stance, the following, attached to the calendar of the York missal. (Surtees Soc. Vol. 59, p. xlii.) :— "Pocula Janus amat; et Februus algeo clamat; "Ros et frons nemorum Maio sunt fomes amorum ; "Seminat October; spoliat virgulta November; Quaerit habere cibum porcum mactando December." Or the following, in (with a little alteration) Harleian MS. 5763: "Poto; ligna cremo; de vite superflua demo; "Do germen gratum; mihi flos servit ; mihi pratum; 66 "Semen humi jacto; mihi pasco sues; mihi macto." But, however suggested, these carvings are very important as embodying in a striking manner the medieval idea of man's relationship to the world around him. Man had fallen-" Cursed is the ground for thy sake" was the awful sentence perpetually ringing in his ear. Even the Passion of our Saviour, which delivered him from the spiritual penalties of his sin and restored to him salvation, was incapable of delivering him from the natural penaltyIn the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return into the ground;-thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee! Here we have the round of unceasing labour represented; he tills the ground (3), he prunes the fruit tree yielding fruit (4), he prepares fodder for his cattle (7), he roots up the thorns and thistles from his corn (8), he reaps (9), he gathers the fruit of his vineyard (10), he sows (11), he feeds swine (11), he prepares his store of winter food (12) to keep himself alive whilst others of God's creatures perish of cold and hunger. Those subjects which at first sight might seem exceptions, are not so. Drinking (1) was a necessity in those days of much less adequate protection against cold than we now enjoy-Horrida bruma gelu! The fire (2) was something more than mere idle luxury to the the weather-beaten wayfarer whose boots and clothes for many hours had been sodden and filled with half thawed snow. The hawk (6) was trained to catch as meat for man every fowl that flew above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. Even love (5) is here no frivolous pastime or amusement, no fanciful meaningless depiction of the sculptor, but an awfully solemn duty and obligation, in obedience to the command-Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth-as Divine as that which condemned man to labour. But why, it will be asked, were these subjects specially chosen for this particular situation? The sculptor had twelve capitals to decorate; twelve subjects must be chosen for them. In the Church of Our Lady at Treves, the twelve Apostles, one for each pillar of the church, suggested themselves to the artist. Here, on these twelve capitals, what could more naturally suggest itself to one with such a grasp of natural forms and beauties as the sculptor of these carvings, than the twelve months of the year? That there were twelve spaces, that there were twelve months, that he was eminently able and moved to represent them, is a sufficient explanation. If, however, it be thought impossible that the enormous labour and cost required to execute these designs should have been expended without any more serious purpose than that of mere decoration,that they must be something more than ornament, that some useful lesson or thought must have been intended to have been conveyed, that sermons in stones might here especially be looked for, in the choir, where the word of God was preached,-mystical reasons, no doubt, according with the modes of thought at that time prevalent might be adduced; for each several employment of the months, in whatever situation, had a mystical interpretation of its own. The field is the world; the seed is the word of God; the husbandman is God; the labourers are the Apostles and preachers of the Word; the plough is the Cross of Christ; ploughing ploughing or digging, is the preaching of the Cross; the furrows are the hearts of the faithful; sowing is the sprinkling of the Word preached into the hearts of the faithful; the harvest is the end of the world, or of our lives; the sickle is death; the reapers are the angels; the sheaves are fruits of righteousness; the ears of corn are acts of faith and good works; the garner-heaven; the chaff and tares-sin, and sinners; the wheat-the saints, or the elect of God; winnowing-the separation of the faithful and the wicked; and the oven-everlasting fire. A vineyard, again, is the church; the vine is Christ; the branches-the saints; the grapes-fruits of righteousness; the vintage—the end of the world; the wine-press—tribulation; wine—the grace of the Holy Spirit, or heavenly doctrine; the wine-cup-the sufferings of martyrs (Matt. xx. 23), though St. Bernard compares the vines to martyrs, and the juice of the grape to their blood. Of trees, again, the branches are preachers (Luke xiii. 19); and the leaves— fruits of righteousness (Rev. ii. 22.) Grass represents to us our mortal life; and the flowers amongst it-the saints (Cant. ii. 12.) Swine are heretics; pigs-sinners, and the unclean, and yet less wayward and obstinate than sinners, since they listen to the horn of the swineherd, and know when to return. So, again, the year, the months, the seasons, had their mystical significations. Beyond these, the necessary and inevitable law of nature and of God was a useful and instructive lesson, especially when combined, as often elsewhere, with subjects from Holy Scripture. At Easby church, for instance, the seasons are painted on the walls in company with pictures of the creation of man, his fall, his condemnation to labour, the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Crucifixion. Throughout the whole of Scripture the God of nature is identified with the God of grace the God by whom we are created and sustained, with the God by whom we are redeemed and sanctified; and a special appeal is made to recognize in the God who sware sware unto David-" Thy seed will I establish for ever, the God of the primeval covenant-While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. (Compare Gen. viii. 22, with Jer. xxxiii. 20-26, Psal. lxxxix. 4, 36, 37, and Luke. i. 31-33). But, as the phenomena of the seasons were outward and visible signs of the inward and quickening power of the sun, so, in this situation, with peculiar significance, they symbolized the Sacrament of the Altar, in which the outward and visible part derived its efficacy from the inward and spiritual immanence and operance of the Sun of Righteousness. If, in the warmth of His brightness, we spring anew from the winter of sin and death with fragrant and budding virtue, summer will be advanced in our souls by the fervid heat of the Holy Spirit, and our autumn will bring forth in us in due season the fruits of righteousness. In some churches the signs of the Zodiac, instead of the months, were represented in mosaic upon the floor around the altar, or, as on the walls of the choir of the Cathedral at Cologne, borne by angels. They recall that most sublime and venerable Preface of the Mass-" Vere dignum . . . . per quem majestatam tuam laudant Angeli, adorant Dominationes, tremunt Potestates. Cæli cælorumque Virtutes, ac beata Seraphim socia exultatione concelebrant. Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt cæli et terra gloria tua, Hosanna in excelsis; " which, again, is but an echo of that still older, richer, and even sweeter song when, or ever the foundations of the earth and world were laid, "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." As, then, the church on earth was represented in a special manner by the Choir of the cathedral, and the Divine Presence by the Altar, at which man communicated alike with quick and dead, so now, here, in consideration of these subsidiary surroundings, our minds seem to have very near us the mind of their designer, and under these forms as it were to communicate with him. Long may it be e'er the presumptuous hand of any "Restorer" be allowed to tamper with these precious symbols. ART. XXVII.-The East Window, Carlisle Cathedral:-Its Ancient Stained Glass. By R. S. FERGUSON, M.A. and LL.M. Read at Carlisle, December 9th, 1875. WHEN Mr. Billings in 1840 wrote his "Architectural WHEN Illustrations, History and Description of Carlisle Cathedral" he compiled and printed a list of over twenty works which contain accounts of that building, and yet he calls it "the battered and comparatively unknown church of St. Mary's at Carlisle." He produced a quarto volume containing 50 or 60 well executed plates; the late Canon Harcourt edited a volume of illustrations, and the present Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rev. Mr. Mackenzie Walcott, Mr. Purday, and Mr. Cory have all written tractates on the same subject, and yet Carlisle Cathedral remains to this day the "comparatively unknown church of St. Mary's at Carlisle." How that is the fact, we will not now stop to enquire, nor to correct Billings in his inaccuracy in (in 1840) thinking this church to be dedicated to its original patron the Virgin Mary, and not to the Holy Trinity, as it now is. We will at once proceed to what is the object of a Society like this, and try to make "known" some small portion of this "comparatively unknown church." Mr. Fowler (to whom I am indebted for many valuable hints in writing this paper) has this morning for the first time made known the riddles presented by the pier capitals, and this paper is an attempt to do the same for the ancient glass in the upper part of our magnificent east window, |