stream which flows under its south-western angle; here a well had been excavated which is continually fed by the clear stream as it passes onward. The well is enclosed by rude masonry, having an aperture to the nave about 4 feet in height and 2 feet in width." Now, admitting that these springs and wells, whether within or without the sacred building, afforded his daily beverage to the hermit, is it not pretty certain that they would also be used by him for administering the sacrament of baptism to those who came to attend his ministrations, and that they would continue to be the fonts of those churches ?* In some instances separate baptistries have been built over them.

Mr. Petrie, in his "Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland," mentions, besides a number of other holy wells, a well at Tobar-na-Druadh, near Sheepstown, county Kilkenny; St. Brigid's Well, at the Fanghard, county Louth; and Lady's Well, near Dundalk, engraved in Wright's "Louthiana," which have stone-roofed vaultings over them, exactly like oratories. Among the holy wells of Wales there is one, the Fynnon Vair, at Wygfair, near St. Asaph, described and figured in the "Archæologia Cambrensis," vol. ii., p. 261, in which the neighbouring spring rises at the west end of the church, and was enclosed in a stellar well of the same plan and style as that of St. Winefrede, and is conducted from this well under the south transept of the church in which a well, or bath, or font, is made to receive it. There is also in the North of England a church of the same type as the Cornish churches, in which a stream is conducted under the north side of the building.

St. Kentegern, in the traditionary history of Glasgow cathedral, is said to have built his cell in a Druidical circle, within which was a well. On the site of his oratory the cathedral was afterwards erected. The visitor is still shown a narrow shaft formed in a circular enlargement of the stone bench which runs round the interior of the walls, just under one of the early English lancet windows, by which shaft he may still dip into the waters which first supplied the Druidical lustrations, and then the daily drink to the Celtic saint and the baptismal element to his rude Pictish converts.

St. Chadd's well, by which that bishop had his oratory, is still shown in a little garden adjoining St. Chadd's church at Lichfield. It was anciently frequented by a vast number of pious devotees. Even at this day it is customary for the clergyman, attended by the churchwardens and a great concourse of children, to visit this well on

*The Rev. Mr. Haslam, in a paper in the " Archeological Journal," vol. ii. p. 225, has described some of these ancient oratories in Cornwall, which bear the names of the Irish missionary saints, many of whom came over to Cornwall in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries.

VOL. I.-NO. III.

S

Holy Thursday (Ascension Day), when it is adorned with boughs and flowers, and the gospel for the day is read. The water, which is of a milky colour, is supposed to possess considerable medicinal virtues.* It seems to have been the general custom to adorn these wells with flowers on the day of the saint to whom they were dedicated; the custom is still kept up in the Tissington well-dressing in Derbyshire, and has of late years been revived at Buxton.

But besides these wells, famous as holy wells, or connected with the old hermit founders of early churches, there are others about our churches and churchyards which have no traditional sanctity, and usually no history, and which hitherto seem to have almost escaped the attention of the ecclesiologists. We will mention, first, one which has a history. When Paulinus baptized King Edwin at York, it was in a spring over which a little wooden oratory was thrown up for the occasion; over this oratory the walls and roof of the cathedral were afterwards raised. If the visitor to the noble cathedral of York will look about him in the dark crypt, he will find there still a spring which is said to be the very one in which King Edwin was baptized.

The wells about our ordinary parish churchyards are often in a remarkable position, viz., under the churchyard wall, half in and half out of the churchyard. It would be worth while for some ecclesiologist who has the leisure, to compile a list of these wells, and to collect any local notions there may be as to their history and use; noting, among other things, if-as we incline to believe from a partial prosecution of the research which we are recommending-the majority of them are not attached to churches of Saxon foundation. We will venture to hazard here a conjecture as to their use. Remembering their significant position, half within and half without the sacred enclosure, and often near one of its entrances; remembering that no stone fonts of Saxon date have been found in any of our churches; remembering that in the Saxon church baptism was administered by immersion, and that priests were expressly forbidden merely to pour water on the head; remembering that some of the wells and streams which occur about the old Celtic oratories were certainly used for baptism; and bearing in mind the origin of the well in York cathedral, we venture to suggest that these wells were intended to supply the baptismal element, or actually were the fonts of the Saxon churches to which they are attached.

There is a curious instance in Bisley churchyard, Gloucestershire, in which an erection, assumed to be a churchyard cross, is stated, on the authority of MSS. of Mr. Abel Wantner, preserved in the Bodleian Library, to have been built over the churchyard well. The authority

"Beauties of England and Wales," Staffordshire, p. 811.

CHURCHYARD CROSS OR WELL-COVER.

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quoted says that on one occasion " a man having fallen into the well, the churchyard was excommunicated for three years, and the inhabitants were obliged to carry their dead to Bibury." An engraving of this so-called cross in Grose's " Gloucestershire "* presents a very unusual type of churchyard cross. The lower member is a circular base; upon that stands an erection which is quite different in style from an ordinary churchyard cross, and, except out of deference for the authority of the writers who, having seen it, call it so, we should not have thonght of applying the name to it. It consists of four columns carrying four round trefoil-headed arches, which support a pyramidal cover, ribbed at the angles and pierced with trefoils at the lower part of the sides. In the engraving the spaces between the four supporting columns are represented as blocked with masonry; we should conjecture that they were originally open, like the trefoil openings in the pyramidal cover, and were perhaps blocked after the fatal accident above mentioned. Let it be ascertained that one or more of these arches were originally open, and we should have no hesitation in asserting that this erection is not a churchyard cross of very singular design, but is simply an ornamental covering over the churchyard well, very much resembling in its general design the font covers which are frequently found in our churches; and in this case it is a unique and very curious example.

THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIANITY: THE HERMIT.

WHOM should we rightly term a hermit? If it were necessary to give an exhaustive answer we should have to attempt a broad view and a wide investigation. Perhaps every religion presents those who correspond to the notion of a hermit, Buddhism for instance. Among the Jewish sects we have the Essenes, of whom that great master of English prose, De Quincey, has treated with customary eloquence and learning, and, if necessary, various other sects might be enumerated and discussed. It is as well, however, to confine the inquiry within narrower limits. Who was the first Christian hermit? So early as the fourth century, men earnestly discussed the question. The inquiry was gathered into a narrow issue; either it was, said men, Paul the Hermit, or it was St. Anthony.

"Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude," is perhaps my favourite among the poems of Shelley. I think it most calculated to be the favourite with most people. The A. H. H. of "In Memoriam," as we learn from the "Remains," long well known in their private issue, and now published to the world, especially loved Alastor, and called upon other men to do so. Shelley has finely depicted a meet home for the Spirit of Solitude:

:

"The eternal pyramids,

Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange

Sculptured on alabaster obelisk

Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphinx,

Doth Ethiopia on her desert hills

Conceal. Among the ruined temples there

Stupendous columns and wild images

Of more than man, where marble demons watch

The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men

Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around."

The imagination of the poet often realizes the highest and most precise truth. Shelley is here unintentionally most accurate. He has literally described the scenery of the homes of the first hermits.

The inspired author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has told us how those, of whom the world was not worthy, wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. Some of these would be the first Christian hermits, driven forth by cruel and unreasoning persecution. Such a one was the hermit Paul; doubtless the representative of a class, for on the vixere fortes ante Agamemnona principle, others there were hermits before the first hermit. The Decian persecution raged in Paul's native land, the Thebaid, in Upper Egypt. He accordingly withdrew himself to a grotto in a remote mountain. A