That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things."
The following stanza, also in the poem numbered 87., much needs interpretation:
"Or cooled within the glooming wave,—
And last, returning from afar,
Before the crimson-circled star
Had fallen into her father's grave."
W. B. H.
Manchester.
Magnum Sedile.—Can any of your correspondents throw light on the singular arched recesses, sometimes (though rarely) to be found on the south side of chancels, west of the sedilia. The name of magnum sedile has been given to them, I know not on what authority; but if they were intended to be used as stalls of dignity for special occasions, they would hardly have been made so wide and low as they are generally found. A good example occurs at Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire,—certainly not monumental; and another (but more like a tomb) at Merton, near Oxford, engraved in the Glossary of Architecture. Why should they not have been intended for the holy sepulchre at Easter? as I am not aware that these were necessarily restricted to the north side. Is there any instance of a recess of this kind on the south side, and an Easter sepulchre on the north, in the same church?