William Preston 
Illustrations of Masonry 

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Yet, notwithstanding the necessary erasures, Masonry has advanced so steadily in public Opin ion of late years, that the dignity and importance of its proceedings would require a still greater space for their record and discussion than is thus placed at his disposal, and, therefore, the Editor feels himself obliged to accept the necessity of avoiding, as a rule, all reference to the general transactions of private Lodges, lest in recording the proceedings of one he Should be so unfortu nate as to give offence to another (although many exceptional cases have arisen where it has been found expedient to transgress this conventional limit) for if a history of all the English Lodges were to be included in our programme, a quarto would be insufficient to contain even an abridge ment of the materials and, in the present palmy state of Masonry, it would require a Parliament ary blue-book to note down even a brief analysis of all the sayings and doings of the Brethren. Thus any attempt to reduce a full account of the events of thirty years within the compass of a hundred pages, would, after all possible pains had been taken to make the record perspicuous, be to a certain extent unsatisfactory. On a reference to the additional matter, the Editor confidently hopes it will be admitted that he has attained the happy medium of sustaining the interest of his performance without the sacrifice of any partien lars which might be considered essential to the dignity and importance of historical truth.