Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/285

 12 s. m. APRIL 14, 1917. NOTES AND QUERIES.

Whether the Salamander be a Beast,

Or Precious- Stone, which overcomes the Flame,

It skills not ; Since, by either is exprest

The Meaning which we purpose by the Same :

Both brooke the Fire unhurt ; And (more then so)

The fiercer and the longer Heats there are,

The livelyer in the same the Beast will grow ;

And, much the brighter, will the Stone appeare.

This Croicned Salamander in the Fire, May therefore not unfitly signifie Those, who in Fiery Charriots doe aspire, Elijah-like to Immortality : Or those Heroicke-spirits, who unharm'd Have through the Fires of Troubles and Affliction, (With Vertue and with Innocencie arm'd) Walkt onward, in the Path-may of Perfection.

There are several other lines to the same effect, but these are enough to show what moral Wither draws from the emblem.

The salamander is one of the hundred symbols used by Father Joseph Zoller, O.S.B., to illustrate the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in his ' conceptvs chronographicvs oe concepta sacra Dei- para,' containing 1712 chronograms which all reach the same total 1712, the year of the book's piiblication. Conceptus xxx. has as its illustration two salamanders in the midst of a fire, with the motto, "Non nocet ignis."

The explanatory lines are :

In mediis Salamandra salit, nil territa, flammis, Non nocet huic ignis, non timet ilia rpgum.

In mediis sine labe salit purissima flammis Virgo Parens : macula? non timet ilia rogum.

Students who wish to know more about the salamander may profitably consult the ' Hieroglyphica ' of Joannes Pierius Valeri- anus, Lugduni, 1579, who was a careful observer, and had studied the ways of salamanders on his own estate in Italy and elsewhere. His remarks are too long for quotation here. They may be found fo. 119b-120b. CECit DEEDES.

Randle Holme always takes his heraldic beasts seriously ; and this is what he has to tell us in the ' Academy of Armory ' :

" He beareth Argent, a Salamander in flames, proper. The Salamander, is a Creature with four short feet like the Lizard, without Ears, with a pale white belly, one part of their skin exceeding black, the other yellowish green, both very splendent and glittering ; with a black line going all a -long the back, having upon it little spots like Eyes : (and from hence it cometh to be called a Stellion, a Creature full of Stars.) the skin is rough and bald ; they are said to be so cold, that they can go through the Fire, nay, abide in it, and extinguish it, rather than burn. I have some of the hair, or down of the Salaman- der, which I have several times put in the Fire, and made it red hot, and after taken it out, which being cold, yet remained perfect wool, or fine downy hair. It is thus born by the name of Salandine.

" B three Salamanders heads erazed O born by Angers."

Burke, in his 'Encyclopaedia of Heraldry,' gives for Aunger, or Anger, a qxiite different coat ; for Aungier, Emi., a griffin segreant per fesse or arid az. Salandine is not mentioned ; can any one say if the name exists, and if so whether the family was armigerous ?

BERNARD P. SCATTERGOOD.

Far Headingley, Leeds.

ST. BARBARA, V.M. (12 S. iii. 41, 136, 158r 175, 211). The account of St. Barbara as given in the ' Breviarium Romanum,' " Offi- cia Sanctorum pro Aliquibus Locis ; Festa- fixa," Dec. 4, lections iv., v. and vi. of the- Second Nocturn of Matins, and the three similar lections in the Dominican Breviary for the same day, are official documents of the most scrupulous accuracy issued under the highest ecclesiastical sanction. These indisputably have more weight than the opinions of Bolandus, Tillemont, or any other individual scholar, and to my mind are the last authority on the point. The 'Breviarium Romanum '* bears on its title- page : " ex decreto SS. Concilii Trident ini restitutum, S. Pii V. Pontif. Max. iussu editum. dementis VIII., Urbani VIII., et Leonis XIII. auctoritate recognitum." The ' Breviarium ' " iuxta Ritum Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum " f has "Auctoritate Apos- tolica [dementis XII.] Approbatum et Reuerendissimi Patris Fr. Aiidrese Friih- wirth eiusdem Ordinis Generalis Magistri Permissu Editum."

If St. Barbara is "a wholly mythical personage," as M. S. REINACH appears to think, what are we to say of her cult, both liturgical and popular ? What of the relics of the saint venerated in so many churches at Rome and elsewhere ?

The reason why St. Barbara is invoked against thunder and lightning can, I believe, be explained by the following passage which closes her history in the Roman ' Breviary ':

" Filia?que [Barbara?] ceruicem ipse sceles- tissimus pater humanitatis expers propriis manibus amputauit : cuius fera crudelitas non diu inulta remansit; nam statim eo ipso in loco- fulmine percussus interiit. Caput huius beatis-

Typis Soc. S. loannis Euangel. Descl^e, Lefebvre et Soc., 1909. The recent liturgical changes in the Roman rite are of course wholly impertinent to the subject in question.
 * Pars Hiemalis. Bomae: Tornaci: Parisiis,

t Pars I. Mechliniae. H. Dessain. M.D.CCC.XCUI. Cardinal Friihwirth was raised to the Saered College in 1915. The present Master-General of the Dominican Order is the Most Rev. Fr. Lewis Theissliner, S.T.M., elected Aug. 3, 1915, at Friburg.