62 TRACKS IN TEME. 



popularity seems to force him to relate particulars concerning 

 her, he leaves himself room to disavow them ; but this is 

 hardly fair, for the great body of readers of his ' Lives of the 

 Saints ' are too confiding to criticise hidden meanings. ' From 

 this martyr's uncommon erudition,' he says, ' and the extra- 

 ordinary spirit of piety by which she sanctified her learning, 

 and the use she made of it, she is chosen in the schools the 

 patroness and model of christian philosophers.' According to 

 his authorities, she was beheaded under the Emperor Maxentius, 

 or Maximinus II. He adds, — ' she is said first to have been 

 put upon an engine made of four wheels joined together, and 

 stuck with sharp pointed spikes, that when the wheels were 

 moved her body might be torn in pieces.' The ' Acts ' add, 

 that at the first stirring of the terrible engine, the cords with 

 which the martyr was tied were broken asunder by the invisible 

 power of an angel, and the engine falling to pieces by the 

 wheels being separated from one another, she was delivered 

 from that death : hence the name of St. Catherine's wheel.' " 



This St. Catherine our author supposes not to be his 

 St. Catherine. " I am satisfied that the St. Catherine in 

 question could not be the same as is said to have been born at 

 Alexandria at the latter end of the second century, and suf- 

 fered martyrdom under the Emperor Maxentius (and whose 

 wheel is so celebrated) as upon consulting my Clavis Calen- 

 daria, by Brady, it does not appear that the Egyptian 

 saint was ever in Britain." Our author here admits the 

 existence of two St. Catherines; this is much better than Hone, 

 who doubts of even one ; as for ourselves, we would admit 

 three, four, aye even five, rather than there should be the 

 slightest hitch in the theory of Jabez Allies, Esq. Indeed 

 we have excellent evidence of a third St. Catherine, whose 

 sphere of existence in this world was confined to the London 

 side of Worcester, and the immediate vicinity of our author's 

 habitation, and after whom a whole catalogue of Catherine 

 nomenclature has arisen, beginning with Catherine-hill, the 

 residence of Thomas Newman, Esq.; Catherine-villa, the seat 

 of the learned Jabez Allies, Esq. ; Catherine-cottage, Cathe- 

 rine-house, Catherine-row, Catherine-street, Catherine-place, 

 &c. &c. 



We must give Jabez Allies, Esq. the benefit of a doubt he 

 has expressed as to the veracity of the legend of St. Catherine : 



