Footnote 6:[(return)]
So the folio, according to my copy. It would be advantageous, perhaps, to note the spelling in the earliest edition of the sonnet whence MR. SINGER quotes "potions of eysell:" a difference, if there be any, would mark the distinction between Hamlet's river and the Saxon derivative.
ALTAR LIGHTS, ETC.
(Vol. ii., p. 495. Vol. iii., p. 30.)
The following passage from the works of a deeply pious and learned Caroline Divine, which I have never before seen quoted, merits, I think, a place in "NOTES AND QUERIES:"—
"As our Lord himself, so his Gospel also, is called Light, and was therefore anciently never read without a burning taper, 'etiam Sole rutilante' ('tis Saint Hierome's testimony), though it were lighted in the sun.... The careful Church, perceiving that God was so much taken with this outward symbol of the Light, could do no less than go on with the ceremony. Therefore, the day of Our Lord's nativity was to be called επιφανια, or, appearing of the Light; and so many tapers were to be set up the night before, as might give name to the vigil, 'Vigilia Luminum'. And the ancients did well to send lights one to another, whatsoever some think of the Christmas candle. The receiving of this Light in Baptism, though called not usually so, but φωτισμος, Illumination, which further to betoken the rites, were to celebrate this sacrament ‛απτομενων παντων των κηρων, etc., with all the tapers lighted, etc., as the order in the Euchologus. The Neophytus, also, or new convert, received a Taper lighted and delivered by the Mystagogus, which for the space of seven days after, he was to hold in his hand at Divine service, sitting in the Baptistery.
"Who perceiveth not that by this right way the Tapers came into the Church, mysteriously placed with the Gospel upon the altar as an emblem of the Truer Light?...
"The Funeral Tapers (however thought of by some) are of the same harmless import. Their meaning is, to show that the departed souls are not quite put out, but having walked here as the Children of the Light, are now going to walk before God in the Light of the Living. The sun never rose to the ancients, no, not so much as a candle was lighted, but of this signification. 'Vincamus' was their word, whensoever the Lights came in; φως γαρ την Νικην, etc., for Light (saith Phavorinus) betokeneth victory. It was to show what trust they put in the Light, in whom we are more than conquerors. Our meaning is the same when, at the bringing in of a candle, we use to put ourselves in mind of the Light of Heaven: which those who list to call superstition do but 'darken counsel by words without knowledge.' Job xxxviii. 2."—Gregorie's Works, 4th ed. p. 110. Lond. 1684.
I believe it is a fact, that in some churches (I hope not many) lamps or candles are placed on the altar unlighted during divine service. Now I would not quarrel with persons who have objections to altar lights, &c., but I have no patience with that worse than superstition which would place unlighted candles on the altar,—if they symbolize any thing, it is damnation, excommunication, misery, and dark woe.
Coming out of a church one time in which unlighted candles were ostentatiously displayed, I was forcibly reminded of an hieroglyphical of Quarles—an extinguished taper,—and under it the words, "Sine lumine inane."
"How canst thou be useful to the sight?