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THE SELECTOR AND LITERARY NOTICES OF _NEW WORKS_.
FREEMASONRY.
In a neat volume, called _The Freemasons' Pocket Companion_, of size to fit
the waistcoat pocket, we find the following brief sketch of the History of
Freemasonry in England. This little Manual is "By a Brother of the Apollo
Lodge, 711, Oxford," who acknowledges his obligation to Oliver and Preston,
an article on Masonry, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, &c.:--
In Britain, we are informed that St. Alban, the first martyr for
Christianity in this country, was a great patron of the masons, and
procured leave from the King or Emperor Carausius for a general meeting or
assembly to be held by them, and higher wages to be given them. But we have
no good reason, I think, to believe that these masons had much connexion
with our fraternity, nor that freemasonry was introduced into Britain
before the time of St. Austin, who, with forty more monks, among whom the
sciences were preserved, was commissioned by Pope Gregory to baptize
Ethelbert, King of Kent. About this time appeared those trading
associations of architects who travelled over Europe, patronised by the See
of Rome. The difficulty of obtaining expert workmen for the many pious
works raised at that time in honour of religion, made it prudent to
encourage, by peculiar privileges, those bodies of men, who had devoted
themselves to the study and practice of architecture.
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