After giving Jonathan's opinion of the four principal or legionary standards among the Israelites, Sir T. Brown adds:
"But Abenegra and others, besides the colours of the field, do set down other charges,—in Reuben's, the form of a man or mandrake,—in that of Judah, a lion,—in Ephraim's, an ox; in Dan's, the figure of an eagle. And thus, indeed, the four figures in the banners of the principal squadrons of Israel are answerable unto the Church in the vision of Ezekiel, every one carrying the form of all these.... And conformable hereunto, the pictures of the Evangelists (whose Gospels are the Christian banners) are set forth with the addition of a man or angel, an ox, a lion, and an eagle. And these symbolically represent the office of angels and ministers of God's will, in whom is required, understanding as in a man, courage and vivacity as in a lion, service and ministerial officiousness as in the ox, expedition or celerity of execution as in the eagle."
J. Sansom.
Catacombs and Bone-houses (Vol. i. p. 171.).—Part I. of a History of the Hundred of Rowell by Paul Cypher (published by J. Ginns, Rowell,) has recently fallen in my way, and as I understand the writer is a medical gentleman residing in the village (or town), I condense from the account of the "Bone Caverns," p. 39-42., such particulars as may answer the Query of Rev. A. Gatty.
The number of skeletons, as is asserted by those who have taken the trouble to calculate, is 30,000. The vault in which they are deposited is a long cryptiform structure, with a low groined roof, and the bones are carefully packed in alternate strata of skulls, arms, legs, and so forth. They seem to have been discovered by a gravedigger about 150 years since. Nothing is known with certainty respecting the date of this vast collection. Some conjecture that the remains here deposited are the consequence of a sanguinary battle in very early times, and profess to discover peculiarities in the osseous structure, showing a large proportion of the deceased to have been natives of a distant land; that all were in the prime of life; and that most of the skulls are fractured, as though with deadly weapons. Others, again, say they are the remains of the slain at Naseby.
"I have examined carefully and at leisure the crania, and can discover none but the mesobreginate skulls common to these islands.... I have discovered more than one skull, in which the alveolar sockets were entirely absorbed,—an effect of age rarely produced under eighty years, I should imagine. And as to the marks of injury visible on some, they will be attributed, I think, by the impartial observer, rather to the spade and foot of the sexton, than the battle-axe and stout arm of the ancient Briton."
As to the supposition that these relics were brought from Naseby, it is sufficient to observe that the number of the slain in that engagement did not exceed one thousand.
"That most of these bodies were lying in the earth for a number of years is proved, I think, by these several circumstances: First, a careful examination of the interior of many of the skulls, shows that roots have vegetated within them, the dry fibres of which I have often observed; next, the teeth are nearly all absent, and it is notoriously one of the first effects of inhumation upon the osseous system, by which the teeth are loosened; and lastly, we have two sources from which bodies may have been exhumed and reinterred beneath the mother church; and those are the Chapel of the Virgin and that moiety of the original graveyard, which has evidently at some long distant time, been taken from the church."
Human bones have been dug up in front of Jesus Hospital, to the south-east of the church-yard. At the eastern extremity of the cavern is a rude sketch apparently intended to represent the Resurrection.
Arun.