Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/457

 9* S. I]

s. in. JUNE 10, m] NOTES AND QUERIES.

451

t leir congregations could be assembled, and f >r this important purpose the basilican d 3sign presented far stronger recommenda- ons than any other.

1ST. CLAIR BADDELEY. thought that when Constantine adopted

ne Christian religion he granted some of his b isilicas for the purpose of Christian worship. ]\ ay we not even suppose that the practice o : the new religion had made crime less, and so fewer halls of justice would suffice?

The centurion who built the great syna-

)gue at Capernaum was, I suppose, a

oman. Would he not, therefore, probably follow the model of a Roman building ? I submit that every public room must have some adjunct, and cannot resemble the four walls of a domestic chamber : a theatre must have its stage ; a court its bema, or judgment seat ; a music-hall its orchestra ; even a large dining-hall its dais for the high table.

I see Liddell and Scott's dictionary quotes Plato and Strabo for 17 /3ao-iAt/o; (o-roa), a colonnade at Athens, and adds that at Rome, in the writings of Vitruvius, 17 /3acriAiK?7 sig- nified a public building with colonnades and aisles in the Forum, where merchants congre- gated and trials were held, and that on the same plan Constantine built the Christian churches, which were hence called basilicas.

On what better model could he have built them ? For what the Christians needed were not temples, or sanctuaries, or shrines for the dwelling-places of an idol deity, but places of i assembly for worship and instruction.

I have myself seen in Sicily a bench of judges sitting along the curved side of a table, the president at the apex of the curve with a crucifix on the table before him. And in the House of Commons I think ithe members of a committee sit in a serni- icircle, with a chair for the witness under (examination in the middle of the chord.

The cathedral of Mainz has an apse at both nds. Apses were common in England in iarly times, though now regarded as a mark )f French Gothic. I think they are universal nRussian, Byzantine, and Armenian churches. A part of the Armenian service consists of processions round the altar.

And does not the westward (or, more accurately, facing the people) position of the Pope, like that of a Dissenting minister, Confirm the notion that the bishop sat with his clergy on either hand, like a presiding udge or a steersman of a ship 1 When a little ^t is not uncommon for a denomination litherto unrepresented there to hire the
 * own in England is growing into a large town

town-hall for their worship till they can build a chapel for themselves.

So far as I can make out little is known of the British or Romano-British Church ; but till the withdrawal of the Roman army were not the Christians a small body and perse- cuted 1 Hence were they not more likely to have a small than a large basilica at Silchester ? Were they likely to desire or likely to ask for the use of the large basilica there ? Or if they had asked, would the military autho- rities have been likely to grant it to them 1

T. WILSON.

Harpenden.

I cannot but think the discovery of the synagogue at Capernaum has settled that churches were planned after synagogues before they came to be called basilicas. The introduction of anything derived from Greek temples is more modern than Wren, as he gave no church except St. Paul's Cathedral any portico. His pupils designed Spitalfields, Shoreditch, and St. Martin's at Charing Cross, and porticoes then became general in London, as at St. George's, Bloomsbury, Hanover Square, Limehouse, Greenwich, Poplar, and Marylebone, till the Greek fashion reached its climax in new St. Pancras, whose details are all from one Athenian building, the triple temple of Minerva Polias, Erechtheus, and Pandrosus. Only two of Wren's churches, we must remember, are outside the City of London, namely, St. James's, Piccadilly, and one at Northampton. E. L. GARBETT.

HORACE WALPOLE AND HIS EDITORS (8 th S. xi. 346, 492; xii. 104, 290, 414, 493; 9 th S. i. 91; ii. 75, 332, 531 ; iii. 54, 131, 257, 353). The following letter of Horace Walpole to George Hardinge, dated 24 May, 1785, is published in Nichols's 'Illustrations of Literary History' (vol. iii. p. 217) :

"Mr. Walpole cannot help troubling Mr. Hardinge with a line on a distress he has had this morning. A company came to see his house, and said they came from Hampstead, and that Mr. Hardinge had spoken to him about them ; which not having happened, Mr. Walpole did not know what to do. However, as they used Mr. Hardinge's name, Mr. Walpole (as another set was expected) offered them to come to-morrow, or to walk over the house now till the other company should come ; but they did not chuse either. Mr. Hardinge knows Mr. Walpole is always desirous of obliging him ; but he is so teazed with numerous applications, that he is forced to be as strict as possible ; and was last year obliged to print his Rides, one of which he takes the liberty of sending to Mr. Hardinge, which may save him trouble too, as it will be an answer to those who may apply to him when he is not at leisure to write. Nor can Mr. Walpole admit any accidental company, when a day is engaged ; nor