2. _Free Masons_. The origin of this numerous sect or fraternity, as well as that of the _Gypsies_, is involved in great and impenetrable obscurity. It is in vain to look even to the most knowing of its own members for any information upon that subject, that may in the least be depended upon. Almost every thing they urge or allege about it is evidently and ridiculously false and fabulous. They tell us that the art and mystery of Masonry was first introduced at the building of the _Tower of Babel_, and from thence handed down by _Euclid_, who communicated it to _Hiram_, {1120b} the Master Mason concerned in the building of _Solomon’s Temple_; where was an excellent and curious Mason that was chief under the grand Master _Hiram_ whose name was _Mannon Grecus_; who taught the art of Masonry to _Carolus Marcel_, in France, who was afterwards elected king of France; and from thence was brought to England in the reign of king _Athelston_, who ordered an assembly to be held once every year at York, which was the first introduction of it to England. {1121} At other times they say, that masons first appeared in England A.D. 43, when they built the monastery of _Glastonbury_. They might as well have introduced them at the building of _Stonehenge_, or at the commencement of _Druidism_, and erection of the _druidical altars_. But it probably slipt their memory. Others, indeed, though they seem not to have belonged to the craft, have actually supposed them to have sprung from the _druids_, who like them had a method of making themselves known to one another by certain _secret signs_; as is also said to have been the case with the _Gnostics_ and some other ancient heretical sects. Others, however, carry the origin of the order still farther back, even beyond the Flood, and name _Tubal-cain_ as one of the grandmasters of that period; in proof of which they refer to a certain document, which they call, an _original Record_.—Such wild and extravagant pretentions exhibit Free-Masonry in a very queer and unfavourable light: and they ought never to have been countenanced by any of the members who had any regard for their own characters.