tigators who will
none fail of their reward. Within the limits of a moderate volume, it is
impossible to take into account the whole of the issues involved, while
the importance which is to be attributed to the subject should not be
lightly regarded, seeing that in France, at the time of writing, it
provides an apparently remunerative circulation to two monthly reviews,
and that its literature is otherwise still growing. At the present
moment, and for the purposes of this criticism, a few concluding
statements alone remain to be made; they concern the position of Italy
in connection with the so-called Universal Masonry, some aspects of the
history of the Scotch Rite in connection with the recent revelations,
and the interference of the Catholic Church, wisely or not, in the
question.

The one Mason whose rank corresponds in Italy to that of Albert Pike in
America is not Adriano Lemmi, but Signor Timoteo Riboli, Sovereign Grand
Commander of the 33rd and last degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch
Rite. Adriano Lemmi is, or was, Grand Master of the Craft Section of
Italy and Deputy Grand Commander only of the Supreme Council of Italy of
the 33 deg.. The pretended Grand Central Directory of Naples, which governs
all Europe in the interests of Charleston, with Giovanni Bovio for
Sovereign Director, is a Masonic myth--_pace_ Signor Margiotta. Signor
Bovio is a Member of the Grand Master's Council and a 33 deg. at Rome. There
is a Neapolitan Section of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, but it has
powers only up to the 30 deg., and as such has no authority in general
government, nor does Bovio appear to be a member of the Neapolitan
section, though as a member of Lemmi's Council, and a 33 deg., he no doubt
has his share in the government of the Neapolitans.

The history of the Ancient and Accepted Rite as given by Signor
Margiotta and sketched in my second chapter is an incorrect history. The
facts are as follows:--A person named Isaac Long was engaged in
propagating the French Rite of Perfection of 25 deg. in America before 1796;
in that year he gave the degrees to one de Grasse and also to de la
Hogue, who established a Consistory of the 25 deg. at Charleston. In 1802
this Consistory had blossomed into a Supreme Grand Council, 33 deg., and at
a little later period they forged the name of Voltaire's friend,
Frederick the Great of Prussia, to what Mr Yarker terms "one of the most
stupidly concocted documents ever palmed upon