206 A Belie of Pagan Marlborough. 



When I was preparing to write the letterpress for Messrs. 

 Mate's Pictiiresque Marlborough, a year ago, Mr. Ponting kindly 

 gave me some valuable information about the churches and other 

 buildings which I visited in his company. 



As regards the little stone at the northern part of the window 

 in the south aisle at St. Mary's I observed that it was classical in 

 feeling, and I put the question whether it could be a work of the 

 Jacobean renaissance, or to what period he would refer it. Mr. 

 Ponting assured me that it could not be the work of Elizabethan or 

 Jacobean times, but that he couldn't distinguish the suViject, which 

 is not so plain in the stone itself as it appears in the photograph 

 illustrating this note. ^ "Then" (said 1) "it is Romaji! And it is 

 a figure of the goddess Fortuna." Mr. Ponting agreed that the 

 exterior arch and the draping of the figure were Eoman in their 

 character. He has more recently informed me further that the 

 material of the carving, Bath oolite, was such as the Komans used. 

 The head and bust have unfortunately been knocked off with 

 purposeful intent (as is the case with the figure of the angel) 

 probably by some iconoclast of the 16th century, while the stones 

 were exposed in some pi'ominent position in the walls of the 

 Norman church where they had been fixed. To the destroyer in 

 Tudor times an image was an idol, whether carved by pagan or 

 by Christian ; and it is not impossible that the wheel of Fortune 

 may have been mistaken then (as it has been more recently) for 

 that of St. Katharine. It falls in shadow in the photograph. 



The sculpture, which is in low relief, measures 14in. in height 

 by llin. in breadth. The female figure is completely draped. At 

 her left foot is a wheel ; and her right arm and shoulder support 

 a horn of plenty ( cornucopia). The right hand holds the tiller 

 (clavus) of a classical steering-paddle, or vvl&^qv (gtihernacuhim, or 

 pedalion), with a broad blade (pinna), resting on a globe. 



As Captain Fluellen reminded Ensign Pistoll, 



" Fortune is painted blinde, with a muffler afore hi.s eyes, to signifie to you 

 that Fortune is blinde ; and shee is painted also with a wheele, to signifie to 

 you, which is the morall of it, that shee is turning and inconstant, and 



' The illustration is from a photograph by Mr. T. P. Bane, of Marlborough. 



