at St. Leonard's Church, Shoreditch, commencing, "The last and best bedroom of . . .") With "Nil mihi vobiscum" (cf. Martial, Epigrams, xi. 2. 8) instead of "Sat me lusistis," the lines are inscribed on a tomb in the pavement of the church of S. Lorenzo in Panisperna, at Rome, and in the same form they are given by William Lily (died 1522), and by Janus Pannonius, Bishop of Fünfkirchen, in Hungary (died 1472), and are referred to by the famous adventurer, Casanova de Seingalt (1725-1803), in his "Memoirs "-Garnier's French edition, Paris (1902), vol. iv. p. 297. The Abbot of Einsiedeln in Switzerland, thinking that Casanova intended to become a monk, suggested these lines as an inscription for his dwelling. Of this second Latin version Robert Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, gave the following English translation :— "Mine haven's found, fortune and hope, adue! Mock others now, for I have done with you." (Cf. the following, altered from a couplet by Thomas Moore :"Joy, joy for ever! the haven's won; The struggle's over; my task is done.") A slightly different version of the first line occurs on a mortuary medal of Dr. Wenzel Beyer (1526), described in Part III.23 It commences "Jam portum inveni," like the version attributed to Sir Thomas More. There are several other variations. On the whole subject see especially Notes and Queries, November 20, 1880, p. 409, and July 16, 1898, p. 41. The following is from the Anthol. Latin. (H. Meyer's edition, Leipzig, 1835, No. 1373; cf. also ibid., Meyer's Nos. 1598 and 838):— "Actum est, excessi; Spes et Fortuna, valete. Nil jam plus in me vobis per secla licebit. Quod fuerat vestrum, amisi; quod erat meum, hic est." "Spes et Fortuna, valete!-Nil amplius in me vobis per secla licebit" (Corp. Inser. Lat., vol. ix. No. 4756). Compare Ausonius (Idyll., ii. 57): "Spem, vota, timorem-Sopitus placido fine relinquo aliis.” 23 The different portions of this epitaph lend themselves also readily for purposes of satire and caricature. I have seen the caricature of a newly created knight or nobleman with his newly manufactured coat-of-arms and, below it, as a motto, "Inveni portum." The following occurs on a sarcophagus : "Evasi, effugi. Spes et Fortuna, valete! Nil mihi vobiscum est, ludificate alios." (O. Benndorf and R. Schöne, Die antiken Bildwerke des Lateran. Mus., Leipzig, 1867, p. 346.) Compare also the last lines of the following curious epitaph given by J. C. Orelli (Inscriptionum Latinarum Selectarum Amplissima Collectio, Zürich, 1828, vol. i. p. 256, No. 1174) and by A. Olivieri (Marm. Pisaur., Pesaro, 1737, p. 33, No. 74; also in Anthol. Latin. (H. Meyer's edition, Leipzig, 1835, No. 189): "Tu pede qui stricto vadis per senta, viator, Siste, rogo, titulumque meum ne spreveris, oro. Haec Hilarus mihi contulerat pater ipse patronus, Nunc vero infernas sedes Acherontis ad undas In regard to the actual use of memento mori devices among the ancients, we have the well-known passage in With all these quotations the following modern Christian view may be compared (William Croswell Doane, Bishop of Albany, New York, from The Outlook): "We are so selfish about Death. We count our grief Far more than we consider their relief Whom the great Reaper gathers in the sheaf, No more to know the season's constant change; And we forget that it means only life, And heaven no longer far away or strange." Herodotus (Hist., lib. ii. 78), which informs us that at banquets given by wealthy persons in Egypt, it was the custom for a servant to carry round the wooden image of a corpse (or a mummy) in a sarcophagus, and tell each guest to drink and enjoy himself, since after death he would be like that image. Es τοῦτον ὁρέων πῖνέ τε καὶ τέρπου, ἔσεαι γὰρ ἀποθανὼν τοιοῦτος. A little wooden FIG. 2.-Ancient Egyptian little wooden figure of a mummy, to be used as a memento mori at banquets, and the box to contain it. (After F. W. von Bissing.) figure, representing a mummy, which might well be similar to those alluded to by Herodotus, has been described and illustrated by F. W. von Bissing (from his own collection), together with a little obelisk-shaped box which enclosed it (Fig. 2).25 Another little wooden 25 See F. W. von Bissing, "Die älteste Darstellung eines Skeletts," Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Alterthumskunde, Leipzig, 1912, vol. 1. p. 63. Von Bissing's specimen is thought to belong to pre Ptolemaic times. figure of the same kind, together with its case (sarcophagus), is in the Egyptian collection of the Berlin "Antiquarium." A similar custom existed in Roman Imperial times, according to the account of the feast of Trimalchio (Petronius, Satyric., c. 34), and certain miniature jointed skeletons made in bronze or silver, preserved in various European museums (see the bronze skeletons illustrated in Fig. 3) are supposed to have been employed in this way at Roman banquets. The one introduced at Trimalchio's feast (at the end of the first course) was a jointed one of silver ("larva argentea "). The one used at Trimalchio's feast was described as so skilfully made that its joints and backbone could be made to assume any attitude desired. From the anatomical point of view, however, the specimens in bronze in the British Museum (London), in the Louvre Museum (Paris), in the Museo Kircheriano (Rome), and in other collections, are all, or nearly all, very incorrectly modelled, as pointed out by A. de Longpérier, Notice des bronzes antiques. . . du Louvre, Paris, 1868, vol. i. p. 165, No. 691. In regard to various "skeleton-manikins of bronze or silver in the museums of Naples, Imola, &c., see Contessa E. Caetani Lovatelli's article, "Di una piccola Larva Convivale in Bronzo," Monumenti Antichi pubblicati per cura della Reale Accademia dei Lincei, Milano, 1895, vol. v. columns 5 to 15 (with illustrations). See also S. Reinach, Répertoire de la Statuaire Grecque et Romaine, Paris, 1897, tome ii. p. 691. The two little bronze skeletons in the museum of Imola, if antique, are unusually accurately made. According to Pierre Gusman (Pompeii, Paris, 1906, p. 339), in many of the dining rooms at Pompeii there were mosaics, the centres of which represented skeletons or death's-heads. Trimalchio (a caricature of the nouveau riche Roman host of the period) had just been giving his guests Opimian (that is, very old) Falernian wine (Falernian of 121 B.C., when L. Opimius was consul, and when, owing to the great heat of the autumn, the vintage was of extraordinarily good quality) to drink (telling them that on the FIG. 3.-Larvae and skeleton-manikins of Roman times. The upper figure is from an original little jointed skeleton made of bronze (British Museum), the arms and legs of which are wanting. It was probably used in Roman times as a memento mori or carpe diem token on festive occasions, like the silver jointed skeleton-manikin (larva argentea) at "Trimalchio's banquet." The two other skeletons (Museum of Imola, after Caetani Lovatelli), if antique, are unusually accurately modelled; they appear not to be jointed. day before he had given less good wine to more distinguished company), and had remarked how sad it was to think that wine should have a longer life than human |