Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/37

 i28.in.jANM3.i9i7.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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HEART IN HAND. Has this symbol ever fceen traced to an origin ? It was the sign -of the Fleet marriage (Num. Chron., 3rd Series, xi. 97, No. 5), and occurs on an engraved " Love Token " in my possession, c. 1800; also on one of Spence's tokens (Atkins, p. 123, Nos. 516, &c.), a few years -earlier. It does not appear on seventeenth- century tokens, nor do I find it as an inn sign.

F. P. B.

RYSLEY. Can any reader of ' N. & Q.' -supply a description of the arms of the Rysley family, some members of which were resident in Cambridgeshire in 1411 ?

R. HEFFER.

Saffron Walden.

THE DOMINICAN ORDER.

(12 S. ii. 510.)

So great and glorious is the Order of St. Dominic ; so honourable its long roll of saintly and heroic names, around many of whom has grown up a several library ; so varied and romantic its history ; so noble its missionary enterprises in mediaeval Europe, in the New World, in Japan ; that in a brief space I can only hope to indicate just a few modern English books which deal with the Black Friars, their literature and traditions. A very useful little brochure is ' The Dominicans : Letters to a Young Man on the Dominican Order,' translated from the French of Pere Duchaussoy, O.P., by the Very Rev. Bede Jarrett, the present Pro- vincial, edited by the late Very Rev. Fr. John Procter. This further has a bibliography, Writers.' 'The Spirit of the Dominican Order,' by Mother Frances Raphael, O.S.D., will be found extraordinarily interesting, as giving many details of the daily life, the observances, the active and contemplative work of the Order. Both the above are "published by Messrs. R. & T. Washbourne. The same authoress has written a ' Life of our Holy Father St. Dominic ' (Longmans, Green & Co.), and as " the spirit of an Order to be studied au fond must be traced first to its Founder from whom it has its being," this study, too, is of no small value and importance. Perhaps the best modern bio- graphy of St. Catherine of Siena, " the Holy -Edmund Gardner. Her ' Divine Dialogue '
 * Some Works in English by Dominican
 * and Seraphic Mother," is that by Prof.

has been translated by Algar Thorold ; and ' St. Catherine of Siena as seen in her Letters,' edited by Vida Scudder (London, 1905), may be consulted. A recent publica- tion is ' St. Catherine of Siena : her Life and Times,' by C. M. Antony (Burns & Gates), a work highly to be recommended. ' The Flower of the New World' (1899) is an account of St. Rose of Lima by F. M. Capes. There is a life of the same saint in the series " The Saints and Servants of God," edited by Father Faber of the Oratory (London, 1847). This is a paraphrase of ' Rosa Peruana : Uita Mirabilis et Mors Pretiosa S.Rosae a Sancta Maria,' by Leonard Hansen (1725). Beautiful and sympathetic sketches of St. Dominic, St. Catherine, and St. Rose may be found in Edward Hutton's ' Studies in the Lives of the Saints ' (Con- stable, 1902).

The learning of the Order found its culmination and glory in the genius of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose life has been written by many authors. For those who cannot have access to the original a transla- tion but recently begun of the ' Summa Theologica ' is being made by the Fathers of the English province. Amongst the greatest names of the Order stands that of the " Universal Doctor," the most erudite of the Schoolmen, "Master of the Masters," " magnus in magia, maior in philosophia, maximus in theologia," Albert of Cologne. His life has been translated by the Rev. F. H. Dixon (Washbourne). ' St. Catherine de Ricci : her Life, her Letters, her Community,' by F. M. Capes (Burns & Gates), is made doubly valuable owing to its preface, a ' Treatise on the Mystical Life,' by the late Father Bertrand Wilberforce, O.P. The mystical writings of the Blessed Henry Suso have been completely translated into French by Pere Thiriot, in two volumes (Paris, 1899). English versions of the autobiography and ' The Little Book of Eternal Wisdom ' are easily to be procured. ' Short Lives of the Dominican Saints ' (Kegan Paul) is, I believe, unfortunately out of print. I have found the " Penny Lives of Dominican Saints and Blessed," published by the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, useful and of interest.

It is worth noting that the Dominican Office and Mass differ considerably from the Roman rite. The Dominican liturgy is extremely dignified and magnifical, and when seen at such a church as S. Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, at St. Thomas's Priory, Hawkesyard, or at Haverstock Hill, its beauty and solemnity are very apparent.