Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/471

 12 s. i. JUNE 10, i9i6.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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with my old favourite in a newer form," as he described the gift.

Lastly, Mr. Bailey sent me his own photograph, Avhich I treasure among my jewels always.

WILLIAM MERCER.

P.S. Since writing above, I learn that when Mr. Bailey was at Castellammare he was suffering from a sunstroke, aggravated by the great eruption of Vesuvius in 1872. His accident (alluded to by him in his letter) at Whitby, consisted of his being carried away by the tide in swimming, when exhausted. W. M.

The other is reprinted from The Western Daily Press of Bristol, Sept. 16, 1902 :

' FESTUS ' BAILEY, LL.D.

SIR, The reviewer of the poem of ' Festus ' in The Standard of 8th inst. erroneously writes that the last edition was published in 1889. I think the following letters of the author will controvert the statement thus made :

The Elms, Ropewalk, Park, Nottingham, 7th June, 1901.

Dear Mr. Mercer, Do not look out for any old copy of ' Festus.' There is a new edition now in the press. As soon as it appears (I expect in a few weeks) it will give me great pleasure to make you re-acquainted with an old favourite in a newer form. Believe me always truly yours, (Signed) PH. J. BAILEY.

I duly received a further letter from Mr. Bailey, dated seven days later, containing this para- graph :

" I have received a copy of ' Festus,' and will despatch the same to-morrow, with the inscription you refer to."

Accordingly this very latest edition (1901) is now in my possession, together with an admirable inscribed photograph of the venerable poet.

Those curious to learn the motive of Mr. Bailey's kind gifts to me will find its origin in a letter which I wrote, to The Academy dated llth May, 1901.

His reply to the same repaid my poor services to him 30 years ago a hundredfold. However, such marks of regard are the salt of our lives as we slowly sink below the horizon ourselves.

WILLIAM MERCER.

Netherley Hall, Mathon, Malvern, 10th Sep- tember, 1902.

These letters concluded our direct corre- spondence. WILLIAM MERCER.

PISCINA. I think it likely that many besides myself have sometimes wondered what could be the connexion between a fishpond and the water-drain found in our ancient churches and now commonly called a piscina. The sense-connexion is not shown in the ' N.E.D.,' where the earliest quotation for the ecclesiastical use of the term is of the date 1793. The Middle English term was " lavatory," as appears in four quotations

under that word in the ' N.E.D.' Durandus r who died about 1333, says : " Prope altare- .... collocatur piscina seu lauacrum .... in qua manus lauantur " (' Rationale,' lib. i. cap. i. sect. 30). It was used for the ceremonial washings of the priest's hands at certain times before, during, or at the end of the mass, which times were different in, the various rites. It was also used for the rinsing of the chalice after the priest had consumed the ablutions. Hence it is that we sometimes find only one drain and some- times two, and where there are two the one specially intended for the priest's hands is sometimes larger, and projects from the face of the wall. The Roman term is sacrarium, and the same word is used in the Hereford and some copies of the Sarum Missal. Thus in Hereford, after the ablu- tions, " eat ad sacrarium et la vet manus " ; and in a missal quoted by Martene (' De Ant. Eccl. Ritibus,' lib. i. cap. iv. art. xii.,. end of Ordo xxii.) : " Postea la vet manus ad piscinam dicendo : Lavabo inter innocentes," &c. Thus we see that the words " piscina,'* "lavatory," and "sacrarium," all denote the same thing.

And now for the sense-history of " piscina,' r as it suggests itself to me. It means : (1) A fishpond. (2) Any pool of water; it is used eighteen times in the Vulgate Bible for pools, including the probatica piscina, or sheep pool of Bethesda. (3) Any- thing made to hold a large quantity of water, particularly the great fonts in the baptisteries of St. John Lateran, Pisa, Ravenna, &c., capable of holding ten or a dozen adult persons. The application of the term to fonts would be promoted by the idea expressed by Tertullian : " Nos pisciculi secundum l^dvv nostrum in aqua nascimur.' r Indeed, Optatus expressly gives this mystical reason for the font being called piscina. The same term was early applied to a basin on the south of the altar in which the priest washed his hands before the eucharistic rite (Smith and Cheetham's ' Diet. Chr. Ant.,' under ' Piscina '). It was also applied to holy-water basins, some of which were, and are, as large as our fonts, or larger. I forget where it was that I once saw a very large- one, in which there were sculptured fishes at the bottom of the water. (4) From these large receptacles for water to be used for sacramental or ceremonial ablutions, the term would easily pass on to the small perforated basins in niches that we so con- stantly see in our ancient churches, the lineal descendants of the much larger basins used in earlier times, as our fonts are of those