Carpenter and the latter as a Stonecutter.

While the choice of these officers was an evident concession to the old Operative element, the election of Payne was a step forward in the progressive movement which a few years afterward led to the total emancipation of Speculative Freemasonry from all connection with practical building. Northouck attests that "to the active zeal of Grand Master Payne the Society are under a lasting obligation for introducing brethren of noble rank into the fraternity." *

(* Northouck's " Constitutions anno 1784," p. 207. Entick ("Constitutions," 1756, p. 190) had made a similar remark.)

From the very beginning the Grand Lodge had confined its selection of Grand Masters to persons of good social position, of learning, or of rank, though for a few years it occasionally conferred the Grand Wardenship on Operative Masons or on craftsmen of other trades.

In the year 1719 Dr. John Theophilus Desaguliers was elected Grand Master, and Anthony Sayer and Thomas Morrice Grand Wardens. Desaguliers was a natural philosopher of much reputation and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Sayer had been the first Grand Master, and Morrice, who was a stonecutter or Operative Mason, had been a Warden the previous year.

In 1720 Payne was again elected Grand Master, and Thomas Hobby and Richard Ware were chosen as Grand Wardens. Hobby, like his predecessor, Morrice, was an Operative Mason or stonecutter, and Ware was a mathematician.

In 1721 the Duke of Montagu was elected Grand Master. He was the first nobleman who had served in that capacity, and from that day to the present the throne of the Grand Lodge of England, as it is technically styled, has without a single exception been occupied by persons of royal or noble rank.

In this year the office of Deputy Grand Master was created, and the power of choosing him as well as the Grand Wardens was taken from the Grand Lodge and invested in the Grand Master, a law which still continues in force.

Accordingly, the Duke of Montagu appointed John Beal, a physician, his Deputy, and Josiah Villeneau, who was an upholsterer, and again Thomas Morrice, his Wardens.

The Duke of Wharton, who was Grand Master in 1722, appointed Dr. Desaguliers his Deputy, and Joshua Timson and James Anderson his Wardens. Timson was a blacksmith and Anderson a clergyman, well-known afterward as the Compiler of the first and second editions of the Book of Constitutions.

In 1723 the Earl of Dalkeith was Grand Master, Desaguliers again Deputy, and Francis Sorrel, Esq., and John Senex, a bookseller, Wardens.

From 1717 to 1722 the claims of the Operative Masons to hold a share of the offices had, as Gould * remarks, been fairly recognized. The appointment of Stonecutters, Carpenters, and other mechanics as Grand Wardens had been a concession by the Speculative members to the old Operative element.

(* "Four Old Lodges," p. 33.)

But in 1723 the struggle between the two, which is noticed in the records of the society only by its results, terminated in the complete victory of the former, who from that time restricted the offices to persons of rank, of influence, or of learning. From the year 1723 no Operative Mason or workman of any trade was ever appointed as a Warden. In the language of Gould, "they could justly complain of their total supercession in the offices of the society.

This silent progress of events shows very clearly how the Freemasons who founded the Speculative Grand Lodge in 1717 on the principles and practices of Operative Freemasonry as they prevailed in the four Lodges of London, gradually worked themselves out of all connection with their Operative brethren and eventually made Freemasonry what it now is, a purely Speculative, philosophical, and moral institution.

Upon the coalition of the four Lodges into one supervising body, the next step in the progress to pure Speculative Freemasonry was to prevent the formation of other lodges which might be independent of the supervision of the Grand Lodge, and thus present an obstacle to the completion of the reformation.

This could only be accomplished by a voluntary relinquishment, on the part of the four Lodges, of their independency and an abandonment of their privileges.

The conference at the "Apple Tree Tavern" in February, 1717, and that at the "Goose and Gridiron" in June of the same year, were what, at the present day, would be called mass-meetings of the Craft. They resembled in that respect the General Assembly spoken of in
the old manuscript Constitutions, and every Freemason was required to attend if it were held within a reasonable distance, * and if he had no satisfactory excuse for his absence.

(* In most of the Constitutions that distance is defined to be not more than fifty miles.)

Attendance at these conferences which resulted in the establishment of the Grand Lodge was open, not only to all the members of the four Lodges, but to other Masons who were not, to use a modern phrase, affiliated with any one of them.

"The Lodges," that is, the members of them, says Anderson, "with some old Brothers." Preston calls them more distinctively some other old Brethren." Both of these phrases, of course, indicate that these "old Brethren" were not among the members of the four Lodges, but were Freemasons who had either, on account of their age, retired from active participation in the labors of the Craft, or who had been members of other lodges which were then extinct.

At the preliminary meeting in February, they voted, says Preston, "the oldest Master Mason then present into the Chair." Anderson, writing in 1738, adds "now the Master of a Lodge," by which I suppose he meant that the oldest Master Mason who presided in 1717 became in 1738 the Master of a Lodge. I know of no other way of interpreting the significance of the particle "now." They then "constituted themselves a Grand Lodge pro tempore in due form."

This "due form," I think, could have amounted to no more than a formal declaration of the intention to establish a Grand Lodge, which intention was carried out in the following June by the election of a Grand Master and Wardens.

The Freemasons of America are familiar with the methods pursued in the organization of a Grand Lodge in a territory where none had previously existed. Here a certain number of lodges, not less than three, assemble through their three principal officers and constitute a Convention, which proceeds to the election of a Grand Master and other officers, directs the lodges to surrender the Warrants under which they had been working to the Grand Lodges from which they had originally received them, and then issues new ones. The new Grand Lodge thus becomes "an accomplished fact."

But this was not the method adopted in the establishment of the Grand Lodge of England in the year 1717. Instead of the representation of the four Lodges being restricted to the Masters and Wardens of each, all the members, down to the youngest Entered Apprentice, together with Masons who were not affiliated with any lodge, met together.

The chair, according to Preston, in the preliminary meeting in February had been taken by the oldest Master Mason present. At this meeting the oldest Master Mason, who at the same time was Master of one of the four Lodges, presided. Then the Grand Lodge was duly organized by the election of its first three officers.

But now it became necessary to secure the sovereignty of the new Grand Lodge as the future supervising body of the Craft, and to prevent any additional lodges being established without its authority, so that the system might be perfected in the future according to the method which was originally designed by its founders.

Almost the first regulation which was adopted at the meeting in June, 1717, was to affect this object.

Hitherto, as we have already seen, the Operative Freemasons possessed a privilege derived from the Old Constitutions of the Guild (and which is formally enunciated in the Harleian MS.) of assembling in lodges for the purpose of "making Masons" under very simple provisions. There was no necessity for a Warrant or permission from a superior Masonic body to make such an assembly legal.

But now it was resolved that this privilege should be abolished. No number of Masons were hereafter to assemble as a lodge without the consent of the Grand Lodge, expressed by the granting of a Warrant of Constitution or Charter authorizing them to constitute or form themselves into a lodge. Without such Warrant, says Preston, no lodge should hereafter be deemed regular or constitutional.

From this regulation, however, the four Lodges which had cooperated in the formation of the Grand Lodge were accepted. They, so long as they existed, were to be the only lodges working without a Warrant and deriving their authority to do so from "immemorial usage."

The effect of this regulation was to throw an insurmountable obstacle in the way of any new lodge being formed which was not Speculative in its character and in perfect accord with the new system, from whose founders or their successors it was to derive its existence.

Hence it was the most fatal blow that had as yet been struck against the continuance of the Guild of purely Operative Freemasonry. No purely Operative nor half Operative and half Speculative lodges, we may be sure, would thereafter be erected.

From this time all lodges were to consist of Speculative Freemasons only and were to form a part of the new non-Operative system, of which the first organized Grand Lodge was the head and exercised the sovereign power.

It is true that Preston tells us that long before this period a regulation had been adopted by which "the privileges of Masonry should no longer be restricted to Operative Masons," but allowed to men of various professions; and it is also well known that there hardly ever was a time in the history of Operative Freemasonry when Theoretic or non-Operative persons were not admitted into the guild.

But this was taking a step farther, and a very long step, too. Membership in the new society was no longer a privilege extended by courtesy to Theoretic Masons. It was to be a franchise of which they alone were to be possessors. Operative Masons, merely as such, were to be excluded. In other words, no Operative Mason was to be admitted into the Fraternity because he was an Operative. He was, on his admission, to lay aside his profession, and unite with the others in the furtherance of the purely Speculative design of the Institution.

So it has continued to the present day, and so it must continue as long as the system of Speculative Freemasonry shall last. Operative Freemasonry, "wounded in the house of its friends," has never covered from the blow thus inflicted.

Operative Masonry, for building purposes, still lives and must always live to serve the needs of man.

But Operative Freemasonry, as a Guild, is irrecoverably dead.

It is impossible to say for how long a time the meetings of the Grand Lodge continued to be attended by all the members of the particular lodges, or, in other words, when these assemblies ceased, like those of the old Operative Freemasons, to be mass-meetings of the Craft.

But the rapidly growing popularity of the new Order must have rendered such meetings very inconvenient from the increase of members.

Anderson says that in 1718 Several old Brothers that had neglected the Craft visited the lodges; some noblemen were also made Brothers and more new lodges were constituted."*

(* Anderson, "Constitutions," 2d ed., p. 110.)

Northouck, writing in reference to the same period, says that the Free and Accepted Masons "now began visibly to gather strength as a body," * and we are told that at the annual feast in 1721 the number of lodges had so increased ** that the General Assembly required more room, and therefore the Grand Lodge was on that occasion removed to Stationers' Hall, nor did it ever afterward return to its old quarters at the "Goose and Gridiron Tavern."

(* Northouck, "Constitutions," p. 207.)

(** There were at that time twenty lodges, and the number of Freemasons who attended the annual meetings and feast was one hundred and fifty.)

This unwieldiness of numbers would alone be sufficient to suggest the convenience of changing the constitution of the Grand Lodge from a mass-meeting of the Fraternity into a representative body.

This was affected by the passage of a regulation dispensing with the attendance of the whole of the Craft at the annual meeting, and authorizing each lodge to be represented by its Master and two Wardens.

We have no positive knowledge of the exact date when this regulation was adopted. It first appears in the "General Regulations" which were compiled by Grand Master Payne in 1720, and approved by the Grand Lodge in 1721. The twelfth of these Regulations is in these words:

"The Grand Lodge consists of, and is formed by, the Masters and Wardens of all the regular, particular lodges upon record, with the Grand Master at their head, and his Deputy on his left hand, and the Grand Wardens in their proper places."

Preston says that the Grand Lodge having resolved that the four old Lodges should retain every privilege which they had collectively enjoyed by virtue of their immemorial rights, the members considered their attendance on the future Communications of the Grand Lodge unnecessary. They "therefore, like the other lodges, trusted implicitly to their Master and Wardens, resting satisfied that no measure of importance would be adopted without their approbation." *

(* "Illustrations," p. 193)

But he adds that the officers of the four old Lodges "soon began to discover" that the new lodges might in time outnumber the old ones and encroach upon their privileges. They therefore formed a code of laws, the last clause of which provided that the Grand Lodge in making any new regulations should be bound by a careful observation of the old landmarks.

It is unfortunate that in treating this early period of Masonic history Preston should be so careless and confused in his chronology as to compel us to depend very much upon inference in settling the sequence of events.

It may, however, I think, be inferred from the remarks of Preston, and from what little we can collect from Anderson's brief notices, that the Grand Lodge continued to be a mass-meeting, attended by all the Craft, until the annual feast on the 24th of June, 1721. At that communication Anderson records that the Grand Lodge was composed of "Grand Master with his Wardens, the former Grand officers, and the Master and Wardens of the twelve lodges." * In all subsequent records he mentions the number of lodges which were represented by their officers, though the Grand Feast still continued to be attended by as many Masons as desired to partake of the dinner and, I suppose, were willing to pay their scot. **

(* "Constitutions," 2d edition, p. 112.)

(** The only qualification for attendance on the feast was that the guests must be Masons: therefore waiting brethren were appointed to attend the tables, "for that no strangers must be there." - "Constitutions," 2d ed., p. 112.)

It was, therefore, I think, not till 1721 that the Grand Lodge assumed that form which made it a representative body, consisting of the Masters and Wardens of the particular lodges, together with the officers of the Grand Lodge.

That form has ever since been retained in the organization of every Grand Lodge that has directly or indirectly emanated from the original body.

This was another significant token of the total disseverance that was steadily taking place between the Operative and the Speculative systems.

Hitherto we have been occupied with the consideration of the transactions recorded as having taken place at the annual meetings. We are now to inquire when these meetings began to be supplemented by Quarterly Communications.

Here an historical question presents itself, which, so far as I am aware, has not been distinctly met and treated by any of our Masonic scholars. They all seem to have taken it for granted on the naked authority of Anderson and Preston, that the Quarterly Communications were coeval with the organization of the Grand Lodge in the year 1717

Is this an historical fact? I confess that on this subject a shadow of doubt has been cast that obscures my clearness of vision.

Anderson says, and Preston repeats the statement, that at the preliminary meeting in February, 1717, at the "Apple Tree Tavern," it was resolved if to revive the Quarterly Communications."

But these two authorities (and they are the only ones that we have on the subject) differ in some of the details. And these differences are important enough to throw a doubt on the truth of the statement.

Anderson says in one place that in February, 1717, they "forthwith revived the Quarterly Communications of the officers of lodges called the Grand Lodge." *

(* Anderson, "Constitutions," 2d edition, p. 109)

Afterward he says that at the meeting in June, 1717, Grand Master Sayer "commanded the Masters and Wardens of lodges to meet the Grand officers every quarter in communication, at the place he should appoint in his summons sent by the Tyler." *

(* Ibid., p. 110.)

Preston says that in February "it was resolved to revive the Quarterly Communications of the Fraternity." * Immediately after he adds that in June the Grand Master "commanded the Brethren of the four Lodges to meet him and his Wardens quarterly in communication." **

(* Preston, " Illustrations," p. 191.)

(** Ibid.)

Thus, according to Preston, the Quarterly Communications were to apply to the whole body of the Fraternity; but Anderson restricted them to the Masters and Wardens of the lodges.

The two statements are irreconcilable. A mass-meeting of the whole Fraternity and a consultation of the Masters and Wardens of the lodges are very different things.

But both are in error in saying that the Quarterly Communications "were revived," for there is no notice of or allusion to Quarterly Communications in any of the old records which speak only of an annual General Assembly of the Craft, and sometimes perhaps occasional assemblies for special purposes.

There can be no doubt that such was the usage among the English mediaeval guilds, a usage which must have been applicable to the Freemasons as well as to other Crafts. "The distinction," says J. Toulmin Smith, "between the gatherings (congregations) and general meetings (assemblies) is seen at a glance in most of the ordinances. The guild brethren were bound to gather together, at unfixed times, for special purposes; but besides these gatherings upon special summons, general meetings of the guilds were held on fixed days in every year for the election of officers, holding their feasts, etc." *

(* "English Guilds," p. 128, note.)

I do not see any analogy in these gatherings of local guilds to the Quarterly Communications of the Grand Lodge spoken of by Anderson. The analogy is rather to the monthly meetings of the particular lodges as contrasted with the annual meeting of the Grand Lodge.

But if, as Anderson and Preston say, the Quarterly Communications were "forthwith revived" in 1717, it is singular that there is no record of any one having been held until December, 1720. After that date we find the Quarterly Communications regularly recorded by Anderson as taking place at the times appointed in the Regulations which were compiled in 1720 by Grand Master Payne, namely, "about Michaelmas, Christmas,
and Lady Day," that is, in September, December, and March.

The word "about" in the 12th Regulation permitted some latitude as to the precise day of meeting.

Accordingly, we find that Quarterly Communications were held in 1721 in March, September, and December; in 1722, in March, but the others appeared to have been neglected, perhaps in consequence of irregularities attendant on the illegal election of the Duke of Wharton; in 1723 there were Quarterly Communications in April and November, and the December meeting was postponed to the following January; in 1724 they occurred in February and November; in 1725 in May, November, and December, and so on, but with greater regularity, in all the subsequent proceedings of the Grand Lodge as recorded in the Book of Constitutions by Anderson, son, and by his successors Entick and Northouck in the subsequent editions.

Looking at the silence or the records in respect to Quarterly Communications from 1717 to 1720; then to the regular appearance of such records after that year, and seeing that in the latter year the provision for them was first inserted in the General Regulations compiled at that time by Grand Master Payne, I trust that I shall not be deemed too skeptical or too hypercritical, if I confess my doubt of the accuracy of Anderson, who has, whether willfully or carelessly, I will not say, attributed the establishment of these Quarterly Communications to Grand Master Sayer, when the honor, if there be any, properly belongs to Grand Master Payne.

The next subject that will attract our attention in this sketch of the early history of the Grand Lodge, is the method in which the laws which regulated the original Operative system were gradually modified and at length completely changed so as to be appropriate to the peculiar needs of a wholly Speculative Society.

When the four old Lodges united, in the year 1717, in organizing a Grand Lodge, it is very evident that the only laws which governed them must have been the "Charges" contained in the manuscript Constitutions or such private regulations adopted by the lodges, as were conformable to them.

There was no other Masonic jurisprudence known to the Operative Freemasons of England, at the beginning of the 18th century, than that which was embodied in these old Constitutions. These were familiar to the Operative Freemasons of that day, as they had been for centuries before to their predecessors.

Though never printed, copies of them in manuscript were common and were easily accessible. They were often copied, one from another - just as often, probably, as the wants of a new lodge might require.

Beginning at the end of the 14th century, which is the date of the poetical Constitutions, which were first published by Mr. Halliwell, copies continued to be made until the year 1714, which is the date of the last one now extant, executed before the organization of the Grand Lodge. *

(* I take no notice here of the Krause MS., which pretends to contain the Constitutions enacted by Prince Edwin, in 926, because I have not the least doubt that it is a forgery of comparatively recent times.)

Now in all these written Constitutions, extending through a period of more than three centuries, there is a very wonderful conformity of character.

The poetic form which exists in the Halliwell MS. was apparently never imitated, and all the subsequent manuscript Constitutions now extant are in prose. But as Bro. Woodford has justly observed, they all "seem in fact to be clearly derived from the Masonic Poem, though naturally altered in their prose form, and expanded and modified through transmission and oral tradition, as well as by the lapse of time and the change of circumstances." *

(* Preface to Hughan's "Old Charges of British Freemasons," p. 13.)

While these old constitutions contained, with hardly any appreciable variation, the Legend of the Craft, which was conscientiously believed by the old Operative Free Masons as containing the true history of the rise and progress of the brotherhood, they embodied also that code of laws by which the fraternity was governed during the whole period of its existence.

Though these Constitutions commenced, so far as we have any knowledge of them from personal inspection, at the close of the 14th century, we are not to admit that there were no earlier copies. Indeed, I have formerly shown that the Halliwell Poem, whose conjectural date is 1390, is evidently a compilation from two other poems of an earlier date.

The Freemasons who were contemporary with the organization of the Grand Lodge held those old manuscript Constitutions, as their predecessors had done before them, in the greatest reverence. The fact that the laws which they prescribed, like those of the Medes and Persians, had invested them with the luster of antiquity, and as they had always remained written, and had never been printed, the Craft looked upon them as their peculiar property and gave to them much of an esoteric character.

This false estimate of the true nature of these documents led to an inexcusable and irreparable destruction of many of them.

Grand Master Payne had in I718 desired the brethren to bring to the Grand Lodge "any old writings and records concerning Masons and Masonry in order to show the usages of ancient times." * These, it was suspected, were to be used in the preparation and publication of a contemplated Book of Masonic Constitutions, and the Masons became alarmed at the threatened publicity of what they had always deemed to be secret.

(* Anderson, "Constitutions," 2d edition, p. 110.)

Accordingly, in 1720, "at some private lodges," says Anderson, "several valuable manuscripts (for they had nothing yet in print) concerning their lodges, Regulations, Charges, Secrets, and Usages (particularly one writ by Mr. Nicholas Stone, the Warden of Inigo Jones) were too hastily burnt by some scrupulous brothers, that those papers might not fall into strange hands." *

(* Anderson, "Constitutions," 2d edition, p. 111.)

Northouck, commenting on this instance of vandalism, which he strangely styles an act of felo de se, says that it surely "could not proceed from zeal according to knowledge."

Of course, it was zeal without knowledge that led to this destruction, the effects of which are felt at this day by every scholar who attempts to write an authentic history of Freemasonry.

The object of Grand Master Payne in attempting to make a - collection of these old writings was undoubtedly to enable him to frame a code of laws which should be founded on what Anderson calls the Gothic Constitutions. Several copies of these Constitutions were produced in the year 1718 and collated.

The result of this collation was the production which under the title of "The Charges of a Free-Mason" was appended to the first edition of the Book of Constitutions.

This is the first code of laws enacted by the Speculative Grand Lodge of England, and thus becomes important as an historical document.

As to the date and the authorship we have no other guide than that of inference.

There can, however, be little hesitation in ascribing the authorship to Payne and the time of the compilation to the period of his first Grand Mastership, which extended from June, 1718, to June, 1719.

In the title to these "Charges" it is said that they have been "extracted from the ancient records of lodges beyond sea and of those in England, Scotland, and Ireland, for the use of the lodges in London."

Now this admirably coincides with the passage in Anderson in which it is said that at the request of Grand Master Payne, in the year 1718, "several old copies of the Gothic Constitutions were produced and collated."

In fact, we thus identify the collation of the Gothic Constitutions in 1718 with the "Charges of a Free-Mason," published in the first edition of the Book of Constitutions.

Nor do I feel any hesitation in ascribing this collation of the old Constitutions and the compilation, out of it, of the "Charges" to Payne, whose genius lay in that way and who again exercised it, two years afterward, in the compilation of the "General Regulations," which took the place of the "Charges" as the law of the Speculative Grand Lodge.

The valuable services of George Payne in the incipient era of Speculative Freemasonry have not received from our historians the appreciation which is their just due. His reputation has been overshadowed by that of Desaguliers. Both labored much and successfully for the infant institution. But we should never forget that the work of Payne in the formation of its jurisprudence was as important as was that of Desaguliers in the
fabrication of its ritual. *

(* Dr. Oliver very inaccurately says in his "Revelations of a Square" that "at the annual assembly on St. John's day, 1721, Desaguliers produced thirty-eight regulations," but distinctly states that these regulations were "compiled first by Mr. George Payne, anno 1720, when he was Grand Master, and approved by the Grand Lodge on St. John Baptist's day, anno 1721." The venerable doctor had here forgotten the Ciceronian axiom - suum cuique tribuere.)

But to resume the history of the progress of Masonic law.

The adoption in 1718 of the "Charges of a Free-Mason," with the direction that they shall be read as the existing law of the fraternity" at the making of new brethren," * is a very significant proof of what has before been suggested that at the time of the so-called "Revival" there was no positive intention to wholly dissever the Speculative from the Operative system.

(* See the title of the "Charges" in the first edition of the "Book of Constitutions," p. 49.)

These "Charges" are, as they must necessarily have been, originating as they did in the Old Constitutions, a code of regulations adapted only to a fraternity of Operative Freemasons and wholly inapplicable to a society of Speculatives, such as the institution afterward became.

Thus Masters were not to receive Apprentices unless they had sufficient employment for them; the Master was to oversee the lord's or employer's work, and was to be chosen from the most expert of the Fellow-Crafts; the Master was to undertake the lord's work for reasonable pay; no one was to receive more wages than he deserved; the Master and the Masons were to receive their wages meekly; were to honestly finish their work and not to put them to task which had been accustomed to journey; nor was one Mason to supplant another in his work.

The Operative feature is very plain in these regulations. They are, it is true, supplemented by other regulations as to conduct in the lodge, in the presence of strangers, and at home; and these are as applicable to a Speculative as they are to an Operative Mason.

But the whole spirit, and, for the most part, the very language of these "Charges," is found in the Old Constitutions of the Operative Masons.

They have, however, been always accepted as the foundation of the law of Speculative Masonry, though originally adopted at a time when the society had not yet completely thrown over its Operative character.

But to apply them to an exposition of the laws of Speculative Freemasonry, and to make them applicant to the government of the Order in its purely Speculative condition, modern Masonic jurists have found it necessary to give to the language of the "Charges" a figurative or symbolic signification, a process that I suspect was not contemplated by Payne or his contemporaries.

Thus, to work, is now interpreted as meaning to practice the ritual. The lodge is at work when it is conferring a degree. To receive wages is to be advanced from a lowes to a higher degree. To supplant another in his work is for one lodge to interfere with the candidates of another.

In this way statutes intended originally for the government of a body of workmen have by judicial ingenuity been rendered applicable to a society of moralists.

The adoption of these "Charges" was a concession to the Operative element of the new society. The Grand Lodge of 1717 was the successor or the outcome of an old and different association. It brought into its organization the relics of that old association, nor was it prepared in its inchoate condition to cast aside all the usages and habits of that ancient body.

Hence the first laws enacted by the Speculative Grand Lodge were borrowed from and founded on the manuscript Constitutions of the Operative Freemasons.

But the inapplicability of such a system of government to the new organization was very soon discovered.

Two years afterward Payne, untiring in his efforts to perfect the institution, which had honored him twice with its highest office, compiled a new code which was perfectly applicable to a Speculative society.

This new code, under the title of the "General Regulations," was compiled by Payne in 1720, and having been approved by the Grand Lodge in 1721, was inserted in the first edition of the Book of Constitutions, published in 1723.

Anderson says that he "has compared them with and reduced them to the ancient records and immemorial usages of the Fraternity, and digested them into this new method with several proper explications for the use of the lodges in and about London and Westminster. *

(* Title prefixed to the General Regulations, in 1st edition of "Book of Constitutions," p. 58.)

There certainly is some evidence of the handiwork of Anderson in some interpolations which must have been of a later date than that of the original compilation. * But as a body of law, it must be considered as the work of Payne.

(* This subject will be more fully discussed, and some of these interpolations will be pointed out, when we come, in a future chapter, to the consideration of the fabrication of the degrees.)

This code has ever since remained as the groundwork or basis of the system of Masonic jurisprudence. Very few modifications have ever been made in its principles. Additional laws have been since enacted, not only by the mother Grand Lodge, but by those which have emanated from it, but the spirit of the original code has always been respected and preserved. In fact, it has been regarded almost in the light of a set of landmarks, whose sanctity could not legally be violated.

George Payne, the second and fourth Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England, is therefore justly entitled to the distinguished reputation of being the lawgiver of modern Freemasonry.

If we compare the Charges adopted in 1718 with the Regulations approved in 1721, we will be struck with the great change that must have taken place in the constitution and character of a society that thus necessitated so important a modification in its principles of government.

The "Charges" were, as has already been shown, applicable to an association in which the Operative element preponderated. The Regulations are appropriate to one wholly Speculative in its design, and from which the Operative element has been thoroughly eliminated.

The adoption of the Regulations in 1721 was therefore an irrefutable proof that at that period the Grand Lodge and the lodges under its jurisdiction had entirely severed all connection with Operative Freemasonry.

We may, indeed, make this the epoch to which we are to assign the real birth of pure Speculative Freemasonry in England.

There were, however, many lodges outside of the London limit which still preserved the Operative character, and many years elapsed before the Speculative system was universally disseminated throughout the kingdom.

The minutes of a few of them have been preserved or recovered after having been lost, and they exhibit for the most part, as late as the middle of the 18th century, the characteristics which distinguished all English Masonic lodges before the establishment of the Grand Lodge. Their membership consisted of an admixture of Operative and Theoretic Masons. But the business of the lodge was directed to the necessities and inclinations of the former class.

A common feature in these minutes is the record of the indentures of Apprentices for seven years, to Master Masons who were members of the lodge.

Speculative Freemasonry, which took rapid growth in London after its severance from the Operative lodges, made slower progress in the provinces.

Of the rapidity of growth in the city and its suburbs we have every satisfactory evidence in the increase of lodges as shown in the official lists which were printed at occasional periods.

Thus, in 1717, as we have seen, there were but four Lodges engaged in the organization of the Grand Lodge.

These were the only Lodges then in London. At least no evidence has ever been produced that there were any others. These were all original Operative lodges.

Anderson says that "more new lodges were constituted" in 1719.

If he had been accurate in the use of his language, the qualifying adverb "more" would indicate that "new lodges" had also been constituted the year before.

In June, 1721, twelve lodges were represented in the Grand Lodge by their Masters and Wardens, showing, if there were no absentees, that eight new lodges had been added to the Fraternity since 1717.

In September of the same year Anderson records the presence of the representatives of sixteen lodges. Either four new lodges had been added to the list between June and September, or what is more likely, some were absent in the meeting of the former month.

In March, 1722, the officers of twenty-four lodges are recorded as being present, and in April, 1723, the number had increased to thirty.

But the number of lodges stated by Anderson to have been represented at the Communications of the Grand Lodge does not appear to furnish any absolute criterion of the number of lodges in existence. Thus, while the records show that in April, 1723, thirty lodges were represented in the Grand Lodge, the names of the Masters and Wardens of only twenty lodges are signed to the approbation of the Book of Constitutions, which is appended to the first edition of that work published in the same year.

Bro. Gould calls this "the first List of Lodges ever printed," * but I deem it unworthy of that title, if by a "List of Lodges" is meant a roll of all those actually in existence at the time. Now, if this were a correct list of the lodges which were on the roll of the Grand Lodge at the time, what has become of the ten necessary to make up the number of thirty which are reported to have been represented in April, 1723, besides some others which we may suppose to have been absent?

(* The "Four Old Lodges," p. 2.)

Anderson did not think it worth while to explain the incongruity, but from 1723 onward we have no further difficulty in tracing the numerical progress of the lodges and incidentally the increase in the number of members of the Fraternity.

Engraved lists of lodges began in 1723 to be published by authority of the Grand Lodge, and to the correctness of these we may safely trust, as showing the general progress of the Institution.

The first of these lists is "printed for and sold by Eman Bowen, Engraver, in Aldersgate St." It purports to be a list of lodges in 1723, and the number of them amounts to fifty-one. In 1725 Pine, who was in some way connected, it is supposed, with Bowen, issued a list for 1725, which contains, not the names, for the lodges at that time had no names, but the taverns or places of meeting of sixty-four lodges, fifty-six of which were in London or its vicinity.

On November 27, 1723, the Grand Lodge commenced in its minute-book an official list of the lodges, which seems, says Bro. Gould, "to have been continued until 1729." The lodges are entered, says the same authority, in ledger form, two lodges to a page, and beneath them appear the names of members.

This list contains seventy-seven lodges. Supposing, as Gould does, that the list extended to 1729, it shows an increase in twelve years of seventy-three lodges, without counting the lodges which had become extinct or been merged into other lodges.

In the next official list contained in the minute-book of the Grand Lodge, and which extends to 1732, the number of lodges enumerated is one hundred and two, or an increase in fifteen years of ninety-eight lodges, again leaving out the extinct ones.

These examples are sufficient to show the steady and rapid growth of the society during the period of its infancy.

There is, however, another historical point which demands consideration. At what time did the formal constitution of lodges begin?

It is at this day a settled law and practice, that before a lodge of Masons can take its position as one of the constituent members of a Grand Lodge, a certain form or ceremony must be undergone by which it acquires all its legal rights. This form or ceremony is called its Constitution, and the authority for this must emanate from the Grand Lodge, either directly, as in America, or indirectly, through the Grand Master, as in England, and is called the Warrant or Constitution.

The Constitutions of the Grand Lodge of England, which are in force at the present day, say: " In order to avoid irregularities, every new lodge should be solemnly constituted by the Grand Master with his Deputy and Wardens." *

(* "Constitutions of the Ancient Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons," p.124.)

This regulation has been in force at least since January, 1723, the very words of the clause above quoted having been taken from the form of constitution practiced by the Duke of Wharton, who was Grand Master in that year, and which form is appended to the first edition of the Book of Constitutions.

Anderson says that in 1719 "more new lodges were constituted;" * and Preston states that at the meeting of the Grand Lodge in 1717 a regulation was agreed to that "every lodge, except the four old Lodges at this time existing, should be legally authorized to act by a warrant from the Grand Master for the time being, granted to certain individuals by petition, with the consent and approbation of the Grand Lodge in communication; and that without such warrant no lodge should be hereafter deemed regular or constitutional."**

(* Anderson, "Constitutions." 2d edition, p. 110.)

(** "Illustrations," p. 192)

Now I think that on the establishment of the new Grand Lodge, when the only lodge then existing in London had united in the enterprise of modifying their old and decaying system, and of renovating and strengthening it by a closer union, it may be fairly conceded that the members must, at a very early period, have come to the agreement that no new members should be admitted into the society unless consent had been previously obtained for their admission. This would naturally be the course pursued by any association for the purpose of self-preservation from the annoyance of uncongenial companions.

If any number of craftsmen availing themselves of the privilege of assembling as Masons in a lodge, which privilege had hitherto been unlimited and, as Preston says, was inherent in them as individuals, and which was guaranteed to them by the old Operative Constitutions, there is, I think, no doubt that such a lodge would not have been admitted into the new Fraternity in consequence of this spontaneous and automatic formation.

The new society would not recognize it as a part of its organization, at least until it had made an application and been accepted as a co-partner in the concern.

The primitive lodges which are said by Anderson to have been "constituted" between the years 1717 and 1723 may or may not have originated in this way. There is no record one way or the other.

But it is, I think, very certain that the present method of constituting lodges was not adopted until a regulation to that effect was enacted in 1721. This regulation is found among those which were compiled by Payne in 1720, and approved the following year by the Grand Lodge.

It is a part of the eighth regulation, and it prescribes that "if any Set or Number of Masons shall take upon themselves to form a lodge without the Grand Master's warrant, the regular lodges are not to countenance them nor own them as fair brethren and duly formed" until the Grand Master "approve of them by his warrant, which must be specified to the other lodges, as the custom is when a new lodge is to be registered in the list of lodges."

This regulation was followed in 1723 by a form or "manner of constituting new lodges," which was practiced by the Duke of Wharton when Grand Master, and which was probably composed for him by Dr. Desaguliers, who was his Deputy.

It would seem, then, that new lodges were not constituted by warrant until the year 1721, the date of the Regulation, nor constituted in form until 1723, during the administration of the Duke of Wharton. Prior to that time, if we may infer from the phraseology of the Regulation, lodges when accepted as regular were said to be "formed," and were registered in the "List of Lodges." *

(* In an article published in Mackey's National Freemason in 1873 (vol. ii., p. 288), Bro. Hughan has said "that it is a fact that no constituted lodge dates at an earlier period than the Revival of Masonry, 1717." I suspect my learned brother wrote these lines currente calamo, and without his usual caution. It will be seen from the text that there is no record of any constituted lodge dating prior to 1721.)

This presumption derives plausibility from the authentic records of the period.

In the earlier "Lists of Lodges" authoritatively issued, there is no mention of the date of Constitution of the lodges. In all the later lists the date of Constitution is given. In none of them, however, is there a record of any lodge having been constituted prior to the year 1721. Thus, in Pine's list for 1740, engraved by order of the Grand Officers, and which contains the names and numbers of one hundred and eighty-one lodges, four are recorded as having been constituted in 1721, five in 1722, and fourteen in 1723. No lodge is recorded there as having been constituted between the years 1717 and 1721.

It is, then, very clear that the system of constituting lodges was not adopted until the latter year; that it was another result of the legal labors of Payne in legislating for the new society, and another and an important step in the disseverance of Speculative from Operative Freemasonry.

We next approach the important and highly interesting subject of the early ritual of the new institution. But this will demand for its thorough consideration and full discussion the employment of a distinct chapter.

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