whether these
gates have not been migratory, like those of Somnauth, which Mahmoud took
to Gazni from a similar principle of deeply-rooted ancient
veneration,--relics of sanctity rather than trophies of victory, and which
Lord Ellenborough was so unjustly ridiculed for endeavouring to restore.
Thirdly, therefore, also whether the famous gates of the cathedral of
Novogorod may not be identical with those which have successively adorned
Vineta's and Wisby's portals; and whether those which are still the
ornament of the west door of the cathedral of Hildesheim, (which, according
to the inscription which crosses their twenty scriptural bas-reliefs, were
cast by Bereward, the thirteenth bishop, in 1015), may not be an existing
and beautiful example; as is the bronze column, with the bas-reliefs of
passages of the New Testament winding round it, and placed in the same
cathedral close. It would not be too much to surmise, that even the
beautiful gate of the Florence baptistery are from the same atelier, as an
old Italian author sings:

"O Germania gloriosa,
Tu vasa ex aurichalcis
Ad nos subinde mittes."

WILLIAM BELL, Phil. D.

* * * * *

NICHOLAS FERRAR AND THE SO-CALLED ARMINIAN NUNNERY OF LITTLE GIDDING.

(Vol. ii., pp. 119. 407.)

Hearne, the antiquary, has preserved two curious documents relating to the
Little Gidding establishment in the Appendix to his Preface to _Peter
Langtoff's Chronicle_, Nos. IX. and X. See also _Thomae Caii Vindiciae_, vol.
ii. The most complete account of this remarkable man is that by Dr.
Peckard, formerly Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge, entitled _Memoirs
of the Life of Nicholas Ferrar_, published in 1790, which has now become
extremely scarce, but has been reprinted by Dr. Wordsworth, in his
_Ecclesiastical Biography_, who has given in an Appendix an account of the
visit of the younger Nicholas Ferrar to London, from a MS. in the Lambeth
Library. The _Life of Nicholas Ferrar_, by Dr. Turner, Bishop of Ely, came
into the hands of the celebrated Dr. Dodd, who published an abridgment
{445} of it in the _Christian Magazine_ of 1761. This account was again
republished, with additions, in 1837, entitled _Brief Memorials of Nicholas
Ferrar, Founder of a Protestant Religious Establishment at Little Gidding,
in Huntingdonshire_, by the Rev. T.M. Macdonogh, Vicar of Bovingdon. Some
further particulars of this family may be found in Barnabas Oley's prefa