Palindromical Lines

Palindromical Lines (Vol. vii., pp. 178. 366.).

Besides the habitats already given for the Greek inscription on a font, I have notes of the like at Melton Mowbray; St. Mary's, Nottingham; in the private chapel at Longley Castle; and at Hadleigh.

At this last place, it is noted in a church book to be taken out of Gregory Nazienzen (but I never could find it), and a reference is made to Jeremy Taylor's Great Exemplar, "Discourse on Baptism," p. 120. sect. 17.

It may be worth noticing that this Gregory was, for a short time, in the fourth century, bishop of Constantinople; and in the Moslemised cathedral of St. Sophia, in that city, according to Grelot, quoted in Collier's Dictionary, the same words—with the difference that "sin" is put in the plural, sic:

"ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ"

were written in letters of gold over the place at the entrance of the church, between two porphyry pillars, where stood two urns of marble filled with water, the use of which, when it was a Christian temple, must be well known.

The Turks now use them for holding drinking water, and have probably done so since the time when the church was turned into a mosque, after the conquest of Constantinople by Mahomet II., in the fifteenth century.

What could induce Zeus (p. 366.) to call this inscription "sotadic?" It may more fitly be called holy.

These lines also are to be found on the marble basins for containing holy water, in one of the churches at Paris.

The Greek inscription mentioned by Jeremy Taylor is on the font in Rufford Church.

Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853.

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