Page 19 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

Lodge of the Nine Muses 19

one companion - the Apollo Lodge at York, founded in 1773. The only other
classical names of English Lodges there given are the Ionic (1772) and Corinthian
(1758), both London Lodges, and the Bacchus (1769) at Halifax; but the first
two had almost certainly an architectural origin. Lane’s comprehensive Masonic
Records, 1717-1894, gives few other instances.
Bro. Webb suggests in his Notes that the name may have been imitated from
that of the Parisian Lodge “Les Neuf Sœurs”, founded in 1776, a Lodge which,
according to Gould’s History of Freemasonry, “comprised much of the literary,
artistic and scientific talent of Paris”. But the official list for 1776 gives the names
of a group of Russian Lodges, one of which actually bears the same name as ours.
These were the: “Lodge of y 9 Muses, No. 1, at Peterburgh in Rufsia”;
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“Lodge of y Muse Urania, No. 2 at D.”; “Lodge of Bellona, No. 3 d.”; “Lodge of
Mars No. 4 at Yafsy in Rufsia”; and “Lodge of the Mufe Clio No. 5 at Moscow
in Rufsia”. No dates of foundation are given, but the numbers, 466 to 470, occur
between 464, founded in April 1774, and 471 in the following May.
The Petersburg Lodge of the Nine Muses was at that period one of some
importance, with a membership of between 60 and 70, comprising Privy
Councillors, General and other Officers of the Army, Actors, Architects, Opera
Singers and Engineers. The Master, Bro. Andrew Samarin, a Privy Councillor, a
Senator, and a Knight of the Order of St Anne, was evidently a man of distinction.
For a time from 1772 onwards these and certain other Russian Lodges were
formed into a Province with a Provincial Grand Master appointed by the Grand
Lodge of England, but the arrangement did not last long. The proceedings of the
Quatuor Coronati Lodge for 1922 contain a learned paper on Russian Freemasonry
by Bro. B. Telepneff, from which the foregoing particulars are extracted.
As to whether Paris or Petersburg suggested the name, or whether it was an
independent inspiration, it is idle to speculate, but the name was unquestionably
a happy one.
No record remains of any consecration or other ceremony in connection with
the foundation of the Lodge. This may seem strange, but the fact is that at that
time Masonry was a comparatively small affair; no one had any conception of its
future growth; things at headquarters were carried on in a pleasantly casual way,