Page 18 - Centennial Sketch of the History of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 1877 UGLE

18 Lodge of the Nine Muses 1777-1877

Masonry is not a political institution. It concerns itself with those more profound
principles of human action, and relations of human life, which are essentially the
same in all countries of the world, and in all ages of the history of mankind; and
while Masons are prepared to play their part, and do their work, in every department
of activity, and all the more effectually because of their Masonic associations, they
have as Masons nothing to do with the mere external course of events, which often
pass by with so much din and clatter, although they touch but the surface of the
abiding life of man.
16
The Minutes furnish us with various references to the Jewels of the Lodge. A
list, with a detailed description of these, is given in Appendix V. The Jewels of the ~
Master, senior Warden, Junior Warden, and secretary are products of the brotherly
and artistic labour of Cipriani, and are engraved (it may be remarked with much
elegance as works of art worthy of a permanent place in the records of Masonry) in
the Freemasons’ Magazine, 1796. A curious circumstance with regard to the Master’s
Jewel may be mentioned here. At the meeting of the Lodge on the 24th November,
1815, it was reported that one Brother Harper claimed the sum of £10 10s., as a
set-off against the demand made on him of £12 18s., for three years’ arrears, that
sum (ten gineas) being due to him for a Master’s Jewel made by him for the Lodge.
The receipt for this amount was handed to the Assistant Treasurer “to enable him to
get the money from H.R.H. the Duke of sussex, who had promised to pay for it,
the Jewel having been made by his order, as a substitute for the Master’s Jewel which
had been lent to H.R.H., and which H.R.H. stated that he had lost”.
Just four years afterwards, however, we find (October, 1819) that “Brother sir
W. Rawlins reported that H.R.H. the Duke of sussex, M.W.G.M., had found the
Master’s Jewel belonging to this Lodge (which had been lent to H.R.H. several years
ago and mislaid), and that H.R.H. was desirous of returning the same to the Lodge;”
and it was ordered, by a Resolution of the Lodge, that Brother sir W. Rawlins “be
requested to wait upon H.R.H. to receive the said Jewel.” Notwithstanding this
Resolution, singular to say, it was not until more that two years had elapsed that
the lost Jewel was actually restored once more to its place among the treasures of
the Lodge. In a Minute dated January 14, 1823, we read: “The W.M. informed the
Lodge that he had received from H.R.H. the Duke of sussex the Master’s Jewel,

16 Lodge Jewels.