Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/147

 12 s. vi. APRIL io, i92o.j NOTES AND QUERIES.

119

Salaria Vetus.' The ' Itinerarium Melmes- buriense ' of the seventh or early eighth century mentions St. Vasella as resting near the road close to the fourth gate on the Via Salaria, which used to be called the Gate of St. Silvester. See Miss Ethel Ross Barker's ' Rome of the Pilgrims and Martyrs ' (London, 1913), pp. 98, 106, 118, 215, 338, 339. It is possible that St. Basilla was martyred June 11, 304, and her body secretly disposed of, and not formally buried in the cemetery of St. Hermes till Sept. 22 in the same year. Her relics were by S. Paschal I. transferred to the Church of Santa Prassede July 20, 818 (Marucchi, ' Basiliques et Eglises de Rome,' Paris and Rome, 1902, pp. 325-7); but they have, T believe, now disappeared. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

The author of ' Christian Inscriptions,' quoted at this reference, tells me that " the expression Somno JEternali " is to be accounted for by the fact that the Christians bought up partly prepared gravestones made by pagans which began with the conventional formulae. One also finds " D.M.," i.e.. " Dis Manibus." With regard to Commando and innocentia, branded by me as illiterate blunders for Cammendo and innocentiam, it has been pointed out to me that these were usual in late or low Latin, but all the same they are specimens of a degenerate Latinity. J. B. McGovERisr.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

' ADESTE FIDELES ' (12 S. v. 292, 329 ; vi. 23). Your correspondent probably knows the account of this hymn in Cowan and Love's ' The Music of the Church Hymnary,' 1901, p. 5. If he is interested in the music, I would refer him to The Musical Antiquary, April, 1910, p. 188, which may have escaped his notice.

G. E. P. A.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (12 S. iv. 304.)

" Quand Italic sera sans poison," &c., is quoted in ' Southey's Commonplace Book,' 3rd Series, at pp. 4, 5. from " Leigh's Observations, p. 422," in a very slightly different form.

Presumably the reference is to Edward Leigh's ' Selected and Choice Observations concerning the Twelve First Caesars,' the second edition of which, published in London in 1647, had an appendix of " Certaine choice French Proverbs " ; but I have not verified it.

(12 S. vi. 68.)

1. Mr. W. Gurney Benharn ( ' Cassell's Book of Quotations,' p. 450), attributed the lines to Mrs. R. A. M. Stevenson and adds "Given by Frank Dieksee, R.A., as a motto to his picture 'The Reverie,' exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1895." JOHN B. WAINE WRIGHT.

0n Uoofts.

What Became of the Bones of St. Thomas ? A Con - tribution to His Fifteenth Jubilee. By Arthur James Mason, (hambridge (University Press, 8s.)

CANON MASON has here brought together all the original documents forming the sources of our knowledge of the martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury, and the history of his shrine. The purpose of the book is to enable the reader to draw his own conclusions as to the likelihood of the bones, which were discovered some thirty years ago in the eastern crypt of the cathedral, being those of the murdered Archbishop.

Two points have to be established as a founda- tion for a conclusion : that the body of Becket was hidden, and not, as had been supposed, burnt ; and that the present condition of the skull discovered in the crypt is compatible with the accounts of the wounds which the murderers dealt their victim.

The skull, as is shown by the photograph Canon Mason gives us, is badly shattered, and, in particular, there is a long and wide wound running from the left side of the crown back towards the base of the skull. The crown, however, is not broken, and this is staggering to- the advocate of the identification, for, of the five men present at the scene of the murder, four declare that the crown was cut off. On the other hand the description of the head after death, and of the manner in which they were able to bandage it, and also the mention of a kind of circlet of blood round the head, make it very difficult to believe that a large portion of the crown of the skull itself was shorn away. The accounts differ considerably as to the blows dealt, their succession and effect. Is it possible that the corona cut off was the scalp? Grim's words seem to suggest it : " et summitate coronse, quam sancti chrismatis unctio dicaverat Deo, abrasa. . . .vulneravit in capite, eodem ictu prseciso brachio hsec referentis." Summitate abrasa appears hardly to be the natural way to describe the cutting through of a skull, while the descent of the blow with so much effect upon the arm of Grim affords some presumption that it had not met with the full resistance for which it was calculated. It seems clear that St. Thomas fell on his right side. The left side of the skull, shown in the photograph, has been broken into fragments towards the base. A living head lying on the ground, injured as this has been with the brains and blood scattered about the huge wound, might well on the left side present the appearance of having the crown severed.

The question of the preservation of St. Thomas's bones presents, we think, greater difficulties. What evidence there is is slight ; and, on the whole goes in favour of the relics having been burnt. The conclusion most plain men will draw from the materials which Canon Mason has so laboriously and ably put together, is that the problem remains and will remain insoluble. That itself is by no means a conclusion to be despised ; but even if it were, the value of this little work would not thereby be diminished. The sections on .the Tomb and the Shrine and on the Destruction of the Shrine include all the original descriptive