Difficulty Of Ascertaining The Age Of Undated Old Masonic Mss.

with the story of Euclid , then suddenly brings the history of the Craft into England . " This craft came into England as you I say , in the time of good kind Athelstan ' s day , "— " you I say , " implies that it was simply a

hearsay legend ) , and after this , follows the fifteen articles and fifteen points , consisting of the laws of the Craft . This being finished , he next began the ritual with a prayer , foUoived by the legend of the Four MartyrsThe Floodthe

, , ToAver of Babel , the Seven Sciences more fully explained than in the first part . The rest of the poem is exclusively devoted to exhortations to observe and to meditate on the Roman

Catholic Religion with all its dogmas . The author of the Cooke MS . re-arranged the ritual ; lie began Avith an invocation , followed it with legends ( most of them were his own collection from authors which he mentions ) and Aviucls up the

, whole with the laws as they existed at the time . And the Dowland and kindred MSS . were no doubt directly or indirectly copied and condensed from the Matthew Cooke MS ., with some additions here and omissions there .

In studying the age of modern MS . such as the Sloane 3329 , Ave may lorm some judgment from its spelling , by comparing it not only with other MSS ,, but also with the spelling in printed books . But even in this , the utmost

caution should be used , as already shown above . In old MSS . Avritten previous to the invention of printing , or even a century after , spelling is no guide AvhateA r er to the inquirer . We know that Shakspere spelt his OAVH name

several different Avays ; the probability therefore , is , that every one of the early English writers spelt after his oAvn fashion , or even different fashions in the same MS . This may be even proved from the Halliwell MS . As an

instance , the 31 st line , he says , "He that lernede best , and were of oncstc , " and in line 231 , he spells it honesie Chirography or the style of penmanship , is also useless in the investigation of old M SS . We may naturally presume

that the old MSS ., consists of tAvo kinds of penmanship , viz ., those Avritten by individuals hi their own regular style , and those -written by professional writers ; these last were a kind of artists in their vocation . They could

imitate every kind of lettering with the same accuracy as our modern sign painters can . We have seen a MS . charter of Charles the 2 nd in our State House in Boston , all beautifully written in the Gothic stle . Whenthereforea

proy , , fessional writer was employed to transcribe a MS . he would adopt the style of lettering either according to his own taste , or that of the author . As an illustration of the tAvo kinds of MSS . we think that the HalliAvell poem Avas

Avritten by an unprofessional penman , while that of Matthew Cooke seems to have been penned by a professional . There is still another mode of inquiry , viz .. to study the status of the English language of each century , and then , "b y comparing the unknown AA'ith those MSS . whose dates are knoAvn , the

enquirer may be able to guess somewhere near the time , say within a century , or even Avithin a half century , the age of a MS . A feAv specimens of the English language from the earliest time to the period of the Reformation , each

consisting of about tAventy words , AVIII give the reader an approximate idea , judging from the per centage of words , Avhich he may , or may not understand . Here is the Lord ' s Prayer of about the year 700 :

" Fader uren thu arth in heofnum sie gehalgudnomathin ; tocymethricthin ; sic willo thin suaels in heofne andin eortho . " Here is the King Athelstan's English 938 , " iEthestan cyning eorla drihten heorna heah gyfa , and his brother eac

Eaclmund iEtheling ealdor langyne tyr geslogon aet secce sAveorda ecguin . The next is from a Chronicle about the death of King Stephen , which took place in 1154 . " On this gaer waerd the King Stephene ded , and he byried be

titer his wit' and his sune waeron beryried aet Fanresfeld . " This is the English of the 12 th century .