[ANDERSON (James)]. - SMITH (William). 'tVrye Metzelaars zak - Lot 34

[ANDERSON (James)]. - SMITH (William). 'tVrye Metzelaars zakboekje, of Omstandig berigt van de Vrye Metzelaars [...]. Waar achter by gevoegd is Nixons Cheshire Prophetien. Te Haerlen, gedrukt by Izaak en Joh.Enschedé, anno 1740. 2 parts in one volume in-8 (the second part with special title addressed Te Haarlem, by Johannes Enschedé, 1740), red half-chagrin, smooth spine (modern binding). (14)-96-(2 of which the second blank)-31-(one blank) pp; some worm work, especially in the Prophetien section with unsightly old restorations to the last few leaves. FIRST EDITION OF THE DUTCH TRANSLATION OF WILLIAM SMITH'S COLLECTION. James Anderson had published his Constitutions in 1723, and William Smith gave an abridged version in 1735 (A Pocket Companion for Free Masons) without the agreement of James Anderson, who considered himself the owner of the text. Freemasonry developed very early in the United Provinces, where Jean-Théophile DESAGULIERS, then Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England, toured in the early 1730s. William Smith's "pocket" edition was the first to be translated into Dutch, augmented by translations of various Masonic texts, including those by Desaguliers. This translation was printed in Harlem despite the ban on Masonic meetings in the United Provinces from 1732 until the reinstatement of the Stathoudérat in 1747. Copper-engraved frontispiece reproducing that of the English original. The text printed afterwards, Nixons Cheshire prophetien, is the Dutch translation of prophecies, often of a political nature, attributed to Robert Nixon, a simpleton who is said to have lived in Cheshire in the early 16th century. Sufficiently ambiguous, these prophecies went through several English editions in the 18th century, concurrently benefiting Jacobite and Hanoverian dynastic circles. Provenance: De Ster in het Osten Lodge, i.e. L'Étoile de l'Est, probably the Lodge of that name in Batavia, now Jakarta, Indonesia (ex-libris stamp on title and verso of title).