THE OLD CHARGES OF BRIIISH FREEMASONS.
71
" in their
says,
present form are unique."
little later, and, as Woodford
They begin by reminding the
"
" as
apprentices about to be
charged," that,
you are Contracted and Bound to one of our Brethren, we are here
assembled together -n-ith one accord to declare unto you the Laudable Dutys appertaining unto those yt are
entered a
"
apprentices ;" and then recite an epitomised history of the craft from the
Tower
of
Babylon"
to the royal
Solomon, the remainder corresponding with similar clauses in Nos. 11, 20, 25, and 37, though exceeding them in
then comes the parting counsel to the neophytes, that they should " behave one to another gentlely,
length
;
not churlishly, presumptuously, and forwardly ; but so that all your works
Glory of God, the good report of the Fellowship and Company. So help
" Orders of
"
probability, these
Antiquity reproduce a much older version, now missing.
Friendily, Lovingly, and Brotherly
(words
and actions may redound
?)
you God.
Amen." In
all
31.
;
to the
"Rawlinson."
"
*a.d. 1730.
Bodleian Library," Oxford.
Published in "Freemasons' Magazine," March and April 1855, and "Masonic Magazine," September 1876.
The original has not been traced, the note in the " Scrap Book " being to the effect, " Copied from an old MS.
in the possession of Dr EawUnson," by which we know that Richard Rawlinson, LL.D., F.R.S., who was an
enthusiastic masonic collector, possessed an ancient version, from which this transcript was made about 1730.
" the contents of this
is unusual, for, instead of
Booke," or
substituted are " the holy contents of this Roll."
The termination
(B)
32.
LATE TEANSCEIPTS OF THE "OLD CHARGES."
"
(MS.
some such form, the words
8)
Spexcer."
a.d. 1726.
Mr
E. T. Carson, Cincinnati, U.S.A.
Published in the " Old Constitutions," by Mr R. Spencer, 1871. I take this MS. to be in the main a copy of
No. 8,' or, at all events, of one very like it. It is the only version that resembles No. 8, though there are printed
copies that generally agree, which, as they are evidently taken
from Nos. 8 or
32,
need not be quoted as extra
The MS. was purchased in July 1875, at the sale of the late Mr Richard Spencer's valuable masonic
It is beautifully
for Mr Enoch Terry Carson, of Cincinnati, the well-known masonic bibliographer.
versions.
library,
"
"
"
Constiwritten, in imitation of the
copperplate style, in a small book, the size of the early issues of Cole's
It may have been actually a
and was probably the text from which those editions were engraved.
not necessarily exact and if so, the " Inigo Jones MS." is the only document of its kind we
8,
now know of. I very much incline to this view, although some authorities set up No. 32 as an independent
version.
Colour is lent to the supposition by the style in which the MS. is nTitten, which is highly suggestive
tution