on a still holier errand, three eastern sages came from the boundaries of the earth to do homage to a cradle; think ye not that in theirs, as in every pilgrim's progress, a light unseen to others shone on the path before them? derived they not untiring vigour from the exalted nature of their pursuit, felt they not "a pinion lifting every limb ?" Such are the feelings which Tasso beautifully describes when he brings his heroes within view of Sion: "Al grand piacer che quella prima vista Dove poi rivestì le membra sue!" Canto III. I need not tell you, Sir Walter, that the father of history, previous to taking up the pen of Clio, explored every monument of Upper Egypt; or that Herodotus had been preceded by Homer, and followed by Pythagoras, in this philosophic pilgrimage; that Athens and Corinth were the favourite resorts of the Roman literati, Sylla, Lucullus, and Mecanas, when no longer the seats of empire; and that Rome itself is, in its turn, become as well the haunt of the antiquarian as the poet, and the painter, and the Christian pilgrim; for dull indeed would that man be, duller than the stagnant weed that vegetates on Lethe's shore, who again would put the exploded interrogatory, once fallen, not inaptly, from the mouth of a clown "Quæ tanta fuit Romam tibi causa videndi ?" I mean not to deny that there exist vulgar minds and souls ithout refinement, whose perceptions are of that stunted nature that they can see nothing in the “ pass of Thermopyla" but a gap for cattle; in the "Forum" but a cowyard; and for whom St. Helena itself is but a barren rock: but, thank Heaven! we are not all yet come to that unenviable stage of utilitarian philosophy; and there is still some hope left for the Muses haunts, when he of Abbotsford blushes not to visit the castle, the stone, and the groves of Blarney. Nor is he unsupported in the indulgence of this classic fancy; for there exists another pilgrim, despite of modern cavils, who keeps up the credit of the profession—a wayward childe, whose restless spirit has long since spurned the solemn dulness of conventional life, preferring to hold intercourse with the mountain-top and the ocean-brink: Ida and Salamis "are to him companionship ;" and every broken shaft, prostrate capital, and marble fragment of that sunny land, tells its tale of other days to a fitting listener in Harold: for him Etruria is a teeming soil, and the spirit of song haunts Ravenna and Parthenope: for him "There is a tomb in Arquà," which to the stolid peasant that wends his away along the Euganeian hills is mute indeed as the grave, nor breathes the name of its indweller; but a voice breaks forth from the mausoleum at the passage of Byron, the ashes of Petrarch grow warm in their marble bed, and the last wish of the poet in his "Legacy" is accomplished: "Then if some bard, who roams forsaken, Shall touch on thy cords in passing along, O may one thought of its master waken The sweetest smile for the Childe of Song!" SCOTT. Proud and flattered as I must feel, O most learned divine! to be classified with Herodotus, Pythagoras, Belzoni, Bruce, and Byron, I fear much that I am but a sorry sort of pilgrim, after all. Indeed, an eminent writer of your church has laid it down as a maxim, which I suspect applies to my case, "Qui multùm peregrinantur rarò sanctificantur." Does not Thomas à Kempis say so? PROUT. The doctrine may be sound; but the book from which you quote is one of those splendid productions of uncertain authorship which we must ascribe to some "great unknown” of the dark ages. SCOTT. Be that as it may, I can give you a parallel sentiment from one of your French poets; for I understand you are partial to the literature of that merry nation. The pilgrim's wanderings are compared by this gallic satirist to the meandering course of a river in Germany, which, after watering the plains of Protestant Wirtemberg and Catholic Austria, enters, by way of finale, on the domains of the Grand Turk : "J'ai vu le Danube inconstant, Qui, tantôt Catholique et tantôt Protestant, Finit sa course vagabonde Par n'être pas même Chrétien. On devient homme de bien !" By the way, have you seen Stothard's capital print, "The Pilgrimage to Canterbury ?" PROUT. Such orgies on pious pretences I cannot but deplore, with Chaucer, Erasmus, Dryden, and Pope, who were all of my creed, and pointedly condemned them. The Papal hierarchy in this country have repeatedly discountenanced such unholy doings. Witness their efforts to demolish the cavern of Loughderg, called St. Patrick's Purgatory, that has no better claim to antiquity than our Blarney cave, in which "bats and badgers are for ever bred." And still, concerning this truly Irish curiosity, there is a document of a droll description in Rymer's "Foedera," in the 32d year of Edward ÌII., A.D. 1358. It is no less than a certificate, duly made out by that good-natured monarch, shewing to all men as how a foreign nobleman did really visit the Cave of St. Patrick,* and passed a night in its mysterious recesses. * This is, we peneve, wnat Prout alludes to; and we confess it is a precious relic of olden simplicity, and ought to see the light : "A.D. 1358, an. 32 Edw. III. "Litteræ testimoniales super morâ in Seti Patricii Purgatorio. Rex universis et singulis ad quos præsentes litteræ pervenerint, salutem! "Nobilis vir Malatesta Ungarus de Arimenio, miles, ad præsentiam nostram veniens, maturè nobis exposuit quod ipse nuper à terræ suæ discedens laribus, Purgatorium Sancti Patricii, infra terram nostram Hyberniæ constitutum, in multis corporis sui laboribus peregrè visitârat, SCOTT. I was aware of the existence of that document, as also of the remark made by one Erasmus of Rotterdam concerning the said cave: "Non desunt hodie qui descendunt, sed priùs triduano enecti jejunio ne sano capite ingrediantur." * Erasmus, reverend friend, was an honour to your cloth; but as to Edward III., I am not surprised he should have encouraged such excursions, as he belonged to a family whose patronymic is traceable to a pilgrim's vow. My reverend friend is surely in possession of the historic fact, ac per integræ diei ac noctis continuatum spatium, ut est moris, clausus manserat in eodem, nobis cum instantiâ supplicando, ut in præmissorum veracius fulcimentum regales nostras litteras inde sibi concedere digna remur. "Nos autem ipsius peregrinationis considerantes periculosa discrimina, licet tanti nobilis in hâc parte nobis assertio sit accepta, quia tamen dilecti ac fidelis nostri Almarici de Sto Amando, militis, justiciarii nostri Hyberniæ, simul ac Prioris et Conventûs loci dicti Purgatorii, et etiam aliorum auctoritatis multæ virorum litteris, aliisque claris evidentiis informamur quod dictus nobilis hanc peregrinationem ritè perfecerat et etiam animosè. 'Dignum duximus super his testimonium nostrum favorabiliter adhibere, ut sublato cujusvis dubitationis involucro, præmissorum veritas singulis lucidius patefiat, has litteras nostras sigillo regio consignatas illi duximus concedendas. "Dat' in palatio nostro West', xxiv die Octobris, 1358." Rymer's Fadera, by Caley. London, 1825. * Erasmus in Adagia, artic. de antro Trophonii. See also Camden's account of this cave in his Hyberniæ Descriptio, edition of 1594, p. 671. It is a singular fact, though little known, that from the visions said to occur in this cavern, and bruited abroad by the fraternity of monks, whose connexion with Italy was constant and intimate, Dante took the first hint of his Divina Commedia, Il Purgatorio. Such was the celebrity this cave had obtained in Spain, that the great dramatist Calderon made it the subject of one of his best pieces: and it was so well know at the court of Ferrara, that Ariosto introduced it into his Orlands Furioso, canto x. stanza 92. "Quindi Ruggier, poichè di banda in banda E vide Ibernia fabulosa, dove Il santo vecchiarel fece la cava In che tanta mercè par che si trove, Che l' uom vi purga ogni sua colpa prava!” that the name of Plantagenet is derived from plante de genest, a sprig of heath, which the first Duke of Anjou wore in his helmet as a sign of penitential humiliation, when about to depart for the holy land: though why a broomsprig should indicate lowliness is not satisfactorily explained. PROUT. The monks of that day, who are reputed to have been very ignorant, were perhaps acquainted with the "Georgics" of Virgil, and recollected the verse— "Quid majora sequar? Salices humilesque Genistæ." SCOTT. II. 434. I suppose there is some similar recondite allusion in that unaccountable decoration of every holy traveller's accoutrement, the scollop-shell? or was it merely used to quaff the waters of the brook? PROUT. Did It was first assumed by the penitents who resorted to the shrine of St. Jago di Compostella, on the western coast of Spain, to betoken that they had extended their penitential excursion so far as that sainted shore; just as the palmbranch was sufficient evidence of a visit to Palestine. not the soldiers of a Roman general fill their helmets with cockles on the brink of the German Ocean? By the by, when my laborious and learned friend the renowned Abbé Trublet, in vindicating the deluge against Voltaire, instanced the heaps of marine remains and conchylia on the ridge of the Pyrenees, the witty reprobate of Ferney had the unblushing effrontery to assert that those were shells left behind by the pilgrims of St. Jacques on re-crossing the mountains. SCOTT. I must not, meantime, forget the objects of my devotion; and with your benison, reverend father, shall proceed to examine the "stone." PROUT. You behold, Sir Walter, in this block the most valuable E |