The Installed Masters Association, Leeds
1908-1909
Freemasonry before 1723.
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By W. Bro. WILLIAM JAMES HUGHAN, P.M., 131 ;
P.G.D. of England ;
P. Pr. G. Sec., P. Pr. G.W., Cornwall.
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A remarkable work was published at Perth, Scotland, in 1638, which has not yet received due notice by the
fraternity. The full title is " The Muses Threnodie, or Mirthful Mournings on the Death of Master Gall,"
containing a variety of pleasant poetical descriptions, moral instructions, historical narrations and divine
observations, with the most remarkable antiquities of Scotland, especially at Perth, by Mr. H. Adamson
(motto from Horace, and an oval device). Printed at Edinburgh in King James College, by George Anderson,
1638 (Small 4to).
A second edition was printed and published at Perth in 1774, by George Johnston, for the Editor and Robert
Morrison, Bookseller, in two vols. octavo. Both issues are in the reading room of the British Museum, and
were carefully examined by my friend, Bro. W. B. Hextall, P.M., 2128 London, on my behalf ; and my
esteemed fellow Masonic student, Dr. W. J. Chetwode Crawley, Grand Treasurer of the Grand Lodge of
Ireland, kindly lent me the later edition for perusal and comparison.
Particulars, of a tantalizing brief character, are to be found in the valuable history of the venerable Lodge of
Scoon and Perth, No. 3, Perth, 1898, and " The Historians of Perth" (1906), by Bro. D. Crawford Smith,
P.M., No.3. It seems that Henry Adamson, M.A., was a well-known citizen of Perth, and possibly a member
of this old lodge, which is one of the most ancient in Scotland. Its famous Masonic " Charter " is dated 24th
December, 1658.
The main poem is divided into nine " Muses," in the first of which " a Sadler of his Craft " is mentioned, but
it is in the third " Muse" that the lines occur which more particularly, concern the Masonic Brotherhood
(page 84) :—
" For what we do presage is not in grosse,
For we be brethren of the Rosie Crosse ;
We have the Mason Word and second sight,
Things for to come we can foretell aright ;
And shall we show what mysterie we mean,
In fair acrostics Carolus Rex is seene
Described upon that bridge in perfect Gold,
By skilful art this cleerelie we behold."
The reference to our " Castle-Gavell " in 1638 is stated in the 1774 edition to be an error for " Castle Street."
The concluding lines of the fifth Muse are :—
" Even so the arches of this bridge proclaime
And show the building of the starrie frame ;
But now all lost, needs Archimedes skill
Oh, if it were supplied by Master Mylne !
Thus having past the bridge our oares we bend
To shore, so this day, voyage made an end."
John Mylne was a distinguished Mason, noted in the " Charter " of 1658 as coming from the " North
Countrie," and became the King's Master Mason, and Master of the old Lodge at Perth. His son followed in
the same office, and is declared in that document to have " entered " the King James VI. " Freeman Mason
and Fellow Craft " by his own desire. There were some five generations of Mylnes connected with this
lodge, or that of the celebrated " Lodge of Edinburgh No. 1 ; " the present representative of this family being
the first to break the continuity, Masonically, for centuries, who, however, has written a fine work on these
craftsmen.
So far as I remember, the reference to the " Mason Word " is the earliest of its kind in print, but it is often
met with in the Records of the old Scottish Lodges, prior to the formation of the Grand Lodge for that
country. Bro. R. F. Gould in his valuable " Concise History of Freemasonry," mentions, under 1649, " There
was something spoken anent the Mason Word, which was recommended to the several presbyteries for tryall
thereof " (p. 263). In 1752, the Rev. James Ainslee was objected to because he had joined a Masonic Lodge,
but the Presbytery of Kelso, February 22nd of that year, resolved :" That there is neither sinne nor scandal in that word, because in the purest tymes of this Kirke,
Masons having that word have been ministers."
It was affirmed in 1678 that " The Lairds of Roslin are obliged to receive the Masons' Word, which is a
secret signal Masons have the world thro'out ; " and in 1691 it is spoken of as
" The Mason word which to some make misterie of it."
The line, " For we are brethren of the Rosie Crosse," is of a very remarkable character for the year 1638, and
has not yet received the attention it deserves. The only writer I know who seems fully alive to its importance
is Brother Arthur Edward Waite, who specially refers to it in his most suggestive " Studies in Mysticism and
Certain Aspects of the Sacred Traditions," London (1906).
" More than a century prior to the epoch of the German writers—that is to say, in the year 1638, Henry
Adamson, described by Mr. Gould as a citizen of Perth, published a metrical account of that city, in which
are the following lines :—
" For we are brethren of the Rosie Crosse,
We have the Mason Word and Second Sight,"
and remarks : " I do not know whether Mr. Gould altogether appreciates the significance of this quotation,
which is one of the earliest references to the Rosicrucian Society found in the English language. It is
assuredly the first occasion on which the fraternity and Masons are, so to speak, bracketed together, and in
this connection it is necessary to remember that the first rumour concerning the Rosicrucians does not go
back much further than the year 1615.
" It was several years subsequently—namely, in 1652, that the Rosicrucian Manifestoes were first translated
into English, and it was slightly prior to this time that Elias Ashmole was received into the Fraternity of
Freemasons."
Ashmole's initiation was in 1646, and his visit to the Lodge held under the wing of the Masons Company,
London, which occurred in 1682, is noted in his well-known Diary (as also his " acception " of 1646), given
to the world in print A.D. 1717 and in 1774, the former being practically unobtainable at the present time.
Students of our Craft history will be familiar with my lamented friend Lyon's History of No. I Edinburgh, in
relation to the " Mason Word," and various works also which refer to the subject by the late Bro. Vernon
and several other trusted Masonic authors.
The term is generally employed to denote the secret portion of the Masonic Institution under the old regime,
and a " Cowan" was a man without the Masonic Word ,. one who crept into the operative work without
regularly " serving his time," and not respecting the rules of the Brotherhood as to admission, service, and
usage.
The subject is a very interesting one, and cannot be adequately considered in a brief article.—From the "New
Age," New York. Copyrighted in U.S.A.
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