88 ON AN ALABASTER SCULPTURE. 



behind them, one is found carrying the Pontifical tiara, and 

 another holding the Papal or triple cross. From its dolefulness, 

 this representation was known among our Catholic forefathers as 

 ' St. Gregory's Pity,' and is given in a woodcut before the first 

 Sunday of Advent in the folio Sarum Missal, printed a.d. 1555, at 

 Paris, by J. Amazeur, for G. Merlin, of which I have a fine copy."* 



If these carvings represent some version of this legend of 

 St. Gregory, or any like one, the difficulty with regard to the 

 dish or charger at once disappears, for it becomes a paten. In 

 none of the examples does the paten come out clearer, with 

 the inner circular depression, invariably met with at that date 

 in all patens but not in all dishes, than in Mr. Spilsbury's 

 specimen (No II.). The majority of the fourteen to whom we 

 showed the illustration, and who recognised in it Our Lord's 

 face, described the dish as a paten. 



If, too, these carvings are a tribute of respect to the Blessed 

 Sacrament, the whole arrangement of the subsidiary figures is 

 readily explained by a natural and unstrained interpretation. 



If the central idea of these sculptures is the presence of Christ 

 in the Sacrament, represented by the head on the paten, the 

 figure below of Christ rising from the tomb and thereby giving to 

 the faithful that eat the Bread the power of living for ever (St. 

 John vi. 58), comes in with singular appropriateness; and the 

 equal fitness of the small representations of Christ's Ascension 

 above, as shown in the majority of the sculptures, is also obvious. 

 The symbolism thus seems to us singularly apt and well suited 

 as a text for a medieval instruction. The Blessed Sacrament 

 being a perpetuation of the Incarnation, the conquering Humanity 

 is typified below, and the ascending Divinity above. 



The three instances of a Lamb below admit of a like explana- 

 tion, and the Lamb in Mr. Spilsbury's example still further bears 

 out the connection with St. Gregory's Pity, for it is represented as 

 resting on a clasped book, which is undoubtedly intended for a 

 missal. 



* Rock's Church of our Fathers, vol. i., p. 52. In Parker's Calendar of 

 the Anglican Church, p. 52, is a good engraving of one version of St. 

 Gregory "s Pity, taken from a Bodleian MS. 



