circular, as stated by the Editor of the " Freemasons' Quarterly Review," December, 1846. p. 439, is to enable the Grand Conclave of Knights Templar to ascertain that no one shall be admitted into the Order, or being a Knight Templar of foreign origin, received as a visitor in any Encampment in England, unless he be a Royal Arch Mason. It is in fact stated that none but Royal Arch Masons are admissible to the Order of Knights Templars of England and Wales.

Now, it may be worth while to enquire whether such a regulation is either reasonable and prudent or well founded and legitimate. In the first place it is clear that this regulation is not sanctioned by antiquity, but must of necessity be of modern origin, as its date must be subsequent to that of the introduction of the degree of the Royal Arch into the English system of Freemasonry. If, therefore, there were in this country, previously to the middle of the eighteenth century, any representatives of the ancient Knights Templar, sheltering themselves as such under the protection of the Masonic banner, such Knights Templar must have been admitted, if any Masonic qualification were required of them, upon the qualification of the Master Mason's degree. The qualification now required by the Grand Conclave of England is one which, not defensible in theory, has crept into practice certainly not at any remote time, and probably within a comparatively very recent period.

The Order of Knights Templar, like Freemasonry, and necessarily with Freemasonry, as having been so intimately associated, has been subject to great fluctuations of prosperity and adversity. Ten years ago there were only two Encampments held in London; there are now five or six in active and prosperous operation. Many Mosonic Lodges now containing in their ranks numerous wealthy and respectable individuals, and holding their meetings at the largest and best established hotels in the country, were, within the memory of living Masons, rescued from low and disreputable pot-houses. In fact, Masonry has had a great revival in England in the last half century; and with Masonry, the Order of the Temple again rose in public estimation. It seems to have been for a long time considered a purely Masonic degree, without reference to its chivalric character, as witness the gross absurdity of the black apron; and as those who cherished it were Royal Arch Masons, the latter degree was naturally made a stepping-stone to the other. Had half-a-dozen other Craft degrees been in practice in English Masonry at the time, no doubt they would have formed a part of the system, and the Grand Conclave would, on their principle of taking matters as they find them, either have had to make such other degrees, if lower in rank, a part of the necessary qualification for a Knight Templar; or if considered Masonically higher, have had to place themselves under a new Masonic banner.

How indeed the Grand Conclave of Knights Templar explains the fact of their styling themselves the "Grand Conclave of the Royal Order of H. R D. M. K. D. S. H. Palestine," as expressed in the circular letter of their Grand Chancellor, I am at a loss to imagine, and doubt very much if that excellent functionary could throw any light on the authority of the Grand Conclave to assume those mysterious letters, which if they have any meaning, refer to some of the higher degrees of Masonry as practised in France and America, and which belong to a Masonic system called the "Rite Ancien et Accepté," under the chiefs of which rite the Grand Conclave, if they profess to practise any of

those degrees, must of necessity place themselves. It may then well be asked, by or upon what authority is this regulation founded, that none but Royal Arch Masons can be admitted into Encampments of Knights Templar? I believe the answer will on inquiry be, None, except a practice of recent date, founded on ignorance and originating in the decadence and desuetude of the Order, unadvisedly and imprudently revived with the revivification of the Order, and now attempted to be perpetuated as a statutory regulation, aided and enforced by the power and influence of the Grand Conclave, which may, if evil counsel should prevail, now render permanent what will assuredly prove in the result detrimental to the best interests of the Order.

The next question is; is it reasonable and prudent to attempt to perpetuate this regulation, said now to be in force according to the practice of the Order in England? It may here be observed, that the Order of the Temple is in a different position in this country to that of the same Order in France, Scotland, and Ireland,* owing to the different character of the Masonic system here, from the systems in use in those countries respectively. I shall defer to a future communication any remarks on this head, and confine my observations to the point particularly in question in this matter, the connexion between Freemasonry and the Order of Templar Knighthood in this country.

The Order of Christian Knighthood called the Order of Knights Templar, has been in this country so long and so intimately mixed up and connected with Freemasonry, that it may be conceded that it might well be a question with the Grand Conclave whether they could at the present time prudently attempt to restore the Order to an independent position, even if there did not exist legal obstacles in the way of such an attempt; though not only has a similar attempt very recently been made, but according to report successfully carried out in Scotland, where the Order has been revived and placed in a position independent of though still in friendly alliance with the Masonic body. As however it is probable that for centuries, perhaps since the bull of abolition of the Order by Pope Clement in A.D. 1312, the representatives of the Order have been members of the great body of Freemasons, a society with whom the Templars are supposed to have been connected even before the fall of their Order, it seems not unreasonable that the Grand Conclave, the present rulers of the Order, should in the state and under the circumstances in which they now find it, hesitate suddenly and at once to dissolve that ancient intimate connexion, amounting almost to an incorporation, and replace it by a relation of merely fraternal alliance. In this view, regarding such a provision as temporary only, and intended to serve as a bulwark and security to the Order until the time should arrive when its permanent separation from Freemasonry might safely be carried into effect, the Grand Conclave might justify their proceeding in so far as requiring that all candidates for admission to the Order should possess the Masonic degree of Master Mason. However desirable it may seem to those who are somewhat enthusiastic in their admiration of the Order of the Temple, that it should be entirely separated from Freemasonry, it is clear that to accomplish such an object much forethought and consideration would be required, and the way must be previously well and carefully prepared. To require as a qualification the Master's degree, is therefore perhaps at the present time a rea

*Not as to Ireland.-ED.

VOL. V.

sonable and prudent course in the Grand Conclave. But to go further than this, and require the possession of the Royal Arch degree also, is a step in the wrong direction, and only rendering it more difficult at any future time to unravel the tangled web which now binds together the two Orders of Masonry and Christian Knighthood. As Royal Arch Masons, the members of the Grand Conclave may be desirous of enforcing a measure well calculated to foster and support that not very authentic or legitimate piece of Freemasonry, but as Knights of the Order of the Temple, acting as rulers and governors of that ancient Order, it is their duty, and ought to be their endeavour, to prepare the way for the attempt at the proper time to raise it to an independent position of its own, instead of more firmly binding it to the wheels and dragging it after the car of Masonry.

THE KNIGHT OF SAINT JOHN.

ON THE NIGHT SCENE OF HOMER.

As when the stars in heav'n round the clear moon
Are beaming beautiful; when every wind

Is hushed, and all the heights, and mountain peaks,
And groves are seen; while from below expands
The boundless firmament revealing all

The stars, and gladness fills the shepherd's heart.
So numerous appeared the Trojan fires
Between the fleet and Zanthus, and before
Troy's walls illuminate. A thousand fires
Were burning on the plain, and by each blaze
Sat fifty warriors. By their chariots stood

The coursers champing barley white and oats,
Waiting the coming of the fair-throned morn.

In Christopher North's attractive critique upon Sotheby's translation of Homer, we find that a disputed meaning is attached to verses 554, 555 of the 8th Iliad, in the famous night-piece, and which are thus literally rendered by him of the North :

-

"The unmeasurable firmament bursts (or expands) from below,
And all the stars are seen; and the shepherd rejoices in his heart."

Taking this transcript by the modern Athenian to be all one with the ancient Greek, what image, we would ask, does it present to the reader's mind? To us, who profess not to be either critics or commentators, but obedient to our natural perceptions, it seems, and has always so seemed, to mean nothing more nor less than the apparent revolution of the stars by the earth's rotation, by which the immeasurable firmament appears to expand or burst from below the horizon, and all the stars and constellations are seen, pressing upwards, as it were, and disclosing successively new numbers. Thus, it seems to us, would the whole Homeric hemisphere pass in review before the shepherd. Christopher, however, accounts for this bursting or expanding of the firmament from below, and the consequent panorama or vision of all the stars, by conjecturing that at first there were only a few stars visible around the moon (crescent, or "round as my shield," for that too is a disputed point), but that by degrees the winds, which at first were still, began to blow, and break up the clouds, opening a new reach of heaven upwards, until the whole sky became clear, and all the stars were seen.

With great deference to the Crutch-shaker we do not see any necessity for having recourse to such a supposition, when the passage can be explained in the plain and, we think, natural and obvious acceptation given above. Besides, there is the decided and decisive silence of the poet about clouds being seen, or winds being heard; nay, we have his express assertion that there was not a breath of air at the time. True, the description may refer to an entire night, as we believe it does: but we are warranted to infer that it was a "windless" one throughout-no temporary cloud-shading, as the Professor, with his pencil dipt in the inspiration of his native skies and mountains, would, however picturesquely, invest the scene with-but one clear, cloudless, bright, blue sky all night, revealing every sign and every star to the gladdened shepherd's eye. And well that shepherd knew that he could not see all the constellations at once, that the Hyades and Pleiades would appear before Orion and Sirius; and so with the other signs in their successive expansion and array, bursting from beyond and below the boundary of his visible horizon. For he knew

"The starry lights that heaven's high concave crown'd;

The Pleiads, Hyads, with the northern team;

And great Orion's more refulgent beam,

To which, around the axle of the sky,

The Bear revolving points his golden eye,
Still shines exalted on the etherial plain,
Nor bathes his blazing forehead in the main."

POPE'S ILIAD, b. 18.

We should not wish to weaken by extension the position we have taken up, but we think that a consideration of the question, why was the shepherd so glad at seeing all the stars? will tend further to strengthen our construction. Did he rejoice, then, merely because he saw all the stars visible above him at any particular moment-for example, after the supposed clarification of the heavens by the breaking up of clouds? No. He had often looked up and admired, but there was no occasion then for his special wonder or ecstacy. He had no complete assurance as yet that this appearance would last. It might have stormed and darkened before another star had set, or another arisen. But when at last he saw sign after sign appearing, while others disappeared, panding to other stars another heaven," as Sotheby says, and which Christopher himself pronounces to be the very "vision seen by Homer;" then, indeed, his "assurance became doubly sure," and he felt a professional satisfaction that there would be a continuance of clear, fine weather, a succession of sunny days, and starry or moon-light nights. For it was not the mere view of the starry heavens, per se, that so gladdened the shrewd though simple shepherd's heart, but also something of a selfish or utilitarian sentiment, mingling with his astronomical enthusiasm, and regulating his natural disposition to star-worship.

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A more difficult question to solve than what has been noticed above, is that which has been started, viz., what object on earth was the moon meant to represent, shining among the many stars? The stars resembled the Trojan night-fires, but there was no great central fire to mate with the moon. Query, might it not have been meant to resemble Troy-town, which, we are informed in a previous passage, was illuminated in all her hearths and houses, to throw farther light upon the subject-plain, or prevent surprise? Shining on high from her lofty position, overlooking the watch-fires, the city might in some sense be likened to the moon

amid the lesser lights. But it is perilous tampering with such splendid pictures. Behold the master-piece-admire, but touch not.

Though the celebrated paraphrase of Pope must be in every one's recollection, we have ventured to prefix a plain version, to recal reminiscence of the severer simpler text. A characteristic specimen of Pope's treatment of the original occurs in his rendering of the very passage in question :

"A flood of glory bursts from all the skies."

TOXOTES.

DISCOVERY OF THE CENTRAL SUN.

As astronomy, we are told, was one of the principal sciences taught and studied by the ancient Freemasons-more particularly by Pythagoras, who secretly instructed his disciples in the true theory of the solar system, long afterwards adopted and demonstrated by Copernicusit may not be out of place in these pages to enter the record of any great discovery or new doctrine connected with the science. And though the recent researches and results obtained by Le Verrier be among the most important and wonderful in the annals of astronomy, yet we give a place here to the recent investigations of Dr. Maedler, as less known, though in some respects perhaps not less extraordinary.

In December 1846, Dr. Maedler, director of the observatory at Dorpat, announced that he had arrived at the discovery of the great central point, round which the universe of stars, our own sun and system included, is revolving. To use his own words-"I pronounce the Pleiades to be the central group of that mass of fixed stars limited by the stratum composing the Milky Way, and Alcyone as the individual star of this group, which, among all others, combines the greatest probability of being the true central sun." We must refer to other sources for the train of reasoning and detail of facts by which the laborious observer arrived at this conclusion, based originally upon the researches of Sir William Herschel, who found that the solar system was approximating to the constellation Hercules. Dr. Maedler further finds the distance of the great central star, Alcyone, to be thirty-four millions of times the distance of the sun, or so remote that light requires a period of 537 years to pass from that centre to our sun; and, as a first rough approximation, he deduces the period of our sun, with all its train of planets, satellites, and comets, about the grand centre, to be 18,200,000 years. The author of this theory declares that he will yield it on the condition that one single star can be found by any astronomer within twenty or twenty-five degrees of his grand centre, in which a well-determined motion towards the north exists. His theory indicates that the proper motion of all stars thus situated must be towards the south. His con

clusions have been the result of many years most laborious calculation and observation, and they are as yet too recently promulgated to ascertain what proportion of weight they may have with astronomers in general.