Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

LEMANCEAU
LENOIR 441
sesses the reputation of having converted the
tearned Locke, who was initiated after carefully
perusing and analyzing it . Before any
faith can be placed on this invaluable document,
it will be necessary to say a word respecting
its authenticity . I admit that there
is some degree of mystery about it, and doubts
have been entertained whether it be not a
forgery . We have the strongest presumptive
proofs that it was in existence about the middle
of the last century, because the utmost
publicity was given to it ; and as at that time
Freemasonry was beginning to excite a considerable
share of public attention, the deception,
had it been such, would have been publicly
exposed by its opponents, who appear to
have used the lash of ridicule very freely, as
witness Hogarth's picture of Night, where the
principal figures represent some brethren,
decorated with aprons and jewels, returning
from the Lodge in a state of intoxication ; the
broad sheet of the Scald Miserables, and other
prints and publications in which Freemasonry
is burlesqued. But no attempt was ever made
to invalidate its claim to be a genuine document
."
After enumerating the several books in
which it had been published, he resumes his
argument, as follows :
"Being thus universally diffused, had it
been a suspected document, its exposure
would certainly have been attempted ; particularly
about the close of the last century,
when the progress of Masonry was sensibly
checked by the publication of works which
charged it with being the depository of principles
fatal equally to the peace and religion
of civil society ; and if a forgery, it would have
been unable to have endured the test of a
critical examination . But no such attempt
was made ; and the presumption therefore is
that the document is authentic .
"I should be inclined to pronounce, from
internal evidence only, that the `Letter and
Annotations' were written by Locke ; but
there are corroborating facts which appear
conclusive ; for this great philosopher was
actually residing at Oates, the country-seat of
Sir Francis Masham at the time when the
paper is dated ; and shortly afterwards he
went up to town, where he was initiated into
Masonry . These facts are fully proved by
Locke's Letters to Mr . Molyneux, dated
March 30 and July 2, 1696 . For these reasons
I entertain no doubt of the genuineness and
authenticity of this valuable Manuscript ."
If my own opinion is worth giving on this
subject, I should say with much reluctance,
and against my own wishes, that there is
neither internal nor external evidence of the
authenticity of this document to make it a
sufficient foundation for historical evidence .
[R . F . Gould (Hilt . of F. M ., i ., 489) styles the
document "an impudent forgery ."-E . L. H .]
Lemlerre, A. M . Born in 1733, died in
1793. A writer of merit who belonged to the
"Neuf Sceurs," and was present at the reception
of Voltaire .
Length of the Lodge . See Extent of the
Lodge.
Lenning, C . The assumed name of a
learned German Mason, who resided at Paris
in 1817, where Krause speaks of him as an
estimable man and well-informed Freemason .
He was the first projector of the Encyclopddie
der Freimaurerei, which Findel justly calls
"one of the most learned and remarkable
works in Masonic literature ." The manuscript
coming into the possession of the Leipsic
bookseller Brockhaus, he engaged Friedrich
Mossdori to edit it . He added so much
to the original, revising and amplifying all the
most important articles and adding many new
ones, that Kloss catalogues it in his Bibliographie
as the work of Mossdorf . The
Encyclopadie is in three volumes, of which
the first was published in 1822, the second in
1824, and the third in 1828 . A second edition,
under the title of Handbuch der Freimaurerei,
was published under the editorship
of Schletter and Zille . A third edition in two
volumes was published in 1900 (first vol .)
and 1901 (second vol .) .
Lenoir, Alexandre . A celebrated archeologist,
who was born at Paris in 1761 . Having
studied at the Mazarin College, he entered
the studio of Doyeu, and successfully
cultivated painting. In 1790, the National
Assembly having decreed that the treasures
of art in the suppressed churches and convents
should be collected at the Petits-
Augustins, he was appointed the Conservator
of the depot, which was subsequently
called the Museum, of which he was then made
the Director. He there collected more than
five hundred monuments rescued from destruction,
and classified them with great care .
On the conversion of the garden of Moasseaux
into a Museum of Monuments, he was appointed
one of the administrators, and subsequently
the administrator of the monuments
of the Church of St . Denis . In all these
appointments, Lenoir exhibited his taste and
judgment as an archeologist . He was a
member of the Society of Antiquaries of
France, to whose Transactions he contributed
several memoirs .
The Metropolitan Chapter of France had,
from the year 1777, annually held philosophical
conventions, at which lectures on
Masonic subjects were delivered by such men
as Court de Gebelin . In 1789 these conventions
were discontinued in consequence of
the political troubles of the times, but they
were renewed in 1812 by M . Lenoir, who
delivered before the Chapter a course of
eight lectures on the relations which exist
between the ancient mysteries of the Egyptians
and the Greeks and those of Freemasonry.
In 1814, he published the substance
of these lectures in a work entitled
Lemanceau . A zealous French Mason,
and the possessor of a fine collection of degrees,
the nomenclature of which is preserved by
Thory in his Acta Latomorum. The most La Franche-Maconnerie rendue a sa veritable
important are referred to in the present work . origin, ou l'Aniiquiti de la Franche-Magon-