NOTES ON THE STACIONS OF ROME, By W. M. ROSSETTI. THE notes which I wrote to the previous publication of the Early English Text Society, the "Stacyons of Rome" printed from the Cotton and Lambeth MSS., apply in great part to the present earlier version of the same poem from the Vernon MS. There are, however, considerable differences of detail between the MSS., of most of which I must leave the reader to take count for himself; and some churches, not named at all in the previously published version, are mentioned in the one now printed. On these churches, and on another point or two here and there, I proceed to offer a few notes upon the same plan as in the former instance. Line 40. I must take this opportunity to rectify a slip of the pen in my notes upon the Cotton MS. copy, at the corresponding line, No. 56. The altar mentioned in that line is to "Seynt Symon," or, in the Lambeth and the present Vernon MSS., to "Seint Symon & Jude; I made the slip of saying that the Cotton MS. specified an altar" to St Jude." Lines 55-6. The statement here made is that St Peter's Basilica was consecrated "Of Seint Martin þat eiztebe day." In the Cotton MS., lines 121-2, this same statement is made concerning the Basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura; and St Peter's is stated on the contrary to have been consecrated" On Seynt Petur & Powle day." It appears that the Vernon MS. is correct, and that the two statements made in the Cotton MS. ought to be inverted. Line 118. Scala Celi. Compare this from "God speed the Plough," Then commeth prestis that goth to rome. Lansdowne MS., 762, fol. 6. Line 126. "In tyme of Tibian þe Emperour." This potentate, unrecorded by historians, in whose reign 10,000 martyrs suffered in Rome, may perhaps te conjectured to be nominally compounded out of Tiberius, Trajan, and Julian Cross of Christ, followed, treated in the same way. What was to be done? Nothing but groan, say "mistakes are natural to man" (I know they are to me), and print the earlier text. Here accordingly it is, and printed with all its metrical points, and guard-stops on each side of figures and single letters, as in the MS., for an experiment how Members like these points and stops reproduced. This early Vernon version has not several passages which later transcribers have introduced into the Cotton and Lambeth MSS. It shows that the Lambeth continuation of the Cotton MS. was not a late addition, but that the Cotton had lost its tail. It shows the Lambeth text to be more like it than the Cotton, in the passages which all three contain; and though it does not clear up any of the puzzles of the later copies, it is interesting, as well for its earlier language as for the new Churches it mentions. These are eleven in number, St Anthony's, 1. 473 St Martin's in the Mount, 1. 563 St Marcelle's, 1. 609 St Grisogon's, 1. 680 St Tyre and St John's, 1. 681 St Adrian's, 1. 701 St Clement's, 1. 704 St Stephen's, 1. 705 The Virgin's Chapel, where Thomas à Becket kept school, 1. 717 St Urban's, 1. 720 and on them Mr William M. Rossetti has, as on those of the former volume, kindly added notes, which follow this Preface. Thus far I had written when I learnt from Sir F. Madden's Appendix to his Preface to his Syr Gawayne that (the late) Mr Ormsby Gore's Porkington MS. No. 10, contained a copy of the Stations in prose, beginning "In Rome bethe iic paresche churchs." I at once applied for leave to see the MS., and the present Mr Ormsby Gore forthwith obtained it for me from his mother. Its Stacyons proved to be a short and incomplete abstract of our long Poem, in 7 pages of a very small MS., wisely wound up with an Et C., and I have therefore printed it here for completeness and contrast sake. The allusion to the sea-voyage to the Holy Land in the Stations, 3if men wuste. grete and smale he pardoun pat is. at has induced me to add to this Text the most amusing Poem on "The Pilgrims' Sea-Voyage and Sea-Sickness," from MS. Trin. Coll., Camb.,. R. 3, 19, first printed by Mr Halliwell in Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. 1, p. 2, 3, and to which the present Keeper of the Printed Books in the British Museum, Mr Thomas Watts--encyclopædic in knowledge and gracious in speech-called my attention some twenty years ago. Mr Aldis Wright has himself read the transcript with the MS., and I do not think that any readers will regret its reproduction here. The cause of Clene Maydenhod appearing in this Text is Mr Cockayne's edition of that most vivid sketch of an English girl's temptations to forsake marriage and maternityin 1220 A.D., Hali Meidenhad. It is long since I have been so interested in any treatise; and seeing that Clene Maydenhod was in the Vernon, I could not resist the temptation of printing it, for illustration and contrast sake. The texts are paged separately, so that they may be bound, if wished, with those that they refer to; and for the same reason the Index to the names of Men and Churches in Stations refers to the Cotton and Lambeth versions printed in "Political, Religious, and Love Poems," 1866. Mr George Parker, of Rose Hill, Oxford, has read both the Vernon texts with the MS., and my thanks are due to him for his care. 3, St George's Square, N.W., Dec., 1866. P.S.-The reviewer in The Saturday Review of Dec. 22, 1866, does not understand in what sense we publish our Texts. We print them mainly for our Members; but, remembering the times when we wanted single volumes of the books of the Camden and Percy Societies, the Abbotsford, Bannatyne and other Clubs, and could not get them, we resolved, when starting the Society, to all ads of our texts separately to any person wanting it, at the publisher's a very Cerberus of tyranny, persecution, and apostasy. The Cotton MS. limits itself to the first of these three, "Tyberye "—whose reign was assuredly free from any such wholesale persecution. Line 160. The "holy bones" here named are to be understood as the bones of Sts Peter and Paul. As I pointed out in my former notes, neither the Cotton MS. in saying that these bones lay undiscovered 500 years, nor yet the Vernon MS. in assigning 100 years as the period, can be trusted: the true time being probably more like 19 months. I Lines 183-4 speak of 44 martyr popes who "liueden " in a chapel in the catacombs ; in the Cotton MS. it is 46 martyr popes who "lyene " there. presume that "lyene" is the correct word-if indeed any item of so preposterous an assertion can be termed correct. which seems to mean the swaddling-clothes of the Nativity. These lines correspond to 426-7 in the Cotton MS., And pe clopis pat criste was wonden In this latter statement appears to be the more correct, the actual object in ques Lines 357-8. According to the position of these lines in the context, the heads of Sts Peter and Paul were under the high altar in the Chapel Sancta Sanctorum in the old Lateran Palace of the Popes. It may be inferred that the lines have slipped a little out of their proper place; and that the high altar really spoken of is that of the Basilica of St John Lateran, which would make the statement about the heads correct. These heads were discovered in or about 1365, in the reign of Pope Urban V., which commenced in 1362. The date of the Vernon MS. is about 1370, when the discovery must still have been an interesting novelty to actual or intending pilgrims to Rome: and, in accordance with this date, we find that the lines of the Cotton MS., 456-9, "There ys no man now y-bore," &c., which my previous notes cited for the purpose of fixing the date of that MS. at not later than 1445, do not appear at all in the Vernon version of the poem. Line 427. The Church here (and also in the Lambeth MS.) named "of Seynt veuian" (Vivian) is termed "of Julyan" in the Cotton MS. I am not aware that any Church of St Vivian exists in Rome. Line 437. St Eusebius is here introduced as connected with the aforenamed Church of St Vivian. The Lambeth MS., however, line 554, speaks of the Church of St Eusebius himself, which I presume to be correct; but the poem hereabouts in all the three MSS. is obviously a good deal muddled. Compare 1. 442 Vernon with 1. 559 Lambeth. Lines 463-4 are new in the Vernon MS. My old authority, Francino, confirms the statement that a (daily) indulgence of 1000 years and Lents is to be obtained at St Matthew's Church-to which he adds the remission of oneseventh of one's sins. Lines 473-4. The Church of St Anthony is named in the Vernon MS. only, 1. 473 having evidently slipped out of the Lambeth MS. by mischance. There are in Rome two Churches of St Anthony;-one near Sa Maria Maggiore and St Praxed's, with a Hospital; the other named Sant' Antonio de' Portoghesi, near La Scrofa, dedicated by Pope Gelasius to Sts Anthony and Vincent. To it are annexed a hospital for the Portuguese, and many indulgences and privileges for that nation. The particular grace mentioned by our poet, the remission of one-seventh of one's penance, is not, however, confirmed by Francino with regard to either of these churches. Lines 529 to 532 set forth the indulgences attaching to Sa Maria Maggiore from Assumption-day to the feast of the Virgin's Nativity (15 August to 8 September). The Lambeth MS. says, Assumption-day to Christmasday, which is an error. Line 536. Here the name "Prudencian" is erroneous; it should be, as in the Lambeth MS., " Pudencyam "-St Pudentiana. Line 548. The Vernon MS. reads "hostelled," instead of "harborowed," as in the Lambeth MS.; confirming the inference in my former notes that the statement applies "rather to the house of Pudens than to the cemetery." Line 558. The extraordinary term “Emperour seint Antonine" seems to point to some corruption of the text. As observed in the former notes, the incident referred to could not, by comparison of dates, have happened in the reign of any of the Antonines. Lines 563 to 568. The Church of San Martino in Monte, called also San Silvestro e San Martino, was built by Symmachus I. in A.D. 500, on the Esquiline Hill, upon the ruins of the Thermæ of Trajan, and was modernized in 1650. There had been an earlier church on the same spot, founded by S. Silvester in the time of Constantine. I know of no particular reason why the text should specify that the edifice" is not round." The text states that Popes Silvester and Leo are buried under the high altar. I do not find Leo named elsewhere; Murray's Handbook mentions Silvester and Martin I., and Francino concurs in this statement, adding the names of three other Popes. Lines 569 to 572. There is a Church of San Salvatore del Lauro which stands on the site of the laurel-grove near the Portico of Europa. It was founded in 1450, nearly a century later than the date of our Vernon MS., so that one cannot refer to this Church the allusion in the text. This is the only Church" of seint Saluator" known to me in Rome. Line 601. Our present text seems to be correct in here naming "Seint Sabyne" (Sabinus), instead of the "Seint Sabasabyne" of the Lambeth MS. Lines 609 to 612. The Church of St Marcellus, in the Corso, was built by a Roman lady in the 4th century, in honour of Pope St Marcellus, who, by order of Maxentius, was confined in this spot over a stable, the stench of which is alleged to have killed him. It was rebuilt in 1519 by Sansovino, the façade being of a later date. The ceremony of the Exaltation of the |