and lived to a good old age, having died so late as 1596 without issue, when the title of Torphichen passed to his grand nephew, the lineal descendant of his elder brother, Sir John Sandilands of Calder. We shall not pause to consider whether a body of Masonic Templars unconnected with the Hospitallers, and representing the Royal Order which Bruce is said to have instituted from the relict of the Ancient Knights, has been perpetuated in Scotland since the days of Bannockburn, having no means of illustrating so obscure a subject; but, with all due respect to the learned French writer, whose authority we have already quoted, we may observe, that the Masonic Tradition of the country does not connect the Templars with Bruce's Order in any way whatever, but, on the contrary, invariably conjoins those Knights with the Hospitallers, and consequently points to the period of the renunciation of Popery, as the time when they first sought refuge, and a continuance of their Chivalry among the "Brethren of the Mystic Tie." The Chevaliers also of the Rosy Cross of Kilwinning in France, own no alliance with Masonic Templary, which they consider a comparatively modern invention; nor do there exist, so far as we know, any authentic records anterior to the Reformation, to prove a connection between the Knights Templars and Freemasons in any part of the world, though we must not omit to mention, that a formal document in the Latin language is said to be deposited in a Lodge at Namur on the Meuse, purporting to be a proclamation by the Freemasons of Europe, "of the Venerable Society sacred to John," assembled by representatives from London, Edinburgh, Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, Venice, Brussels, and almost every other Capital City, at Cologne on the Rhine in 1535; and signed, amongst others, by the famous Melancthon, in which, after declaring that "to be more effectually vilified and devoted to public execration, they had been accused of reviving the Order of the Templars," they solemnly affirm, that "the Freemasons of St. John derive not their origin from the Templars, nor from any other Order of Knights; neither have they any, or the least communication with them directly, or through any manner of intermediate tie, being far more ancient," &c.--all of which would imply, that some sort of connection was understood in those days to exist between certain of the Masonic Fraternities and the Knights Templars. A Copy of this document was sent to Edinburgh in 1826, by M. de Marchot, an Advocate at Nivelles, and a translation of it has been inserted under the attestation of a Notary Public in the Records of the Ancient Lodge of Edinburgh, (Mary's Chapel); but we have little faith in German documents on Free Masonry, unless supported by other testimony; and as no Historian of the Craft makes the slightest allusion to the great Convocation of the Brethren at Cologne, in the sixteenth century, rather than ask the reader to