Masonic And General Archaeologia.

MASONIC AND GENERAL ARCHAEOLOGIA .

WE have often thought that our magazine has been deficient on this head , ancl so we propose—if jiossibly , month by month—at any rate , as often as we are enabled so . to do—to fill up a couple of pages with similar interesting " collectanea . " In the Antiquary , No . 2 , a new and excellent archa ? ological journal , we find the following : —

" Gilds : their Origin , Constitution , Objects , ancl Later History . By CORNELIUS WALFOBD , F . S . A ., F . S . S ., F . R . H . S ., Barrister-at-Law . ( Printed for Private Circulation . ) " Mr . Cornelius Walford , the author of that voluminous and important work , ' The Insurance Cyclopaedia , 'has reprinted for circulation amongst his friends the article on ' Guilds' oras he prefers to write the word' Gilds . '

, , , The paper is really a most learned and valuable contribution to the history of the past , and thoroughly exhaustive of the subject . We will venture to say that scarcely one of our best and most learned antiquaries has or can have any idea , till , he has read this treatise , of the extent to which the system of religious and secular association ancl confraternities , under the general name of Gilds , prevailed during the Middle Ages in all the large cities of England ,

and also on the Continent , and how the system extended , itself even into our country parishes . The City Companies of London , Bristol , and a few of our larger towns , are scanty survivals of these ancient institutions which helped to bind man to man , ancl to keep up the ties of social existence on a sacred and religions basis . Mr . C . Walford traces the Gild system from the ancient JewsAtheniansSpartansancl Romansclown to the time when the Christian

, , , , faith became the established religion of Europe , and thence he carries its history clown through the Anglo-Saxon times to the clays of our Norman ancl Plantagenet kings , and eventuall y down to the Reformation , when that system was ruthlessly mid cruelly broken up . Mr . Walford records in minute detail the regulations which show the very various objects which these Gilds had as their ends and aims . He shows that first and foremost

among these ends was the care for the fitting burial of the dead members of the Gild ; with which was joined help to the poor , the aged , and the infirm ; assistance to those who were unfortunate , having been reduced to poverty by misfortune , as by fire , flood , or robbery ; the advancement of loans under special circumstances ; the portioning of poor maidens either on their marriage or on entering a religious house ; the release of prisoners ; the helping of pilgrims on foreign travelsaud the entertainment of ilgrims on

, p their journeys at home . In some cases the benefits of the Gilds extended beyond its members , and embraced such objects as the repairs of churches , roads , ancl bridges , and the maintenance of free schools ancl their masters . For an account of the internal management of Gilds , generally ancl severally , their officers , rules , regulations , clays of meeting , reli gious celebrationsetc . ancl the points in which they resembled ancl differed

, , from the modern insurance associations , we must refer the student of past history to Mr . WalforcVs article , which is to be found in extenso in the fifth volume of his "Insurance Cyclopaedia . " Our only regret is that such a reprint as this should have been for ' private' circulation ' only ; in the interest of both ecclesiastical and secular historians it ought to be made publici juris , as a really valuable contribution to the ' study of the past . ' "

InMalclon ' s "Account of King ' s College , Cambridge , " at page 78 , we find the following note : — " Of Freemasons , as they were the builders of the chapel , I shall beg leave