vxori eius viventi et dominae Elianorae quondam vxori eius et
alijs. anno 1478. April 23.



Alexander episcopus seruus seruorum dei ad perpetuam rei
memoriam Pastoris cterni uices licet immeriti gerentes in terris
ad ea libenter intendimus per que in dies Christi fidelium deuotio
peramplius augeri et animarum salus ualeant procurari. Sane
cum dilecta in Christo filia Nobilis mulier Margarita Comitissa
Richmundie et Derbie Carissimi in Christo filij nostri Henrici
Anglie Regis Illustrissimi mater ex intimo deuotionis feruore a
Venerabilibus fratribus nostris Vniuersis Archiepiscopis et
Episcopis ac dileciis filijs Vniuerso Clero Regni Anglie cum
magna maturitate obtinuisset ordinari et per dictum Regnum
Septima Idus Augusti quolibet Anno festum dulcissimi Jhesu
Saluatoris nostri ac officium cum Capitulis lectionibus antiphonis
uersiculis et responsoriis congruentibus ac Missacum eius octaua
in ecclesijs dicti Regni celebrari et decantari ordinationem et
celebrationemhuiusmodipernos etsedem apostolicam humiliter
petijt confirmari Nos igitur qui diuini cultus augmentum et
animarum salutem nostris potissime temporibus supremis desi-
dcramus affectibus post deliberacionem quam super hijs cum
fratribus nostris habuimus diligentem prout ex alijs nostris in
forma breuis litteris constat prefate Comitisse in hac parte
deuotis supplicationibus inclinati officium predictum illiusque
ordinationem auctoritate apostolica tenore presentium de nouo



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Notes from the College Records, 1 1

approbamus et confirmamus volentes illud in Regno predicto a
uolentibus posse coli et obseruari iuxta ordinationem et institu-
tionem predictas £t nichilominus ut Christi fideles colibentius
ad agendum et celebrandum dictum officium inducantur quo
exinde se suaram sperauerint salutem animarum adepturos de
omnipotentis dei misericordia ac beatorum Petri ac Paul!
Apostolorum eius auctoritate confisi omnibus et singulis utriusque
sexus Christi fidelibus uere penitentibus et confessis qui officium
predictum in dicto Regno et ecclesijs illius denote celebrauerint
et audierint omnes et singulas indulgentias quas festum Corporis
domini nostri Jhesu Christi audientes et celebrantes consecuntur
dicta auctoritate elargimur Non obstantibus apostolicis ac bone
memorie Octonis et Octoboni olim in dicto Regno dicte sedis
Legatorum in Proiiincialibus quoque et synodalibus Concilijs
editis generalibus uel specialibus Constitutionibus et ordina-
tionibus ceterisque contrarijs quibuscunque Nulli ergo omnino
hominum liceat banc paginam nostre approbationis confirma-
tionis uoluntatis et elargitionis infringere uel ei ausu temerario
contraire. Siquis autem hoc attemptare presumpserit indigna-
tionem omnipotentis dei ac beatorum Petri et Pauli Apostolorum
eius se nouerit incursurum. Datum Rome apud sanctum petrum
Anno Incarnationis dominice Millesimo quadringentesimo
nonagesimo quarto Quarto nonas Octobri Pontificatus nostri
Anno tercio.

Signed: L. Podocatharus, and by the writer of the Bull

de Oulterris.

Endorsed: Registrata apud me L. Podocatharum.

And in later hands : (i) Bulla confirmationis festi dulcissimi
Jesu cum indulgentijs ad instantiam filii Matris Regis Marga-
retae, &c. ; (2) Anno Domini 1494, 4® Non. Octob. Pontificatus
Alexandri Papae 30 ; (3) A bull grauntyd by pope Alexander
the vj**> for the confirmacion of the feste of Jhesu, the same
Indulgence that is grauntyd to the feste of Corpus Christi.

R. F. S.

(To be continued.)

Erratum.^Yol xix, p. 546, line 3 from the foot of the page, read nos
et Romanam.



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-<^y






AD POETAS AQTTILINOS.

*<Weep no more, woful Shepherds, weep no more."

Ye budding Bards, who from our Eagle's wings
Pluck pens to write your amorous twitterings,
What naked shame will you ere long inflict
On the Poor Fowl, when all his plumes are picked!
As you are strong, be merciful, and spare
Those great flight-feathers, which should beat the air
And make our Bird on wings of wonder rise
High o'er the noblest Gander to the skies.

If pens you lack, 'tis surely no abuse
To bid you spare the Eagle, pluck the Goose.
Poets as great as you have taken flight
On grey-goose pinions to Parnassus' height.
Great is the Eagle, soaring through the skies;
Yet they are foolish, who the Goose despise,
Whether her plumes enable us to pass
Into some treacherous Tripos' lowest class.
Or toothsome flesh delight our mouths at Michaelmas.

Nigh forty years our noble Eagle counts.
And still supreme o'er meaner creatures mounts:
Share you his flight; but, pray you, don't forget,
O more than Milton, you aren't forty yet.
Ere six-and-twenty Keats had lived and sung:
"Then print me," Bavius clamours; "I'm as young."
And thus to helpless Johnians he repeats
Erotic mouthings — ^but he isn't Keats.



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Ad Pottos Aquilinos. 23

If you would warble (and there are who will),
Whilst Father Antic calls you infant still,
Drink the Pierian waters, but expect
Therefrom a strong medicinal effect.
Drink, if you must ; but see the draught be mild :
The potent brand is not for every, child.
Climb, if it please you, great Parnassus' steep ;
But climb: don't try it at a single leap.
Such reckless haste the mountaineer atones
With twisted ankles, or with broken bones.

If youthful ardour sting your soul to rhyme,
Rhyme on ; but grow not old before your time :
Don't wax too serious over youthful woes,
Like puppy-dogs, which feel stomachic throes,
When curious longing tempts their tongues to lick.
And taste of blacking makes them deadly sick.
If hapless love turn rosy life to blue,
O blighted bard of less than twenty-two,
Don't give this ribald world excuse to scoff:
Pray go to bed and sleep the matter off.

Then sing, ye sufferers from an itching tongue,
Sing, pipe, chirp, twitter, warble; but be young.
Choose lighter themes. Have youthfulness and mirth
Fled with Astraea from a groaning earth?
If young ambition urge you to desire
An introduction to the Muses' choir,
Mark whom you court; — Melpomene's the worst:
Shew your credentials to Thalia first.
Don't know her? What? So shy? Well, take your
At Calverley's or Cluvienus' feet, [seat

Or his, whose Muse (as Bursars dare avow)
In mighty numbers canonised the Cow.

At least avoid one subject: 'tis the curse
Of modern, and especially minor verse, —
Yourself: pray don't indecently expose
Your naked soul, with all its passion-throes.



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24 Ad Poetas A quiltnos.

Its chance abrasions, and its foolish fears,
Its whines, its wrigj^lings, and its sloppy tears.
If passion's pains press potent on your chest,
Sing of your supper : we'll infer the rest.

Then be more private; show not every eye
Your heart's uncouth ill-oiled machinery.

• A human document ' ? Come, take the hint :
It doesn't follow that it's fit to print.

Then drape your soul with reticence, and choose
More cheerful subjects ; — sing about the crews>
Sonnets on Sausage, Ballads to the Backs,
Or Canzonets on Cambridge Chimney-stacks,
Spenserian stanzas on Sagacious Dogs,
Pindaric Odes concerning PoUywogs,
Didactic Dramas upon Frozen Beef;
But give your Vivisected Soul relief.

Pray you, be merry. Sunny-hearted mirth
Has yet its function and its sphere on earth.
At times Apollo gives his bow a rest;
Even Deans and Tutors have been known to jest.

* Laugh and grow fat ' : so runs the ancient saw.
'Laugh and grow strong,' were nearer Nature's law.
Strong to endure, and resolute to do,

Bold to attempt, tenacious to pursue;
For 'tis in Mirth that Melancholy finds
A Patent Pill to purge dyspeptic minds.

The Wollerer's Ghost.



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THE BOATHOUSE DOG.

Oh, men may come, and men may go.
And get their "Lents" and "Mays,"

Then vanish from the " path of tow,"
Yet one there is who stays.

There's no one seems to know his age.
His wisdom none will doubt ;

His every action speaks the sage,
And he is old and stout.

He never runs or wanders far,

He has'nt got a "femme,"
Above all things he seems to bar

Immersion in the Cam.

He's one of great authority,

A sort of canine "prog,"
To check undue frivolity

In every stranger dog.

Sometimes his doggy soul is stirred

By foes across the tide.
And then his baritone is heard

The mongrel curs to chide.

But even then his dignity

Is rigidly maintained.
In spite of the malignity

Within his heart contained.
VOX,. XX. I



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26 The Boathouse Dog.

At boating he is quite "au fait,"

And gravely superintends
The "freshers" practice every day,

Until the "tubbing" ends.

Then later, when the "trials" start.
With their ungainly freight.

He sees each sorry lot depart.
Each limp-returning "eight."

Think, what a splendid coach he'd make

With his experience;
For this, at least, for his own sake.

We'll hope is no pretence.

He might be, if we only knew.

Some man transmogrified,
Some old-time swell who got his "blue,"

And now is doggified.

Whate'er he was in retrospect.

It doesn't matter now.
To-day he's worthy our respect.

As Lady Margaret "Bow."

H. B. H.



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THE AMATEUR ANTIQUARY.
II.

** Olde moniments, which of so famous sprights,
The honour yet in ashes doo maintaiac"

Spbmsxk.

|0 far our sketches of the Roman Wall and its
surroundings have been drawn chiefly from
materials with which the historians have
supplied us : let us now seek our inspiration
from a humbler source, and turn, as it were, imaginative
rag-pickers, rubbish-sorters of cities which have been
dead and buried these fourteen hundred years,-—
scraping and ferreting amongst stones and earth,
sifting out broken bottle necks, rusty nails, and odd
pieces of crockery, and endeavouring to apply to each
fragment a kind of Sherlock Holmes method of
reasoning, that we may gain some clue to the lives and
histories which once circled round it. Truly the people
of old times were an inconsiderate race ; for the history
of their lives and habits is written mainly in the grave
and the ashpit ; and a man must be something of a
body-snatcher, and something of a scavenger to
read it. Doubtless we are wiser, or at least more
economical, who use our rubbish to feed our boiler-
fires : but it is a little hard upon the Antiquaries of, let
us say, the thirty-seventh century. What will they
think of us, if we leave them not even a broken jampot
or an empty sardine-tin, to form a subject of philosophic
argument and an incentive to archaeologic battle ?

But let us return to our rubbish heap, and pick out
the bulkiest objects, — stones, no doubt, of all shapes
and sizes, altars and gravestones, votive and commemo-



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iS The Amateur Antiquary.

rative tablets, mutilated statues and bruised reliefs;
and so forth, down to the plain block of freestone, which
once stood in the face of the Great Wall with some
millions of its fellows. Here is the record of an
Emperor or Imperial Legate, here of an obscure
barbarian soldier, or a humble Briton's dead child :
here is the great altar, which a Prefect dedicates to the
fashionable deity of the day ; here is another, —
measuring scarcely more inches than the first measures
feet, — which betokens the clumsy workmanship of a
slave or peasant, and his devotion or gratitude to some
uncouthly named god of his forefathers. Here a large
and not inartistic image presents to us Cybele or
Hercules; and here is the rough flagstone, on which
some budding, six-year-old artist has scratched his
earliest master-piece, proving that boys were boys even
in those days; — at least it appears that they were
moved to depict the * human form divine,' after the
fashion still in vogue with the draughtsman of the
Nursery. It is a comforting thought, and one to be
remembered when our ears are deafened by the jargon
of rival critics : schools may come, and schools may go ;
the Academic may denounce the Impressionist, and
the Impressionist may sneer at the Academic : but
there is only one really permanent School of Art, and
in that we have all graduated.

Many of our specimens have a flavour of literary
interest also ; for upon these we may read some of the
earliest compositions ever published in Britain. This
tablet from Caervoran is inscribed with a set of
rough iambic verses in praise of the Mother of the
Gods, — perhaps the earliest poem ever put together in
England. These two altars from Corbridge bear Greek
dedications, each of which reads itself into a Hex-
ameter; this altar from Risingham shows us a pair of
verses of this latter metre, in which *one touch of
nature,' makes us feel own brothers to their composer;
for, Roman as he was, he was not above false quantities.



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The Amateur Antiquary. 29

Still, it is a human, rather than a literary or artistic
interest, that attaches to the best of them ; * sermons in
stones,' we might almost call them ; for they form a
kind of ill-arranged common-place book upon the life
and doings of northern Britain during three centuries
of Roman rule: a book hard to interpret, since its
thousand authors wrote independently, at widely
different times, and in widely sundered places; hard
also to piece together, since many a page has yet to be
recovered, and many a page is irrecoverably lost.
Many a relic lies embedded in church or priory, castle
or pele-tower in the neighbourhood of the wall ; and
many an inscription has been destroyed by the super-
stitious ignorance of early ages, or the utilitarian spirit,
which, though commonly supposed to be especially
characteristic of modern times, is not a thing of to-day
or yesterday — just as there were brave men before
Agamemnon, — so there were Philistines before Goliath ;
illacrimabtles urgeantur.

Formerly the unsophisticated Cumbrian regarded all
lettered stones as * uncanny,' — possibly in fear lest they
might contain spells and incantations from the
mysterious rites of the dead heathen ; and tablet or
altar suffered accordingly, being * brayed' into sand, to
strew the farmhouse kitchen-floor. In some instances
the Saxon builder has compromised matters with his
conscience, and purged the stone of its paganism by
covering sculpture and inscription with a hard coating
of cement. Other memorials have fallen victims to the
exigencies of the farmstead : in the Museum at New-
castle we may yet see a stone, bearing the eSigf of a
Roman soldier, which narrowly escaped so mean a
destiny; for the figure stands in a hollow niche, and
Stukely tells us that it was " condemned to make a pig-
trough on; but some gentlemen, full timely, with a
small sum, for the present reprieved him." But
doubtless many a less fortunate stone has thus been
degraded from the service of the Dii Manes, and put to



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30 The Amateur Antiquary.

the base oflBlce of fattening bacon. The Moslem of
fiction relieves his angry soul by desiring that dogs'
may defile the graves of his enemy's ancestors : to wish
that pigs might make a dish of their gravestones would
surely be no less potent and expressive a curse.

Nor have the celestial deities fared much better than
the infernal. Holland, in his edition of Camden, de-
scribes an altar, which in Roman days did honour to the
Syrian Goddess ; but now, says he, " women beat their
buckes upon it." Cleanliness, the proverb tells us, is
next to godliness; and here we see the adage ex-
emplified : first the temple, and presently the laundry.
But even the Romans themselves are estopped from
complaining against their successors : the temptation
to use altars for quoins and building stones was often
too great for them ; and inscribed tablets were capital
things to pave a floor with. Nor were the memorials
of the dead respected, — as witness the monument
erected by the sorrowing Pusinna to her deceased
husband, Dagvald, the Pannonian ; for some sacri-
legious hand of the next generation has ruthlessly
chopped it into a circular hearthstone.

Of all the stones which have been preserved, whether
by the pious care of early antiquaries, by the hand of
Saxon or medieval mason, or by the kindly envelopment
of the earth itself, those are most numerous which bear
a dedication to some deity. Their number and variety
reveal to us a perfect hotch-potch of religions, a medley
of faiths dead and dying, which perhaps only Rome or
Alexandria could have matched. Nowhere else were
so many different nationalities permanently settled with-
in such comparatively narrow limits Gauls and Dacians,
Batavians and Spaniards, Tungrians and Dalmatians,
Syrians and Moors were amongst the peoples who
furnished garrisons for the forts : a certain infusion of
these races must have tinged the civil population also ;
for every year, no doubt, some of the time-expired
soldiers would settle upon farms in the fertile valleys



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The Afnateur Antiquary. 31

of the Tyne and Irthing, or, it may be, set up shop or
tavern in Luguvallum, Corstopitum or Pons Aelii.
Sepulchral inscriptions add to our list with records of
Rhaetians, Noricans, Pannonians, and the like: here
we meet with one from Traianopolis, here with a man
of Nicomedia, or a native of Tusdrus in the province of
Africa. At certain spots were planted colonies of
Britons, transported hither from the south; and, as
time ran on, the Romanized elements amongst the
original Brigantian and Otadene clans must gradually
have increased. All these races, to a greater or less
degree, adopted the official religion of their masters;
^nd most of them grafted upon it uncouth gods of their
own, which are sometimes addressed separately, and
sometimes identified with more familiar Roman
deities, as though the vanquished gods, as well as
their worshippers, had learnt to put on the garments
of civilization. Nor was this all; for, t'o make con-
fusion yet more confounded, there was an interchange
of deities amongst the subject races themselves, — as,
for example, at Condercum, where we find an Asturian
regiment restoring the temple of the Three Mothers of
the Plains, these latter being of distinctively Teutonic
origfin. Nor were the Romans themselves less indis-
criminately pious ; but, whenever they met with a new
god, they had at least some odds and ends of devotion
to bestow upon him, — some attic or cellar ready for
him in the misty palace of Olympus ; a compensation,
no doubt, for the discourtesy they had done him by
conquering his ancient worshippers in spite of their
prayers for his assistance.

In many cases polite obsequiousness joins the
reigning emperor to Jupiter or Mars, — no great com-
pliment to either, in some cases, unless the * numina
Augustorum' were more worshipful than their bodily
manifestations. In other instances philosophy, or
ignorance, personifies and worships an abstraction,—
the Genius of the Camp, the Wall, or the Standards,



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32 The Amateur Antiquary.

or even the plain Standards themselves, as was done
by the First or Faithful Cohort of Vardulli, which
seems to have been a somewhat sceptical regiment.
Here and there one special cult held sole, or at least
preeminent, sway; here and there the average is re-
stored by a more than usually comprehensive dedica-
tion, — "To Jupiter, best and gp-eatest," for example,
"and all the rest of the immortal gods;" or, as on a
tablet erected at Borcovicum by the Second Cohort of
Tungrians, " To all the gods and goddesses, as directed
by the oracle of the Clarian Apollo." It must have
surely been some extraordinary perplexity, which drove
a Teutonic Cohort, stationed in northern Britain, to
apply to an Ionian oracle for advice.

Jupiter is, of course, the deity most frequently
addressed; and the number of his altars found at
Birdoswald and Maryport seems to indicate the ex-
istence of temples in his honour at each of these places.
One altar is dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus, another
to Jupiter Serapis; and in many places, — never far
from spots where coal crops out, or where some kind
of ore lies near the surface, — altars have been found
inscribed to Jupiter Dolichenus, the special patron of
miners, — so called of Doliche in Thessaly, * ubi ferrum
nascitur,' as a continental inscription informs us.

In a district garrisoned by so large a force, Mars
naturally holds an important place; and to Mars we
find many altars dedicated, — to Mars pure and simple,
to Mars Militaris, and to Mars Victor. To him we
may possibly allot an altar found near Carlisle, which
gives us one of those brief glimpses of a forgotten
history, so interesting in their suggestiveness, and so
tantalizing in their brevity. The heading of the in-
scription has been cut away; but the name of the
dedicator, and the occasion of the dedication are still
to be read ; — " ob res trans vallum prospere gestas," — a
successful battle or campaign north of the Wall.
Surely there is a story hidden here : indeed we might



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The Amateur Antiquary. 33

construct twenty to fit the fragtnent, as easily as we
might build fairy tales upon the words "They lived
happily ever after." But let the episode be brimful of
moving accidents, and let the hairsbreadth 'scapes be
of the narrowest : let us manoeuvre Lucius Victorinus
into horrible danger — send him reconnoitring, let us
say, and throw him into an ambuscade, in some
Caudine Forks beside Liddesdale, or make him all but
a second Varus in the woods of Dumfriesshire. There
let him stand, encouraging his men with much out*
wards calmness, but mentally vowing the finest altar^
that ever mason made, or sculptor carved, if Mars will
but bring him out of the difficulty with life and honour.
And presently trumpets shall be heard in the distance ;
and the Sixth Legion, the Victorious, Pious, and Faith*
ful, shall come swinging up to his relief; and there
shall be great slaughter of Caledonians, and a happy
ending to our romance.

Of the worship of other well-known deities, there
are less fi-equent, but still sufficient traces. A large
altar, which was dredged from the Tyne at Newcastle,
is dedicated to Neptune by the Sixth Legion, and
perhaps records the fulfilment of a vow made by a sea-
sick detachment during the horrors of a stormy passage
across the North Sea. Apollo, under his title of
Maponus, may have had a temple at Hexham, Minerva
at Rochester in Redesdale — the Roman Bremeniufn.
Many altars bear inscriptions to Fortune, several to
Fortunae Conservatrix ; and, to judge by the places
where these were unearthed, it was fashionable to have
an altar to Fortune in one's villa — a kind of ornament
for the front hall. But we can well understand the
importance of gaining the goddess' gooviwill in this
wild region, where, no doubt, wealth and prosperity
would be more than ever apt to take wing. Fortune is
no bicyclist ; for, the rougher the road, the faster she
turns her wheel.

Hercules also had his worshippers, and with his
VOL. XX. F



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34 The Amateur Antiquary.

club and lion-skin formed a favourite subject for the
sculptors of the district. One of the Greek altars
already referred to, is dedicated to the Tyrian Herakles
by his archpriestess, Diodora; the other to Astarte,
by one Pulcher : and from these and other indications
we may infer that ancient Corstopitum had a certain
oriental flavour, and probably was not altogether a
model city. A sore stumbling block, too, has Astarte's
altar been to the old antiquarians, many of whom
mistook C-shaped sigma for G, and lambda for A, and
so were forced to invent a new heaven and a new earth,
or at least un-heard of goddesses and impossible men
to explain the consequent difficulties. But they were
brave gfuessers, and would never confess themselves
beaten: even Horsley turned Hadrian's lieutenant,
Platorius, into a town — a stranger metamorphosis,
surely, than ever Ovid celebrated: for meeting with
the general's name on a mutilated slab, he misread
one letter, and boldly informs us that '^ Apiatorium was
the name of a place at that time."

A few inscriptions and a number of sculptures attest
the worship of Mercury. Diana, Bellona, and (perhaps
more sincerely worshipped than any) the Goddess of
the Tertian Fever obtain bare mention in our list, as
does poor Vulcan also. He is the only god whose name
comes at the foot, and not at the head of the inscription :
but when his brother-gods used him so ill, what wonder
if the *servum pecus' of mortals did the like, and