[To this we may add, that about 1767, when Bishop Percy printed these twenty-five sheets of poems of Lord Surrey and the Duke of Buckingham, it appears by a letter of the Bishop to Horace Walpole, that he presented a copy of them to Walpole, with a request for information about Lord Surrey. The Bishop never wrote the Life of Surrey; and in 1808 the whole impression was burnt, with the exception of a copy or two that the Bishop had given to his friends. In the letter to Walpole the Bishop says, "A few more leaves will complete that book, which with the second and Dr. Surrey's Songs and Sonnets, &c. will be sufficient for the book.">[
SYMBOLS OF THE FOUR EVANGELISTS.
Horne, in his Introduction, vol. iv. p. 254., says that Irenæus was the first to discover the analogy between the four animals mentioned by Ezekiel (i. 5. 10.) and the four Evangelists, which gave rise to the well-known paintings of these latter. He quotes from Iren. adv. Hoer. lib. iii. cap. 11.:—
"The first living creature, which is like a lion, signifies Christ's efficacy, principality, and regality, viz. John; the second, like a calf, denotes His sacerdotal order, viz. Luke; the third, having as it were, a man's face, describes His coming in the flesh as man, viz. Matthew; and the fourth, like a flying eagle, manifests the grace of the Spirit flying into the Church, viz. Mark."
There is also an interesting passage in Dionys Carthus. in Apocal. Enarr. iv. 7., from which the following is an extract:—
"Although the above exposition of Gregorius, in which by the man in meant Matthew, by the calf Luke, &c., be the common one, yet other holy men have held a different opinion, for as Bede relates on this point, Augustine understood by the lion Matthew, because in the beginning of his Gospel he describes the royal descent of Christ; by the calf he also understood Luke, because he wrote of the priestly descent of Our Lord; by the man Mark, because he omits the question of Christ's birth, and confines himself more especially to describing His acts as a man; by the eagle, all understand John, on account of the sublimity to which his Gospel soars. Others again understand by the lion Matthew; by the calf Mark, on account of the simplicity of his style; and by the man Luke, because he has more fully treated of Christ's human generation."
Would "JARLZBERG" kindly favour me with a reference to his interesting anecdote of the lion's whelps?
J. EASTWOOD.