‎"CALCOTT, WELLINS.‎
‎A Candid Disquisition of the Principles and Practices of the most Ancient and Honourable Society of Free and Accepted Masons together with some strictures on the origin, nature, and design of that institution.‎

‎London, James Dixwell, A.L. 5769 A.D. 1769. 8vo. Bound uncut in a bit later blue half calf binding with five raised bands and gilt lettering to spine. Top-edge gilt. Spine faded and with a few scratches. Ex-libris (Sidney Edward Bouverie Bouverie-Pusey) to verso of front board. Internally with light occassional brownspotting, primarily affecting first and last leaves. (4), XXXII, 243 pp.‎

Reference : 63030

‎First edition of this early and influential work on freemasonry, one of the earliest systematic printed discussions of the society. The work discusses the origin, symbolism, and moral aims of the order while responding to contemporary criticism, presenting Freemasonry as a philosophical and charitable institution rooted in Enlightenment ideals. ""Wellins Calcott saw in Freemasonry something more than a museum of Medieval relics, and more than a set of convivial clubs, and undertook to write a rational, or philosophy, on the Craft, becoming thereby the first of a line of greatly distinguished Craftsmen, in which were to stand Hutchinson, Preston, Oliver, Mackey. In 1769 (and with 1200 subscribers) he published A Candid Disquisition of the Principles and Practices of the Most Honorable society of Free and Accepted Masons, etc. Oliver described this book, so simple, so gentle in spirit, and with few obvious displays of the classical learning behind it, ""the gem of the period."" Kenning describes Calcott: ""Indeed he may fully be called the father of the Masonic philosophical and didactic school.""""(Mackey, Encyclopedia Of Freemasonry). Sidney Edward Bouverie Bouverie-Pusey (1839-1911) was a British author whose works included Permanence and evolution: an inquiry into the supposed mutability of animal types (1882) and The past history of Ireland: a brief sketch (1894). Wolfstieg 1363‎