X. — THE GENERAL REGULATIONS OF 1721.

The most complete history that could be given of these General Regulations, is to be found in the title which precedes them in the first edition of Anderson's Constitutions, and which is contained in these words :
General Regulations, first compiled by Mr. George Payne, anno 1720, when he was Grand Master, and approved by the Grand Lodge on St. John Baptist's day, anno 1721, at Station- er's Hall, London, when the Most Noble Prince John, Duke of Montagu, was unanimously chosen our Grand Master for the year ensuing ; who chose John Beal, m. d., his Deputy Grand Master ; and Mr. Josiah Yilleneau and Mr. Thomas Morris, Jun., were chosen by the Lodge Grand Wardens
64 TRE WRITTEN LAW.
And now, by the command of our said Right Worshipful Grand Master Montagu, the author of this book has com- pared them with, and reduced them to the ancient records and immemorial usages of the Fraternity, and digested them into this new method, with several proper explications, for the use of the Lodges in and about London and West- minster.
In subsequent editions of the Book of Consti- tutions, these Eegulations were altered or amended in various points; but the original thirty-nine, as published in the first edition, are all that are now considered as entitled to any authority as part of the universal Written Law of Masonry. Until lately, however, it was difficult to obtain access to the first edition of the Book of Constitutions, pre- pared for and by order of the Grand Lodge, by the Rev. James Anderson, which had been long out of print, and therefore rare, and consequently many erroneous deductions were made, and false prin- ciples laid down in Masonic law, from the fact that the references were made to the new Regulations contained in the subsequent editions. Another fer- tile source of error was. that Laurence Dermott,in his "Ahiman Rezon, or Help to a Brother," published these " Old Regulations," and that in a mutilated form, with a corresponding column of the "New Regulations," which are, of course, without author- ity, and which, nevertheless, have been sometimes ignorantly quoted as Masonic law. I shall, as in the instance of the " Charges," occasionally call at-
THE WRITTEN" LAW. 6i
tention to these alterations and amendments of the Old Regulations, just as the chart-makers lay down +he location of the rocks and breakers which the ship is to avoid.*