THE ANTIQUITIES OF FREEMASONRY.
6
"
has given rise to more difference of opinion and discussion among masonic scholars
than any other topic in the literature of the institution."
Indeed, were the books collected in
whicli separate theories have been advanced, the dimeosions of an ordinary library would be
Mackey,
For the most
insufficient for their reception.
part,
it
may
be stated that each commentator (as
observed by Horace Walpole in the case of Stonehenge) has attributed to his theme that kind
"
of antiquity of which he himself was most fond.
Of Stonehenge it has been asserted that
or
nearly every prominent liistorical personage from the Devil to the Druids have at one time
another been credited with its erection the latter, however, enjo ying the suffrages of the
—
Both the Devil and the Druids have had a large share ascribed to them in the
archaeologists."
institution of Freemasonry.
In India, even at the present day, the Masonic Hall, or other
place of meeting for the lodges,
is
familiarly
known
as the
"
Shaitan
"
Bungalow, or Devil's
house, whilst the Druidical theory of Masonic ancestry, although long since abandoned as
untenable, was devoutly believed in bj' a large number of masonic writers, whose works are
even yet in demand.^
The most fanciful representative of this school appears to have been Cleland, though
Godfrey Higgins treads closely at his heels. The former, writing in 1766, presents a singular
"
argument, which slightly abridged is as follows
Considering that the May (May-pole) was
the great sign of Druidism, as the Cross was of Christianity, is there anything
eminently
:
forced or far-fetched in the conjecture that the adherents to Druidism should take the
"
Men
name
of
^
of the May or Mays-sons f
This is by no means an unfair specimen of the conjectural etymology which has been
All known languages
lavishly resorted to in searching for the derivation of the word Mason?
appear to have been consulted, with the natural result of enveloping the whole matter in confusion, the speculations of the learned
(amongst
whom
characters of his age) being honourably distinguished
It is generally
needs bear
assumed that
many
figures Lessing, one of the first literary
by
their greater freedom of exj^osition.
few 'primitiTe words must
and the numerous derivatives be infinitely equivocal.
in the ancient oriental tongues the
different significations,
Hence anything may be made
of names, by turning them to oriental sounds, so as to suit
and to come. " And when any one is at a loss," says Warburton,
every system past, present,
" in
this game of crambo, which can never happen but by being duller than ordinary, the
lie always ready to make up their deficiencies."*
Druids with the Freemasons has, like many other learned
kindred dialects of the Chaldee and Arabic
The connection
the
of
hypotheses, both history and antiquity obstinately bent against it but not more so, however,
its supporters are against history and antiquity, as from the researches of recent writers
;
than
may
^
be readily demonstrated.
See Hutchinson, Sjaiit of Masonrj' [lllo)
;
Smith, Use and Abuse
;
Borlase, Antiquities of Cornwall,
jip.
53-1-lG
;
Godfrey Higgins, Analalvpsis, pp. 71.5-718 Higgins, The Celtic Druids, 2'nsHm ; and Fort, p. 296.
'
Both the Maypole and the German Chrlstbattm
Cleland, Essay on the Real Secret of the Freemasons, 1766, p. 120.
;
have a Pagan
origin, the type of each
^Dr Mackey,
after citing
many
being the ash, Yggdrasill (Mallet, Northern Antiquities,
derivations of this word, proceeds
:
" But
all of
p. 493).
these fanciful etymologies, which
would have terrified Bopp, Grimm, or Muller, or any other student of linguistic relations, forcibly remind us of the
French epigrammist, who admitted that alphina came from cquns, but that in so coming it had very considerably changed
its
route (Encyclopiedia of Freemasonry,
*
Divine Legation,
p. 489).
"
I have heard of an old humorist, and a
gieat dealer in etymologies,
boasted that he not only Tincw whence words came, but whither they were going " (Ibid.).
vol.
ii., p.
220.
who