l soil. The predominant articles were
earthenware, and several were ornamented in the most elegant manner. A
vase of red earth had on its surface a representation of a fight of men,
some on horseback, others on foot; or perhaps a show of gladiators, as
they all fought in pairs, and many of them naked. The combatants were
armed with falchions and small round shields, in the manner of the
Thracians, the most esteemed of the gladiators. Some had spears, and
others a kind of mace. A beautiful running foliage encompassed the
bottom of this vessel. On the fragment of another were several figures.
Among them appears Pan with his _pedum_, or crook; and near to him one
of the _lascivi Satyri_, both in beautiful skipping attitudes. On the
same piece are two tripods; round each is a serpent regularly twisted,
and bringing its head over a bowl which fills the top. These seem (by
the serpent) to have been dedicated to Apollo, who, as well as his son
AEsculapius, presided over medicine. On the top of one of the tripods
stands a man in full armour. Might not this vessel have been votive,
made by order of a soldier restored to health by favour of the god, and
to his active powers and enjoyment of rural pleasures, typified under
the form of Pan and his nimble attendants? A plant extends along part of
another compartment, possibly allusive to their medical virtues; and, to
show that Bacchus was not forgotten, beneath lies a _thyrsus_ with a
double head.

On another bowl was a free pattern of foliage. On others, or fragments,
were objects of the chase, such as hares, part of a deer, and a boar,
with human figures, dogs, and horses; all these pieces prettily
ornamented. There were, besides, some beads, made of earthenware, of the
same form as those called the _ovum anguinum_, and, by the Welsh, _glain
naidr_; and numbers of coins in gold, silver, and brass, of Claudius,
Nero, Galba, and other emperors down to Constantine.

St. Mary Abchurch was destroyed by the Great Fire, and rebuilt by Wren
in 1686. Maitland says, "And as to this additional appellation of _Ab_,
or _Up-church_, I am at as great a loss in respect to its meaning, as I
am to the time when the church was at first founded; but, as it appears
to have anciently stood on an eminence, probably that epithet was
conferred upon it in regard to the church of St. Lawrence Pulteney,
situate below."

Stow gives one record of St. Mary Abchurch, which we feel a pleasure in
chronicling:-