ei3 



MASQUERADE. 



MASS. 



614 



they admitted them into fellowship with themselves, establishing a 

 kind of order of a mixed character, just as the orders of chivalry com- 

 bined at their origin the principles of military and religious discipline. 

 Hence some have supposed freemasonry to have been a branch of 

 chivalry, and to have been established at the time of the Crusades. 

 The more probable hypothesis perhaps is that they were related to 

 each other only in emanating from the same source from the influence 

 of ecclesiastical power ; and their being so derived would alone account 

 for the mystery and secrecy which the guilds of masons affected ; and, 

 together with their zeal in accumulating knowledge for themselves, 

 their desire to confine it to their own body. 



By means of these associations the inventions and improvements 

 made in architecture were communicated from one country to another, 

 a circumstance which at once accounts for the sudden spread of pointed 

 or Gothic architecture throughout the whole of the west of Europe ; 

 and at the same time renders it so exceedingly difficult to determine 

 at all satisfactorily where that style actually originated, or what nation 

 contributed most towards its advancement. Owing also to the jealousy 

 with which the masons kept their knowledge to themselves, it is not at 

 all surprising that the history of the art during the middle ages should 

 be involved in so much obscurity that it can now be traced only by its 

 monuments, all documents relative to the study of it having been con- 

 cealed as much as possible, even when something of the kind must 

 bave been in existence. Among the causes which led afterwards to 

 the decline of these institutions was, on the one hand, the suspicion 

 with which the church itself began to regard them as societies that 

 might in time acquire an influence not easily watched, and which 

 might be turned against itself ; and on the other, the spread of in- 

 formation, together with the revival of the arts, which deprived such 

 bodies of their utility and importance, and rendered it impossible for 

 them to confine their knowledge exclusively within their own pale. 



In this country an act was passed against Masonry in the third year 

 of Henry VI., at the instigation of the Bishop of Winchester. It was 

 however never enforced, and Henry himself afterwards countenanced 

 the brethren by his presence at lodges of masons. It was also patro- 

 nised by James I. of Scotland : but it was no longer indispensable to 

 the church, which accordingly withdrew its protection an event that 

 would otherwise have been occasioned by the Reformation. 



Freemasonry revived again in this country about the time of the 

 civil war, yet merely in semblance, being altogether different in object 

 and character from what it had been, and becoming merely " specula- 

 tive " or modern Masonry, an institution in nowise connected with 

 architectural practice. From this country it was first introduced into 

 France about the year 1725 ; into Spain in 1728, and into Italy in 1733, 

 when the first masonic lodge was established at Florence. It was 

 afterwards however the object of persecution not only in France and 

 Italy, but also in Holland and Germany. Some writers, more espe- 

 cially Abbe" Baruel and Professor Robison, have made it a charge 

 against freemasonry that it has been converted into an organised 

 secret conspiracy against religion and existing governments. If the 

 charge has been unjustly made, it must be owned that the profound 

 mystery in which it has cloaked itself gave some colouring to such 

 charges, it being but natural to infer that if there was anything to call 

 for such extraordinary degree of secrecy, it could hardly be aught for 

 good, or in accordance with the interests of society at large. The 

 greater probability is, that there is nothing either good or bad to 

 conceal ; that the mystery of freemasonry is nothing more than an 

 innocent mystification ; and that its symbols and instructions, whatever 

 meaning or purpose they may originally have had, are now become 

 mere forms and signs retained by the brethren, or " free and accepted 

 masons," as they style themselves, for the purpose of conferring peculiar 

 importance on their harmless social meetings. 



MASQUERADE from the Spanish mascara, ( which is from the 

 Arabic nuu-cAara, a mimic or sport-maker, Italian mascherata, and 

 French mascaradt), an amusement introduced into England in the 

 16th century from Italy, though the use of masks for purposes of 

 fiatire is of great antiquity, and was practised by the Greeks and 

 Romans. Hall in his ' Chronicle,' says, " On the daie of the epiphaiue, 

 at night (A.D. 1512-13), the king (Henry VIII.) with eleven others 

 were disguised after the manner of Italie, called a maske, a thing not 

 Ken afore in England : thei were appareled in garmentes long and 

 brode, wrought all with golde, with visers and cappes of golde; and 

 after the banket doen, these maskers came in with the six gentlemen 

 disguised in silke, beryng stafie torches, and desired the ladies to 

 daunce : some were content ; and some that knew the fashion of it 

 refused, because it was" not a thing commonly seen : and after thei 

 daimced and commoned together, as the fashion of the maskes is, 

 thei toke their leave and departed, and so did the quene and all the 

 ladies." 



The distinction between this species of amusement and the disguis- 

 ings and mummings of the middle ages appears to have been the 

 general mingling of the company in dance and conversation, in lieu of 

 the execution of a particular dance or preconcerted action by certain 

 individuals for the entertainment of the guests, the latter being as old 

 at least as the time of Edward III. in England, and the precursors of 

 the dramatic masque of the 16th century. In "the garmeates long 

 and brode," and " disguisings of silke," we may perceive the present 

 domino, so called, according to some authorities, from an ecclesiastical 



ARTS AND 8Ct. DIV. VOL. V. 



vestment (a black hood worn by canons of cathedrals), dominus being a 

 title applied to dignified clergymen in the middle ages. Others derive 

 it from the ordinary robe or gown worn by Venetian noblemen at that 

 period. Granacci, who died in 1543, is said to have been the inventor 

 of masquerades : at what particular date does not appear ; but from 

 the above evidence of Hall, they had become fashionable in Italy as 

 early as 1512. In England the disguisings are of the most fantastic 

 variety, but the characters assumed as a disguise are seldom well 

 sustained, and the amusement afforded is consequently of a very in- 

 different and often of a very equivocal kind. 



MASS. By the mass of a body is meant the quantity of matter 

 which it contains, upon the supposition that differences of weight are 

 always the consequence of different quantities of matter. This involves 

 an hypothesis ; for instance, if gold be, bulk for bulk, nineteen times 

 as heavy as water, it is presumed that a given bulk of gold contains 

 nineteen times as much matter as the same bulk of water. But it is 

 possible that if we were better acquainted with the constitution of 

 these bodies, it might appear that we are wrong in supposing difference 

 of quantity to be the cause of difference of density. 



The fact is, that mass means weight ; so that of two bodies, the 

 heavier is that which has the more mass : why, then, is this word 

 introduced at all ? If we had only to consider bodies at the surface of 

 the earth, we might in all cases substitute weights for masses ; but 

 when we have occasion to speak of bodies at very different distances 

 from the centre of the earth, their weight towards the earth, which is 

 then called the attraction of the earth, depends upon their distance 

 from the earth, as well as their absolute constitution. If we imagine 

 two planets at the same distance from the earth, the attractions of the 

 earth upon the two will then be in a proportion which depends, not on 

 that distance, but on the amount of matter in the two planets. 



When we say that Jupiter has only the 1047th part of the mass of 

 the sun, we express 1, a fact of which observation and deduction 

 make us certain, namely, that at the same distances the attraction of 

 the sun upon the earth is 1047 times as great as that of Jupiter upon 

 the earth ; 2, an hypothesis of the following kind, that the sun contains 

 1047 times as much matter as Jupiter. The hypothesis is a convenience, 

 not affecting the truth or falsehood of results ; the fact represented 

 remains, that at the same distances the sun does 1047 times as much 

 towards deflecting the earth as is done by Jupiter. 



In the application of mechanics, the following equations frequently 

 occur : 



Weight = mass x force of gravity. 

 Mass = volume x density. 



These equations, like others of the same kind, are to be understood 

 with tacit reference to the units employed ; they spring from the 

 following proportions : Any two masses are to one another in the 

 ratio compounded of that of the volumes and that of the densities ; 

 thus the two bodies being eight cubic feet three times as dense as 

 water, and seven cubic feet four times as dense, the masses are in the 

 proportion of 8 x 3 to 7 x 4, or of 24 to 28. Again, if two different 

 masses be acted upon by pressures which would, in a unit of time, 

 create different amounts of velocity, the pressures are to one another 

 in the ratio compounded of that of the masses and that of the velo- 

 cities which would be generated in the unit of time. Thus if the 

 preceding masses, which are as 24 to 28, were subjected to attractions 

 which would produce in single particles velocities of 10 and 11 feet, if 

 allowed to act uniformly for one second, the pressures requisite to pre- 

 vent motion at the outset would be as 24 x 10 to 28 x 11, or as 240 

 to 308. 



To convert these proportions into equations, let the unit of time be 

 one second, that of volume one cubic foot, and let water be the sub- 

 stance which has the unit of density ; also let the unit of length be 

 one foot. Then, if the unit of mass be one cubic foot of water, and 

 the unit of weight the pressure necessary to restrain a unit of mass 

 acted on by an attraction which would, in one second, g|ve a velocity 

 of one foot per second, the preceding equations are true. [WEIGHT ; 

 SPECIFIC GRAVITY; ACCELERATION.] 



MASS (Mitsa, in Latin). The derivation of the word " missa " has 

 been variously accounted for ; some derive it from missio or dimissio, 

 " dismissal," because in the early ages of the church the catechumeni, 

 or new converts who were not yet admitted to partake of the sacrament, 

 were sent out of the church after the liturgy was read, and before the 

 consecration of the Host. Others derive it from the Hebrew word 

 " missah," that is, oblation or sacrifice in commemoration of the 

 sacrifice of our Redeemer for the sins of mankind. Ducange, in his 

 ' Glossarium," art. ' Missa,' gives the various opinions on the etymology 

 of the word. The word missa, signifying the ceremony or rite of con- 

 secrating the Host, is found in the epistles of St. Ambrose, St. 

 Augustine, and Cesarius, bishop of Aries. See also Baronius, in his 

 ' Annals.' 



The mass is a church service which forms an essential part of the 

 ritual of both the Roman Catholic and Greek or Eastern churches, and 

 in which the consecration of the sacramental bread and wine takes 

 place. The canon of the mass now used by Roman Catholics, was first 

 compiled by Pope Gregory the Great, and it was long before it was 

 adopted in all the Latin churches. In the 8th century arose the practice 

 of iolUary manes, performed by priests alone in behalf of souls in purga- 



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