A LETTER from the GRAND MISTRESS of the FEMALE FREE MASONS to GEORGE FAULKNER, Printer. Ixiom, impious, lewd, profane, Bright Funo woo'd, but woo'd in vain, A. B. C. lib. 6. p. 107. Seeing it is of late become a fashion in town, in writing to all the world, to addrefs to you, our fociety of Female Free Mafons, has also chofen you for our printer; and fo, without preface, art, or imbellifhment, (for truth and a fhort paper needs none of them) our female lodge has the whole myftery as well as any lodge in Europe, with proper inftructions in writing; and, what will feem more ftrange to you, without the leaft taint of perjury. By this time any reader who is a mafon, will, I know, laught, and not without indignation. But that matters not much; our fex has long owed yours this good turn. You refufed to admit Q. Elifab eth, and even Semiramis Queen of Babylon, tho each of them (without punning) had a great deal of male flesh upon their bodies; but, at last, you will be forced to own we have it; and thus it was we came by it. A A gentleman, who is a great friend to all our members, who has fince inftructed and formed us into a lodge, and whom we therefore call our guardian, fell in lately with a lodge of Free Mafons at Omagh in Ulfter. They preffed him hard to come into their fociety, and at length prevailed. They wanted an Old Teftament to fwear him by. The innkeeper's Bible having both Old and New bound up together, would not do: for the Free Mafons oath being of much older date than the New Teftament, that is from the building of Solomon's temple, (for till then it was but a proteftation well larded over with curfes and execrations) they are always fworn on the Old Testament only. They offer to buy the fellow's Bible; he confents; but finding they were to cut away the New Teftament from the Old, concluded them at once a pack of profane wretches, and very pioufly refcued his Bible. This cuftom of fwearing on the Old Toftament only, is what has given birth to the vulgar error, That Free Mafons renounce the New Tefta-ment. So they proceed to the reft of the ceremony, deferring the oath till next morning, one of them having an Old Testament for the purpose, at his house hard by. This, it is true, was a hainous blunder against the canons of Free Mafonry. But the gentlemen were far gone in punch and whisky. In fhort, our friend and prefent guardian is made a Free but unfwern Mason, and was three hours gone on his journey next morning, before the merry Free Mafons awoke to fend for their Old Tejtament; and, what was worfe, they had taught him the form of the oath, against he was to fwear in the morning. Now, as to the fecret words and fignals used among Free Mafons, it is to be obferved, that in the Hebrew alphabet, (as our guardian has informed our lodge in writing) there are four pair of letters, ▾ of which each pair is fo like, that, at first view, Bb 3 they they seem to be the fame; Beth and Caph, Gimel and Nun, Goeth and Thau, Daleth and Rejch; and on thefe depend all their fignals and grips. Cheth and Thau are fhaped like two ftanding gallowfes, of two legs each. When two mafons accoft each other, one cries Cheth, the other anfwers Thau; fignifying, that they would sooner be hanged on the gallows than divulge the fecret. Then again, Beth and Caph are each like a gallows lying on one of the fide-pofts, and, when used as above, imply this pious prayer, May all who reveal the fecret, hang upon the gallows till it falls down This is their mafter-fecret, generally called the great word. Daleth and Refch are like two half gallowfes, or a gallows cut in two at the cross-stick on top; by which, when pronounced, they intimate to each other, that they would rather be half-hanged, than name either word or fignal before any but a brother, fo as to be understood. When one fays Gimel, the other anfwers Nun; then the firft again joining both letters together, repeats three times, Gimel-Nun, Gemel-Nun Gim-1Nun; by which they mean, that they are united as one in interests, fecrecy, and affection. This laft word has in time been depraved in the pronunciation from Gimel-Nun to Gimellum, and at last to Giblun, and fometimes Giblin; which word being by fome accident discovered, they now-a-days pretend it is but a mock-word. Another of their words has been maimed in the pronunciation by the illiterate; that is, the letter Lamech, which was the bush word; for, when fpoke by any bother in a lodge, it was a warning to the reft to have a care of lifteners. It is now corruptly pronounced Lan; but the mafons pretended this alfo is a mock-word, for the fame reafon as Giblin. This play with the Hebrew alphabet is very antiently called the MANABOLETH. When When one brother orders another to walk like a mafon, he muft walk four steps backwards; four because, of the four pair of letters already mentioned; and backwards, because the Hebrew is writ and read backwards. As to their mysterious grips, they are as follows. If they be in company, where they cannot with fafety, fpeak the above words, they take each o ther by the hand; one draws one of the letters of the Manaboleth with his fingers on the other's hand, which he returns as in fpeaking. It is worth obferving, that a certain lodge in town published fome time ago a fheet full of mockmasonry, purely to puzzle and banter the town, with feveral falfe figns and words, as Madi or Adam, writ backwards, Boas, Nimrod, Jakins Pectoral Guttural, &c. but not one word of the real ones, as you fee by what has been faid of the MA NABOLETH. After King James Vl's acceffion to the throne of England, he revived mafonry, of which he was Grand Mafter, both in Scotland and England: it had been entirely fuppreffed by Queen Elifabeth, because she could not get into the fecret. All perfons of quality, after the example of the King, got themselves admitted Free Majons; but they made a kind of MANABOLETH in English, in imitation of the true and ancient one: as I. O. U. H. a gold key; I owe-you each a gold key, H CCCC. his ruin. Each forefees his ruin. I. C. U. B. YY, for me, I fee you to be too wife for me. And a great deal more of the fame foolish ftuff, which took its rife from a filly pun upon the word Bee; for you must know, that A bee has, in all ages and nations, been the grand hieroglyphic of mafinry, because it excels all other living creatures in the contrivance and commodiousness of its habitation or comb; as, among many other authors, Dr. Macgregor, now profeffor of mathematic in Cambridge, Cambridge, (as our guardian informs us), hath learnedly demonftrated; nay, mafonry or building feems to be the very effence or nature of the bee; for her building not the ordinary way of all other living creatures, is the generative caufe which produces the young ones; (you know, I fuppofe, that bees are of neither sex.) For this reafon the Kings of France, both Pagans and Chriftians, always eminent Free Mafons, carried three bees for their arms. But, to avoid the imputation of the Egyptian idolatry of worshipping a bee, Clodovæus, their firft Chriftian King, called them lilies, or flower-de-luces, in which, notwithstanding the fmall change made for difguife fake, there is ftill the exact figure of a bee. You have perhaps read of a great number of golden bees found in the coffin of a Pagan King of France near Bruffels, many ages after CHRIST, which he had ordered fhould be buried with him, in token of his having been a mafon. The Egyptians, always excellent and ancient Free Mafons, paid divine worship to a bee, under the outward fhape of a bull, the better to conceal the mystery; which bull, by them called Apis, is the Latin word for a bee. The enigma reprefenting the bee by a bull confifts in this; that, according to the doctrine of the Pythagoran lodge of Free Majons, the fouls of all the cow-kind tranfmigrate into bees; as one Virgil a poet, much in favour with the Emperor Auguftus, because of his profound fkill in masonry, has defcribed; and Mr. Dryden has thus fhewed. Ariftæus Four altars raises; from his herd he culls Nine |