THE ARREST OF INQUIRY. 63 



storms at sea, and got safe into harbour?" " Yes," 

 answered Diagoras, "I see how it is; for those are 

 never painted who happen to be drowned." There 

 is nothing new under the sun. Horace (Odes, Bk. 

 I, v) tells of the shipwrecked sailor who hung up 

 his clothes as a thank-offering in the temple of the 

 sea-god who had preserved him; Polydorus Ver- 

 gilius, who lived in the early part of the sixteenth 

 century, that is, some 1,500 years after Horace, de- 

 scribes the classic custom of ex voto offerings at 

 length, while Pennant the antiquary, describing the 

 well of Saint Winifred in Flintshire in the last cen- 

 tury, tells of the votive offerings, in the shape of 

 crutches and other objects, which were hung about 

 it. To this day the store is receiving additions. The 

 sick crowd thither as of old they crowded into the 

 temples of yEsculapius and Serapis; mothers bring 

 their sick children as in Imperial Rome they took 

 them to the Temple of Romulus and Remus. A 

 draught of water from the basin near the bath, or 

 a plunge in the bath itself, is followed by prayers at 

 the altar of the chapel which incloses the well. When 

 the saint's feast-day is held, the afflicted gather to 

 kiss the reliquary that holds her bones. Perhaps 

 one of the most pathetic sights in Catholic churches, 

 especially in out-of-the-way villages, is the altars on 

 which are hung votive offerings, rude daubs depict- 

 ing the disease or danger from which the worshipper 

 has been delivered. 



As to the images, tricked out in curious robes 



