37 
been the father’s. This leads to the supposition that when the 
original deposit had turned to dust it was borrowed for a 
second interment from one of the cemeteries of Roman London. 
Of such borrowing we have a remarkable example in our own 
Museum. The sarcophagus of ^lia Severa (No. 15 in the new 
catalogue, p. 33) when found was covered by a slab (No. 32) 
commemorating the wife and children of Ceeresius. Nor was this 
the only appropriation; for the sarcophagus, which bears the 
name of -^Elia Severa, was found to contain the bones of a male. 
The appropriator of the cist found at Westminster was evidently 
a Christian. Did he inscribe a cross on a pagan slab; or did he 
borrow a slab with a cross from a Christian tomb, or did he 
cause a new slab to be made for the pagan tomb which he 
borrowed? We cannot say. The slab is of the same Oxford 
oolite as the cist, but as that is the nearest stone to London fit 
for the purpose, this does not prove that they are of the same 
age. The form of the cross is evidently mediaeval, and com¬ 
paratively recent. A slab in Chelmerton church, Derbyshire 
(figured in the Archaeological Journal, vol. 26, p. 263), exhibits 
much the same form of the foot of the cross as the Westminster 
slab. This is not a part in which Roman remains have 
previously been found. The proximity to the Abbey no doubt 
caused the Christianized cist to he deposited there. We may 
rejoice that it has fallen into the hands of those by whom it 
will be reverently preserved. A decisive example of Christian 
faith, during the occupation of Britain by the Romans, appears 
therefore to be still a desideratum. This is not surprising. The 
creed of the Roman soldiery was wonderfully elastic ; it 
admitted all the barbarous deities of the regions in which they 
were stationed. This was only an enlargement of their 
Pantheon. It was a very different thing to abjure it altogether, 
as the adoption of the Christian religion would have required. 
April 5th. —The Rev. J. Kenrick read the following 
paper :—It has occurred to me that, in the absence of new facts 
or discoveries, in physical science or archaeology, a monthly 
supply of which can hardly be looked for, some interest might 
be derived from occasional notices of valuable works recently 
