finally, struck off his head, which, according to the legend, they threw into a wood close by, among the briars and bushes. When the Christians sought for it, they happened to lose themselves in the wood, and on calling to each other, the martyr's head replied, Here! here! by which means it was found; and when discovered, was being guarded by a wolf, against the voracity of other wolves. His body was buried in a town where Sigebert, one of his predecessors, had built a Church, and where afterwards, in honour of his name, a more spacious building was erected, which, together with the town, was named S. Edmundsbury, but now is called Bury S. Edmund's, and in allusion to this legend has for its arms three crowns, said to be those of East Anglia, transfixed with arrows, the crest being a wolf, with a king's head between its fore-paws. He is usually drawn as a king, with an arrow in his hand; sometimes tied to a tree, and pierced with arrows. He is readily to be distinguished, when thus represented, from S. Sebastian, who is naked, and has, if any thing, a helmet on his head, while S. Edmund is very rarely, if ever, seen naked, and is always crowned, and generally has more arrows than S. Sebastian. In Le Clerc's almanack his martyrdom is represented. S. Edmund having, perhaps, more direct claims to martyrdom than any other English sovereign, is a very favourite subject for carving and painting in the Churches of East Anglia,

especially on rood-screens. The honour in which he was held is well shewn by fifty-five Churches still retaining their dedication in his name, fifteen being in Norfolk and seven in Suffolk.

NOVEMBER 22. S. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr, A.D. 230. A Roman lady of good family, and is regarded as the patroness of music, and the inventress of the

organ. When very young she was forcibly compelled to marry Valerian, a young patrician, whom she immediately converted, together with his brother Tiburtius, and an officer named Maximus. They were all persecuted, and suffered martyrdom. Very little is known of her life, and even the acts of her martyrdom are veiled in deep obscurity; nor is the legend which so prominently connects her

8. CECILIA,

from a print by Marcantonio.

with the patronage of music clearly defined. She is

generally represented playing on the organ or harp, or with organ-pipes in her hand. At Trasterrere she is represented as a recumbent statue, with the face downwards, and a deep wound on the back of her neck, evidently alluding to the legend which says that the executioner being unable to behead her, left her half dead to linger three days. She is sometimes represented as being boiled in a cauldron, and occasionally carries a sword in one hand, and an instrument of music in the other. The Churches named in her honour in England are Adstock, in Bucks., and West Bilney, in Norfolk.

rally believed to have been a Jew by birth, and was certainly the companion and fellow-labourer of S. Paul, being mentioned by him in his Epistle to the Philippians 2, where he styles him his. fellow-worker, and rankshim with those whose names are written in the

z Ch. iii, 3.

S. CLEMENT,

from the Lubeck Passionale.

book of life. He was ordained Bishop by S. Peter, and afterwards succeeded to the see of Rome in the year 91, being thus third Bishop from S. Peter. He reigned nine years, and was the author of one certainly, and probably two, very excellent epistles, the first of which was so much esteemed by the primitive Christians, that for some time it was read in the Churches. He was condemned for the sake of his religion to hew stones in the mines. Eusebius says he died in the third year of Trajan, about A. D. 100, others style him a martyr. His legend relates that he was cast into the sea with an anchor about his neck, and that on the first anniversary of his death the sea retired from the place where he suffered, though three miles from the shore, and discovered a superb temple of the finest marble, which contained the body of the saint. The sea withdrew in this way for several years for seven days in succession. In allusion to this circumstance the device of an anchor may be seen in various parts of the Church of S. Clement Danes, London, and on the boundary marks of the parish. Plot, in his History of Staffordshire, p. 430, describing a Clog almanack, says, a pot marked against the 23rd of November, for the feast of S. Clement, from the ancient custom of going about on that night to beg drink to make merry with. He is sometimes, though not often, represented as a Pope, with the tiara and

cross.

He generally has an anchor either beside

His

him, in his hand, or suspended from his neck. martyrdom is represented in Le Clerc's almanack, but as we have no well-authenticated account of the manner of the death of S. Clement, the anchor is by some supposed to be allegorical of his being commissioned by S. Peter to guide and control the ship of the Church, or of his constancy and faith. He is sometimes represented with a fountain near him, which sprang up in answer to his prayers in a desert place among the mines, where he and his fellowlabourers were suffering much from thirst. We have forty-seven Churches in England named after him alone, and one in conjunction with S. Mary.

NOVEMBER 25. S. Catherine, Virgin and Martyr, A.D. 307. The legend of S. Catherine, though by no means so old as many of the virgin saints, was probably the most popular in medieval times; as the Minerva of Christianity, and the patroness of learning and theology, of colleges and education, and, on account of her royal birth, of ladies of rank, she was almost universally honoured in the Eastern Church; in England her name is retained in the reformed calendar, and fifty-one Churches are dedicated in her honour. The well-known Catherine wheel, the emblem of her martyrdom, still lingers amongst us as a public sign, and is still frequent in English armorial bearings, while devotional representations of S. Catherine with her wheel are probably more often met with in our Churches than those of any