248 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»d S. No 80., Skpt. 27. '5P. 



letter or in your printed " N. & Q.,'* will much 

 oblige. P. C. 



ANCIENT REPRESENTATIONS OP THE TRINITY. 



Happening lately to be inspecting the very 

 pleasant little Musee at Rypres, I noticed a wood 

 carving; one of three large old medallions, which, 

 in connexion with another similar curiosity, may 

 interest your readers. 



The carving had for its subject a representation 

 of the Trinity. The Father, a reverend old man, 

 sitting, supports the cross ; on which is stretched 

 our Redeemer, his head (as is usual in early re- 

 presentations) declining to the right. 



In extreme suffering, the figure resembles the 

 painting of the same painful subject by the By- 

 zantine artists : the limbs long and extenuated, 

 the face hollow, and full of agony. 



From the mouth of the Father proceeds the 

 dove, the third person in the Trinity being thus 

 symbolised, in full wing ; flying towards the 

 bowed head of the suffering Christ. The whole 

 reminded me forcibly of a carving in Morwen- 

 stovv Church, Cornwall, carefully preserved with 

 true antiquarian zeal by the learned vicar, the 

 Rev. R. S. Hawker. 



On the right hand, in this carving, the Son is 

 shown — a face with some rude notions of beauty ; 

 from His mouth proceed two curious strings, or- 

 namented with pellets. On the higher of these 

 two the dove is seen attacking the dragon, who, 

 in his turn, is attempting to demolish the church, 

 symbolised by a tower : on the other side of 

 which, previous to its destruction by some local 

 barbarian, the Father, the reverend aged head, 

 might have been seen. 



I shall, perhaps, succeed better in describing 

 this fragment of ecclesiastical ornamentation by 

 adding the explanation with which the vicar of 

 the parish kindly furnished me : — 



" The turret, or tower, is the symbol of the Church 

 Universal. 



" The assailant of the Church is the dragon ; type of 

 Satan, the foe. 



" The defender of the Church is the Holy Ghost, the 

 Dove ; which proceedeth from the second person of the 

 Trinity, God the Son." 



I should suppose neither of these carvings date 

 earlier than the fourteenth century ; on this point, 

 however, I should be glad of information. 



T. H. Pattison. 



[For a notice of the bosses in Morwenstow Church, see 

 "N. &Q.,"l=tS. X. 123.] 



_ Who wrote the Letter to Lord Monteagle ? — On 

 visiting a short time since the interesting church 



of Ightham, near Sevenoaks, my attention was 

 caught by a mural monument containing the bust 

 of a lady, who was traditionally reported to have 

 written the letter which proved the cause of dis- 

 covering the Gunpowder Plot. Behind the mo- 

 nument was some of her needlework suspended. 

 The following was the epitaph : 



" D. D. D. To the pvetious name and honor of Dame 

 Dorothy Selby, the Relict of Sir William Solby, K'. the 

 only daughter and heire of Charles Bonham, Esq. 



" She was a Dorcas 

 Whose curious needle wound the abused stage 

 Of this leud world into the golden age. 

 Whose pen of steel and silken inck enroll'd 

 The acts of Jonah in records of gold. 

 Whose arte disclosed that plot, Avhich, had it taken, 

 Rome had tryumph'd, and Britain's walls had shaken. 



She was 

 In heart a Lydia, and in tongue a Hanna, 

 In zeale a Ruth, in wedlock a Susanna. 

 Prudently simple, providently wary. 

 To the world a Martha, and to heaven a Mary. 



Who put on) in the year) Pilgrimage, 69. 

 immortality J of her J Redeemer, 1641." 



Magdalenbnsis. 

 Has the Papal Condemnation of the Copemican 

 System been- retracted ? — In various books I have 

 seen statements that the Pope has retracted the 

 prohibition of the Copernican theory. Thus Sir 

 Francis Palgrave, in The Merchant and the Friar 

 (1837), p. 304., says : 



" Pope Pius certainly showed great kindness to us 

 heretics : lie acted much like a gentleman, and behaved 

 very handsomely, when, in 1818, he came info the con- 

 sistory, and repealed the edicts against Galileo and the 

 Copernican system." 



And Admiral Smyth, in his Cycle of Celestial 

 Objects (1824), vol. i. p. 65., says : 



" The Newtonian doctrines, softened by the tei-m hypo- 

 thesis instead of theory, had been taught in the Roman 

 Catholic Universities of Europe; until at length, in 1818, 

 the voice of truth was so prevailing, that Pius VII. re- 

 pealed the edicts against the Copernican system, and 

 thus, in the emphatic words of Cardinal Toriozzi, ' wiped 

 off this scandal from the church.' " 



Can any of your readers tell me what is the 

 foundation of these assertions, and where the "re- 

 peal" here spoken of can be found ? W. W. 



Resuscitation of the Dead. — There* is not a sub- 

 ject of greater importance for physiology (and, 

 perhaps, therapeutics !), than the method of the 

 Fakirs of India to " put a person bye for a num- 

 ber of months, and then to take him up again." 

 Has that process ever been properly (scienti- 

 fically) ascertained and described ? Dr. Lotsky. 

 15. Gower Street. 



Mystery. — Is it true, as has frequently been 

 stated, that the word Viyxr-r^pwv was formerly in- 

 scribed on the front of the Pope's tiara ? 



Abhba. 



