casual visitor, and which {30} certainly appears to be the "iter
processionale" referred to in the will of William Ryder. Any information as
to the subject of the good woman's tradition would be very acceptable.
Perhaps S.S.S. will allow me, in return for his satisfactory explanation of
the "dark passage" in question, to over a very luminous passage in
confirmation of his view of Goldsmith's.

H.G.T.

_Lights on the Altar_ (Vol. ii., p. 495.).--In the 42nd canon of those
enacted under King Edgar (Thorpe's _Ancient Laws and Institutes of
England_, vol. ii. pp. 252-3.) we find:--

"Let there be always burning lights in the church when mass is
singing."

And in the 14th of the canons of Ælfric (pp. 348-9. of the same volume):--

"Acoluthus he is called, who bears the candle or taper in God's
ministries when the Gospel is read, or when the housel is hallowed at
the altar: not to dispel, as it were, the dim darkness, but, with that
light, to announce bliss, in honour of Christ who is our light."

C.W.G.

_Time when Herodotus wrote_ (Vol. ii., p. 405.).--The passage quoted by
your correspondent A.W.H. affords, I think, a reasonable argument to prove
that Herodotus did not commence his work until an advanced age; most
probably between the ages of seventy and seventy-seven years. Moreover,
there are various other reasons to justify the same conclusion; all which