ecus, who had been at the building of Solomon's
Temple, and taught Masonry to Charles Martel; on the pillars Jachin and
Boaz; on the masonry of Hiram of Tyre, and indeed of Adam himself, of
whose first fig-leaf the masonic apron may be a type--on all these
matters I dare no more decide than on the making of the Trojan Horse, the
birth of Romulus and Remus, or the incarnation of Vishnoo.

All I dare say is, that Freemasonry emerges in its present form into
history and fact, seemingly about the beginning of George I.'s reign,
among Englishmen and noblemen, notably in four lodges in the city of
London: (1) at The Goose and Gridiron alehouse in St. Paul's Churchyard;
(2) at The Crown alehouse near Drury Lane; (3) at The Apple Tree tavern
near Covent Garden; (4) at The Rummer and Grapes tavern, in Charnel Row,
Westminster. That its principles were brotherly love and good
fellowship, which included in those days port, sherry, claret, and punch;
that it was founded on the ground of mere humanity, in every sense of the
word; being (as was to be expected from the temper of the times) both
aristocratic and liberal, admitting to its ranks virtuous gentlemen
"obliged," says an old charge, "only to that religion wherein all men
agree, leaving their particular opinions to themselves: that is, to be
good men and true, or men of honour and honesty, by whatever
denominations or persuasions they may be distinguished; whereby Masonry
becomes the centre of union and means of conciliating true friendship
among persons that otherwise must have remained at a distance."

Little did the honest gentlemen who established or re-established their
society on these grounds, and fenced it with quaint ceremonies, old or
new, conceive the importance of their own act; we, looking at it from a
distance, may see all that such a society involved, which was quite new
to the world just then; and see, that it was the very child of the Ancien
Regime--of a time when men were growing weary of the violent factions,
political and spiritual, which had torn Europe in pieces for more than a
century, and longed to say: "After all, we are all alike in one thing--for
we are at least men."

Its spread through England and Scotland, and the seceding bodies which
arose from it, as well as the supposed Jacobite tendency of certain
Scotch lodges, do not concern us here. The point interesting to us just
now is, that Freemasonry was imported to the Continent exclusively by
E