The Wörthsee, between Tonning and Seefeld, in Bavaria, is also called the Mouse lake. A count of Seefeld once starved all his famishing poor to death in a dungeon during a famine, and laughed at their cries, which he called the squeaking of mice. An island tower was as little use to him as to Bishop Hatto or King Popiel, though he took the additional precaution of having his bed swung from the roof by chains. The mice got at him from the ceiling, and picked his bones (Zeitschrift für Deut. Myth. i., p. 452). The Mäuseschloss in the Hirschberger lake is another instance of a very similar story. Legends abound in which rats or mice are made instruments of divine vengeance, but they do not always contain the feature of the island tower, which is essential for our present purpose. Sometimes the avenging vermin are toads and frogs instead of rats and mice.

The tendency which a story of interest has to attract round itself as evidence circumstances which have no connection with it whatever, is so strikingly illustrated by the famous incident of the so-called "Thundering Legion," that I venture to call attention to it. For the sake of clearness I give the outline of the story. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius, in his celebrated war against the Quadri, was reduced to the greatest extremities by a failure of water, just on

the very eve of a battle. A large body of Christians in one of the legions fell on their knees, and prayed to heaven for help. A sudden storm followed, which by its thunder and lightning terrified the barbarians, and by its heavy rain relieved the thirst of the Romans. The truth of the narrative does not concern us; but probably no one who examines the evidence, as collected by Dr. Newman in his Essays on Miracles (Essay II., chap. v., section 1), will dissent from his very moderate statement of the result. “On "the whole, then, we may conclude that the facts of "this memorable occurrence are as the early Christian " writers state them; that Christian soldiers did ask, "and did receive, in a great distress, rain for their

own supply, and lightning against enemies; "whether through miracle or not we cannot say for certain, but more probably not through "miracle in the philosophical sense of the word. All

we know, and all we need know is, that 'He made "darkness His secret place, His pavilion round "about him, with dark water and thick clouds to "cover Him; the Lord thundered out of heaven, "' and the Highest gave His thunder; hailstones and ""coals of fire. He sent out His arrows, and "scattered them; He sent forth lightnings, and "destroyed them.'" Just as the story of Pope Joan

fastened on the fact that pontifical processions never passed through the narrow street between the church. of St. Clement and the Coliseum, and just as the story of the Count of Gleichen made capital out of the big bed and the jewel which the Turkish princess was supposed to have worn in her turban, so this history of the "Thundering Legion" has incorporated with itself two utterly irrelevant circumstances, and that so completely, that some persons have supposed that by exposing the irrelevancy they have necessarily demolished the story-" as if evidence were the test of truth." Claudius Apollinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis, was a contemporary of Marcus Aurelius. His statement of this incident in the war against the Quadri is preserved to us by Eusebius (Hist. v., 5), and he alleges as evidence that the legion to which these Christian soldiers belonged was thenceforth called the Thundering Legion. Tertullian, writing some five and twenty years later (about A.D. 200), states by way of evidence that the emperor in consequence passed an edict in favour of the Christians (Apologeticus, chap. v. ; cf. Ad Scapulam, cap. iv.). Now there certainly was a Thundering Legion (Legio Fulminatrix), viz., the twelfth; but then it was as old as the time of Augustus. It was one of the nineteen legions levied by him. And as regards Tertullian's

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argument, there is some evidence that Marcus. Aurelius did issue a rescript favouring the Christians, but in the period of his reign which preceded the battle. And it is notorious that he persecuted the Christians both before and after that event. Here, then, we have a story, almost certainly true in itself, claiming as evidence circumstances which, however well attested, have nothing whatever to do with it.

Instances of strange and unusual objects giving rise to myths might be multiplied almost ad infinitum. Thus the story of Arion arose from the figure of a man on a dolphin, which was the customary offering of one saved from shipwreck; the dolphin being a mere emblem of the sea. The story of the Horatii and Curiatii seems to be an attempt to explain five barrows. The custom of representing martyrs with the instruments or marks of their sufferings, produced the legend of St. Denys walking with his head under his arm. The allegorical picture of Michael the Archangel conquering the Evil One in the presence of the Church, gave rise to the myth of St. George rescuing Saba from the dragon, &c,

APPENDIX D.

POPE HADRIAN'S LETTER TO HENRY II., KING OF ENGLAND, A.D. 1154.

Adrianus Papa gratum et acceptum habet quod Hen. ricus Rex Angliæ Insulam Hyberniam ingrediatur ut populum illum legibus subdat, ita tamen ut annua Petro solvatur pensio.

ADRIANUS Episcopus, servus servorum Dei, carissimo in Christo filio illustri Anglorum Regi, salutem et Apostolicam Benedictionem. Laudabiliter satis et fructuose de glorioso nomine propagando in terris et æternæ felicitatis præmio cumulando in cœlis, tua magnificentia cogitat, dum ad dilatandos Ecclesiæ terminos, ad declarandam indoctis et rudibus Populis Christianæ fidei veritatem, et vitiorum plantaria de Agro Dominico extirpanda, sicut Catholicus Princeps, intendis, et ad id convenientius exequendum consilium Apostolicæ sedis exigis et favorem. In quo facto, quanto altiori Consilio, et majori discretione procedes, tanto in eo feliciorem progressum te, præstante Domino, confidimus habiturum, eo quod ad bonum exitum semper et finem soleant attingere quæ de ardore fidei et religionis amore principium acceperunt.