owever this may be, the truth of the
beautiful legend of his mother can, I fear, be never proved or disproved.

While on this subject, let me, at the risk of being tedious to your
readers, quote the amusing tale told by Latimer, with regard to this
hospital, in his "Sixth Sermon preached before Edward VI." (Parker Soc ed.,
p. 201.):--

"I had rather that ye should come [to hear the Word of God] as the tale
is by the gentlewoman of London: one of her neighbours met her in the
street and said, 'Mistress, whither go ye?' 'Marry,' said she; 'I am
going to St. Thomas of Acres, to the sermon; I could not sleep all this
last night, and I am going now thither; I never failed of a good nap
there.' And so I had rather ye should go a-napping to the sermons than
not to go at all."

On the name "S. Nicholas _Acon_," I can throw no light. Stow is quite
silent as to its signification.

E. VENABLES.

Herstmonceux.

_Becket's Mother._--I am, in truth, but a new subscriber, and when I wrote
the remarks on MR. FOSS's note (Vol. ii., p. 270.), had not seen your first
volume containing the communications of MR. MATTHEWS (p. 415.) and DR.
RIMBAULT (p. 490.). The rejection of the story that Becket's mother was a
Saracen rests on the fact that no trace of it is found until a much later
time, when the history of "St. Thomas of Canterbury" had been embellished
with all manner of wonders. MR. MATTHEWS may find some information in the
_English Review_, vol. vi. pp. 40-42. DR. RIMBAULT is mistaken in saying
that the life of St. Thomas by Herbert of Boshain "is published in the
_Quadrilogus_, Paris, 1495." It was one of the works from which the
_Quadrilogus_ was _compiled_; but the only entire edition of it is that by
Dr. Giles, in his _S. Thomas Cantauriensis_.

J. C. R.

_Passage in Lucan_ (Vol. ii., p. 89.).--The following are parallel passages
to that in Lucan's _Pharsalia_, b. vii. 814., referred to by MR. SANSOM.

Ovid. _Metam._ 1. 256.:--

"Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur affore tempus,
Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia coeli
Ardeat; et mundi moles operos laboret."

Cic. _De Nat. Deor._ 11. 46.:--

"Ex quo eventurum nostri putant id, de quo Panaetium addubitare
dicebant, ut ad extremum omnis mundus ignesceret; cum, humore consumto,
neque terra ali posset neque remearet aer; cujus ortus, aqua omni
exhausta, esse non posset," etc.

Cic. _De Divinatione_, 1. 49.:--