THE
HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OF FREEMASONRY.
CHAPTER
I.
THE ANCIENT MYSTEEIES—
THE ESSENES—THE ROMAN COLLEGIA— THE CULDEES.
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most
-is'
part,
abandoned
learning, and whose
vt^'
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to a comparatively recent period, the History ami Antiquities of Freemasonry
have been involved in a clond of darkness and uncertainty. Treated as a rule
with a thinly veiled contempt by men of letters, the subject has been, for the
fraternity.
who have taken up
On
to writers
with
whom
enthusiasm has supplied the place of
been membership of the
sole qualification for their task has
the other hand, however,
it
must be
fairly stated that the
few
literati
an amount of credulity which to say the
is commensurate with their learning, and by laying their imaginations under contribution
least,
for the facts which are essential to the theories they advance, have confirmed the pre-existing
belief that
all
this uncongenial theme, evince
annalists,
who
is untrue.^
The vagaries of this latter class have been
the sprightly and vivacious accounts of the modern masonic
masonic history
pleasantly characterised as
"
display in their histories a haughty independence of facts, and
make up
for tlie
'
Speculative Masonry,' as they
by a surprising fecundity of invention.
seems to have favoured them with a large portion of her airy materials, and with
it,
ladders, scaffolding, and bricks of air, they have run up their historical structures with
wonderful ease." ^ The critical reader is indeed apt to