[ANON.], A DEFENCE OF FREE-MASONRY, AS PRACTICED IN THE REGULAR LODGES, BOTH FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC UNDER THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ENGLISH GRAND MASTER (1765)

The pamphlet argues in favour of the practices of the Grand Lodge of England – the Moderns – and against Laurence Dermott’s ‘Antients’ Freemasonry as described in Ahiman Rezon.4 It adopts a counterfactual approach, making a series of points including some designed to demonstrate the accuracy of Anderson’s history of Freemasonry.5 The exercise may have been largely self-defeating. In common with similar historical passages in the Old Charges,6 Anderson's faux history in his Constitutions aimed to set a literary context for Freemasonry. By positioning it as ancient, the narrative afforded the Craft legitimacy and gave it an antiquarian aura and attraction that a more recently formed organization would have found difficult to attain. Dermott’s dismissive categorization of the Grand Lodge of England as ‘Moderns’ and the adoption of the title ‘Antients’ gives the argument substance. As in previous centuries, Freemasonry’s perceived longevity offered an element of protection in a society that remained traditionbased. Nonetheless, it can be viewed as falling within a literary tradition of legend and hyperbole.