Page 14 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

14 An Account of the

Books for the year 1800 being mislaid, no means were afforded for examining
and recording as to the fact of his Initiation.”
Reference was therefore made to the Grand Lodge, where happily a register
of those “made” in or joining the Lodge is to be found in the Contribution
Book, and the required information was so obtained.
As this work was nearing completion some facts about Bro. Solomon Levien
unexpectedly came to light. He went out to Australia or New Zealand very
early in the nineteenth century, and according to the story handed down in his
family, and told to the writer by a great-great-nephew now living in London, his
departure was on this manner.
Bro. Levien in his youth was of somewhat extravagant tastes, and was given to
entertaining his friends on a scale far beyond his means. To save him from disaster
his relations decided that he would do well to make a fresh start in a new country.
They therefore clubbed together and found him a sum sufficient for the purpose,
whereupon Bro. Levien immediately invited them all to a sumptuous banquet to
celebrate the occasion, and sailed, much hurt in his feelings, when they reminded
him that they had not put up the money in order to provide themselves with a
dinner.
It has also been learnt that certificates from the Grand Lodge, the Royal Arch
Chapter of St James, and the Nine Muses, issued to Bro. Solomon Levien, are
in the collection of a Brother in Auckland, New Zealand, who has kindly sent a
photograph of the last, reproduced on plate 3. This is especially interesting in that
it gives the names of Bros. Ruspini and Thomas Harper as Master and Secretary
respectively in 1801, a year in which the officers are not otherwise known. There
is reason to think that the certificate was signed at an emergency meeting, at
which Bros. Jacobs and Henderson acted as Wardens for the occasion only; the
“P.T.”, i.e. pro tem., after their names bears this out.
Apart from the register at the Grand Lodge, the history from 1777 to 1814
would be almost a blank, but for the fact that an account of the foundation
of the Lodge was printed in The Freemasons’ Magazine and Cabinet of Universal
Literature, for February 1796. No source of information is given, but the writer
obviously had access to official records and there can be no reason to doubt