“The Proctors of this hospital were to collect the benevolence of charitable persons towards the building and supporting thereof.  And among other things observed in my youth I remember that the officers charged with the oversight of the markets in this city did divers times take from the market people pigs starved, or otherwise unwholesome for men’s sustenance:  these they did slit in the ear.  One of the Proctors of St. Antony tied a bell about the neck, and let it feed among the dunghills, and no man would hurt it, or take it up; but if any gave them bread, or other feeding, such they would know, watch for, and daily follow, whining till they had something given them; whereupon was raised a proverb, ’such a one will follow such a one and whine as it were an Antony pig;’ but if such a pig grew to be fat, and came to good liking, as oft times they did, then the Proctor would take him up to the use of the hospital.”

“These monks, with their importunate begging were so troublesome, that if men gave them nothing, they would presently threaten them with St. Antony’s fire, so that many simple people, out of fear or blind zeal, every year used to bestow on them a fat pig or porker (which they ordinarily painted on their pictures of the saint), whereby they might procure their good will, prayers, and be secure from their menaces.

“The knights of this order (of St. Antony) wore a collar of gold, with an hermit’s girdle, to which hung a crutch and a little bell.[3] See in the Gentleman’s Magazine for the year 1750, the plate of the orders of knighthood, where T, whether a letter or crutch, is given to the order of St. Antony of Ethiopia.

“The saint is always represented with this appendage in Missals, and on monuments, the T hanging from his girdle, and the bell from the neck of the pig at his feet.”

We are indebted for this subject to the Vetusta Monumenta of the Antiquarian Society.

The form of the arch will be recognised as strictly of the ecclesiastical architectural character; and, with reference to this style, we may observe that “the ecclesiastical residence, the dwelling of the mitred abbot with his train of shaven devotees, or of the princely bishop and humbler priest, naturally was designed to correspond with the consecrated edifice round which these buildings were usually grouped; and hence the architecture of the abbey or priory is essentially of a piece with that of the cathedral.”  Reverting to the chimney-piece, it should be added that formerly both on the continent, as well as in England, fire-places and chimneys were decorated with architectural ornaments, as columns, entablatures, statues, &c., like the entrance to a small temple; now they are mostly made of marble, and more for the office of sculptural decoration than for the orders of architecture.

    [1] Polwhele’s Devon.  II. p. 281.

    [2] The bishop’s motto was, Quod verum tutum.