June 30. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



509 



in the British Museum, very rich in En^rlish ex- 

 amples. See Sims's Handbook, pp 78. 274. 276. 

 The "Kawliason Collection" at Oxford is still 

 larger. 



h. Mr. Doubleday, of Little Russell Street, near 

 tJie British Museum, deals in sulphur casts of seals. 

 He sells about 2000 different impressions from 

 monastic, municipal, and personal seals. 



c. Mr. Ready, of 2. St. Botolph's Lane, Cam- 

 bridge, sells at a cheap rate casts of seals in 

 sulphur or gutta percha. He has many of the 

 College seals ; a large collection of German seals, 

 commencing with Charlemagne, &c. 



d. The late Mr. Caley made a collection of casts 

 from English and foreign seals, above 2000 in 

 number. Most of them are now in the possession 

 of Sir Thomas Philipps. See — 



" Catalogue of upwards of Fifteen hundred Impressions 

 from Ancient Seals in Wax and Sulphur, collected by the 

 late John Caley, Esq., on sale by Thos. Thorpe." 



e. A valuable plastic material for impressions 

 has been invented by Mr. Nesbitt, being a com- 

 pound of gutta percha with wax. See Arch. 

 Journal, vol. x. p. 157. Cetkep. 



ST. OERVAISE. 



(Vol.xi., p. 426.) 



This saint and his brother Protais suffered mar- 

 tyrdom in the year 62, during the persecution by 

 Nero ; the one at Ravenna, the other at Milan. 

 Their bodies are said to have been found in the 

 time of St. Ambrose, when he was making pre- 

 parations for the dedication of the groat church of 

 the latter city. It had been revealed to him in a 

 dream (see his Epist. to MarceUinus, 54, old 

 edition) that the bodies of these two saintly 

 brothers were in the church of St. Nabor and 

 St. Felix. He caused search to be made, and 

 there found their bones, with their names plainly 

 inscribed on the coffins. As soon as the grave was 

 opened many miracles occurred, and the bodies 

 were transported into the basilisk of Faustus, and 

 thence to that of St. Ambrose. The festival of 

 this translation was long celebrated at Milan, as 

 well as in the African churches, ever since the fifth 

 century, and the worship of these brother-saints 

 was established not only in the Latin, but the 

 Greek church. See St. Augustine, de Civit. Dei, 

 lib, xxii. c. 88., and Moreri's Diet. Historique. 

 These particulars are farther confirmed by a very 

 ancient manuscript. Life of St. Ambrose, in the 

 Cottonian Collection (Claudius, A 1. f. 41.) in the 

 British Museum : 



" Per idem tempus * sancti martyres Protasius et 

 Geruasius se sacerdoti releuauerunt. Krant enim in ba- 



* /. e. in the fourth centurj', when the Arian heresy 

 began to predominate. 



silica positi, in quibus sunt hodie corpora Naboris et 

 Felicis martyrum ; sed sancti martyres Nabor et Felix 

 celeberrime frequentabantur. Protasii uero et Geruasii 

 martyrum, ut nomiua, ita et jam sepulchra incognita erant, 

 in tantum ut supra eorum sepulchra ambularent omnes 

 qui vellent ad cancellos peruenire, quibus sanctorum 

 Naboris et Felicis martyrum ab injuria sepulchra defende- 

 bant-ur. Sed ubi sanctorum martyrum corpora sunt 

 leuata et in lecticis posita, multorum ibi sanatae iEgritu- 

 dines perdoeentur. Ca3ca9 qui in eadem basilica, quas 

 dicitur Ambrosiana, quo martyrum corpora sunt translata, 

 religiose seruiuit, ubi vestem martyrum attigit, statim 

 lumen recepit. Obsessa et jam corpora ab spiritibus im- 

 mundis curata summa cam gratia domum repetebant. 

 Sed his beneficiis martyrum, in quantum crescebat fides 

 Ecclesiae Catholicas, in tantum Ariaaorum perfidia minue- 

 batur," &c. 



Charles Hook. 



There is very little of the history of this saint 

 to be depended upon as authentic. His relics 

 were discx)vered at Milan by St. Ambrose, toge- 

 ther with those of his brother St. Protase. It is 

 believed that they were the sons of SS. Vitalis 

 and Valeria, both martyrs. Surius gives a history 

 of their lives, but we must read his accounts with 

 a due remembrance of his character, which has 

 been thus pithily described : 



" Surius avait de I'erudition, mais il donnait tete baissee 

 dans les fables, et manquait de critique." 



A long German legend places their martyrdom 

 under Nero, but it is generally supposed to have 

 happened under Domitian. F. C. H. 



Clericus -will find all that he can wish for re- 

 specting this saint in Alban Butler's Saints Lives, 

 under date June 19, with several references to 

 other works concerning the saint ; as also in Mrs. 

 Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 387. of 

 edit. 1850. Cetrep. 



DOVER OR BOVOR t 



(Vol. xi., p. 407.) 



I once asked the same question in Dover itself, 

 and was told that the name having been found in 

 old title-deeds written " Dovor," some of the law 

 gentlemen had adopted this mode of spelling. 



What may have been the age of those deeds was 

 not stated ; but, that the name was written Dover 

 in the sixteenth century is testified by old Lam- 

 barde, who died in 1601, and is quoted by Camden 

 in his Britannia as a person eminent for learning, 

 &c., and who " has been so lucky in his searches, 

 that he has left but very little for those that come 

 after him," &c. (Gibson, edit. foL, 1695, London, 

 pp. 155-6.) 



Although I have seen Lambarde's Kent, it is 

 not just now within my reach, and therefore 

 quote from his Topographical Dictionary, &c., 



