Page images
PDF
EPUB

friend mentioned this circumstance to Ham- | be of secondary importance. His meditations conmond, as a remarkable instance of the good centrate upon a retired nook of this once sumptuous effects of a word spoken in season, not being

structure, for the purpose of holding a momentary at all aware that Hammond was so nearly con

reverie above the enchanter's grave, and whose cerned in the anecdote. He, however, disclosed

wand seems buried with him; of one whom, when the fact, and presented his informant with a

living, it was most poetically said, “ The grave

loses half its potency when he calls. His own imacopy of the very sermon he had alluded to; at

gination is one majestic sepulchre, where the wi. the same time expressing a wish that it might

zard lamp burns in never-dying splendour, and produce the same effect upon himself.

the charmed blood glows for ever in the cheeks of After graduating in arts, Hammond had, at the embalmed, and every long-sheathed sword is the usual interval, proceeded to his B.D. de ready to leap from its scabbard, like the Tizona of gree, where he would have remained, had he the Čid in the vault of Cardena." As the reader, not, in the year 1639, been requested by eleven || however, may feel curious concerning the histoof his contemporaries, of the same college and rical annals of this celebrated monastic ruin, the year, to take his doctor's degree. His perform

following brief particulars, from an old work, are ance of the act on that occasion was very supe

quoted for his information: rior, and without any of that unreadiness which

" Dryburgh Abbey is situate on the banks of is usually contracted in a country life.

the Tweed, a little below Melrose, in Teviotd je.

Here are the remains of a famous abbey, founded In the following year he was summoned to

in the year 1150 by Hugh de Moreville, constable the memorable convocation which met before

of Scotland, and Beatrix de Beauchamp, his wife, the long parliament. He was also nominated in the reign of David I. The monks were of the by the parliament a member of the Assembly || order Premontré in France, and brought to Dry. of Divines; but his loyalty and orthodoxy for- || burgh from Alnwick in Northumberland, in 1152. bade him to appear among traitors and here- || The church was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. tics. In the year 1643 an honour more worthy Walter Stewart, father to King Robert II., granted his acceptance was bestowed upon him by Dr. to this place the patronage of the church of MaxBrian, bishop of Chichester, who appointed | ton, in the shire of Roxburgh, and diocese of Glashim Archdeacon of Chichester. The influence gow. Kilrenny in Fife was also given to this which this important office gave him among ||!

// monastery by Ada, mother of King Malcolm IV.

and William the Lion, who by the same charter the clergy was employed in promoting that

gives dimidiam carructam terræ de Pitcortyne et unam peace, unity, and obedience then so desirable.

toftum in burgo meo de Caarele. There were two And on one occasion, when addressing a body

monasteries in Ireland, viz. the abbey of Druin a of clergy, he was só carried away from his Cross, in the county of Armagh, and the abbey of usual diffidence, by a sense of the importance Wordborn, in the county of Antrim, who acknowof his subject, " that he broke off from what | ledged this abbey for their muther. he had premeditated, and out of the abund. « Dryburgh, with its revenue, was given to the ance of his heart spoke to his auditory” with | Earl of Mar by King James VI., who erected it very good effect. But, alas, while Hammond || into a temporal lordship, together with Inchmawas labouring for peace, others were making | homac, in Perthshire, in favour of Henry Erskine, themselves ready for battle. The efforts of the

the earl's third son by the Lady Mary Stewart, latter were permitted, in God's inscrutable

daughter of Esme, lord d'Ambigny and duke of providence, to prevail. Their fury reached

Lennox. The present Earl of Buchan bought the

abbey, and a small estate surrounding it, from the even the quiet village of Penshurst, and drove

heirs of Colonel Tod, who purchased it from the away its peaceable rector from his loved and

Halyburtons of Newmains, the old barons or lairds loving parishioners.

of Meston. This abbey was burnt and plundered (To be continued in our next).

by the English in the year 1323. The Cartulary, containing all the charters granted to Dryburgh, is in the Advocates' Library of Edinburgh."2

Instead of reviving, however, these once important personages-the cowled monk or the soliloquising abbot, who formerly paced this legendary arena—the eye of fancy and the heart of sympathy are better pleased with recalling the many life-like conceptions or beautiful reflections of Scott, the necromancer, now sleeping in his narrow house within a few feet of us. We hardly think of

other forms than those which his genius has SIR WALTER SCOTT AND DRYBURGH

created ; the histories of the actual inhabitants ABBEY. (Concluded from p. 271.)

1 Lockhart, “ Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk."

2“ The Picturesque Antiquities of Scotland.” London, In contemplating ruins similar to Dryburgh Ab.

1788. For an account of the unfortunate female who bey, the thoughts of the traveller usually wander tenanted a gloomy vault or dungeon amongst the ruins of over the architectural details, or the legendary his

this abbey, and who was regarded with terror by the sutory of the edifice, to the exclusion of almost every

perstitious people in the neighbourhood as a supernatural

being, the reader is referred to a note by Sir Walter other topic. But here such speculations seem to Scott, illustrative of his poem, “ The Eve of St. John."

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

DRYBURGH.

of this abbey, some of whose dust has mingled | beautifully interwoven and portrayed by Scott, with the soil on which we tread, affect us but || And where has genius ever flung a holier charm vaguely. We refuse to dwell upon their memo- || around the name of woman, than may be found in rials; and their having existed at all seems al || his writings-portraits of his heroic countrywomen? most visionary, compared with the fanciful emana There is one that even now rises up before me, a tions of the poet's brain upon which our thoughts || true heroine: not one made interesting, however. now concentrate. So talismanic is the minstrel's from high-born rank or rare lineage; not from tomb-so familiar his delineations! And whilst || peerless beauty or unwomanly attributes; but the thus intently occupied, how consonant with the || impersonated embodiment of sisterly affection, as scene seem the words of him, now resting so near, delineated in the humble character of Jeanie who in describing an ancient and neglected burial Deans. place, remarks, that“ those who sleep beneath are What sight on earth is there more interesting or only connected with us by the reflection, that they | beautiful than that of a family knit together in the have once been what we are now, and that, as their strong bonds of holy affection where the several relics are now identified with their mother earth, members of it rejoice in the attractive endowments ours shall at some future period undergo the same of each other which God in his infinite goodness transformation.':|

has thought proper to bestowo-sisters, unleavened The reader of this passage will probably be re with unnatural envy or unfeeling sensibilities-but minded of Scott's frequent visits to this solemn keeping alive the sacred flame of love, which never burial-place during his life-time, when some of the seems to burn so brightly as it does when kindled neglected memorials of death met his view, as they || around the domestic hearth? To the world at large, have mine at this time ; and he has wondered, per- || however, the trials and snfferings of obscure and haps, if a like fate awaited his ashes, when he should | humble individuals may have but little interest, or have ended his mortal pilgrimage. But there were excite but partial or indifferent regard. From its no melancholy reflections suggested to my mind as | lordly dwelling-places, it is apt to consider misforI stood over his grave, save those impressive ones | tune, calamity, or suffering, the peculiar birthriglit incidental to the thought of death's inevitable de. ll of the poor-their inevitable lot; and only strange cree-a decree which caused tears to flow from ll or lamentable when it invades the stately mansion those who loved him, and regret that his earthly | of the rich and exalted; as is no hearts were made light was quenched in over-tasking his master to bleed at earthly trouble but their own; no inintellect; for he had sunk into no early grave, terest properly awakened unless throbbing when although the world, in its affection, called it so. wo enters their gilded thresholds. It would have been thought premature, by his coun In selecting the history of two sisters, inmates trymen, at any age. He was sixty-one when he of the humble cottage at St. Leonard's, for illusdied, and he did not go down to the tomb

tration, Scott has exhibited a moral picture, as “Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung."

well as a self-sacrificing woman. This woman he

has not sought to endow with adventitious charms His share of happiness and prosperity in life had

or poetical attractions-her gifts are few and simbeen unusually great; more than falls to the lot of thousands. This, he ever gratefully acknowledged.

ple; but he has imparted to her an attraction no

art can imitate-a noble heart! And, emanating For much of it he was indebted to his superior

from that warm and gushing well-spring of affectalents; but the greater proportion, perhaps, to

tion, appears a true and resolute soul, undaunted his cheerful temperament, and a sane mind. His

by difficulties, nor shrinking from the most painful poetical conceptions partake of these humanizing

effort, mental and physical, to save a sister's life. qualities. It is this distinguishing feature in his

She possessed nature's eloquence, however, which delineations that recommends them to our notice,

is never withheld from an advocate like the heroine or fastens them in our memories. He was neither irreligious, misanthropic, nor affectedly sentimen

of St. Leonard's. And how is the site of the an

cient Tolbooth of Edinburgh now sought to be tal. Whatever came from his pen proceeded from

identified by the traveller-the picturesque ridges close observation, and an accurate insight into the

of the Pentland Hillsor that most romantic of veiled, yet deep and potent springs of human ac

| all eminences, near a great city, Salisbury Crags tion. In this respect he claimed close affinity to

- gazed at, but in connexion with the story of Shakspeare. There was freshness, life, and beauty, | Jeanie Deans and her sister? How sweetly does in his descriptions, that awakened interest without

the spirit of kind affection steal over our hearts, disappointment. His pictures of the local scenery

and associate the scene around us with the harmoof Scotland are the best ever painted. They make

nising and genial lustre of nature and true goodthe journey through her borders a pictorial and

ness! We fancy there are other cottages in the mental pleasure. Stern and wild as much of Cale

land containing inmates who possess the undevedonia is, the traveller would perhaps hasten on,

loped characteristics of this Scottish maiden. The neglectful of the characteristic features of her sons

heart that conceived this original portrait, and the and daughters, were it not for the incidents so

hand that executed it, imparted a cheering aspect 1“ Old Mortality.” Allan Cunningham, in his biogra

to humanity, by spreading over the broad surface phical and historical notices of the lyrical poets of Scot

of the land the golden sun of syn. pathy and kind land, thus identifies the scene of “Old Mortality's" la feeling, which even now lights up many a nook and bours : “Dalgarnock, now incorporated with Close Burn, corner that would otherwise perhaps appear uninwas the name of a small and beautiful little parish, ex

viting or dreary. The memory of such an one cantending along the banks of the Nith; its ruined kirk and lonesome burial-ground are often visited by the old people not well be connected with gloomy thoughts, or of the neighbourhood-human aflection clings anxiously || associated with melancholy ideas. Such associs to paternal dust. It was here that Old Mortality' was found repairing the martyrs' tombstones."

i The Heart of Mid-Lothian.

ations would be at variance with the blithe and Il-for the setting sun is at this moment spreading animating impressions thus made upon the mind. a magic tint over the beautiful greensward which But I thought of him rather as one in whom the surrounds the abbey walks; it streams upon these domestic and moral principles of life were well de grey ruins like a gleam of his own bright song, veloped, and shone as conspicuously, nay, perhaps illuminating the crumbling cloisters, or chequerwith more endearing brightness, than genius; in ing its grass-grown aisles with light and shade, whom filial reverence and affection was a part of more multiform than tesselated art. his religion; commencing in childhood and ending And thus it is amidst the wild and beautiful only with his breath ; who began his morning task scenery of this picturesque land, that the spirit of with moistened eye, as he revived his mother's Scott is now associated-where it still lives. Whilst memory, and the records of her enduring love the lake spreads out its blue mirror beneath the for him from helpless infancy to manhood. 1 | overhanging precipices of Achray or Benvenuethought of him as the hospitable representative of whilst the traveller wanders over the ruined castles his countrymen—the kind host to all who sought his and abbeys which decorate the Scottish landscape, generous commendation, or his pleasant converse will be be remembered. Then will his antiquabeneath his attractive mansion; as the chivalrous rian knowledge-without dulness or pedantry-be chronicler of his country's history, and the strict || appreciated. The majestic monuments of the past man of integrity; who taxed all the resources of will be revived. The knights of other days will his exuberant genius, and sunk at last beneath the live again. Temples, in which the mail-clad chiefs effort, to render unto his creditors the uttermost were wont to kneel, will be sought out and peofarthing for which he stood indebted to them : pled continually with his ever-living characters thus acting up to the very letter of his moral code. |for his wand has caused them to re-issne from Such considerations should not produce despond- || their ancient tombs. The very events of this day, ing or deprecating reflections for one who, in so now fresh upon my mind, cause me to dwell upon many aspects, must be viewed with admiration. || this theme; for I have felt as if under the influence The sigh, if there be one here, must arise from the of a magician's spell, or a pleasant dream. I have unhappy circumstance which doubtless shortened || been riding beside the banks of the river Jade,his existence-leaving the world without a com a Scottish stream which lay in my route hither. peer. That thought, however, sends a pang to The leaves of the aspen-trees quivered in the every feeling heart; that sympathetic duty every breeze, and made glad music with the murmuring pilgrim discharges who visits the tomb of Scott. current. But there was a strain of music which

Again: I thought of him in the innumerable came upon the breeze as well; and with the linked passages of poetic beauty scattered throughout his melody, words. Those words were Scott's! Prevaried compositions, and recalled them to mind, as sently, the old abbey of Jedburgh rose to view, and the best tribute to his memory. Although in life with it its ancient graveyard. In that old burialhe studiously avoided the echo of laudatory expres place they were consigning a fellow-mortal to the sions when addressed to him—the language of per- | tomb! At that solemn moment I fancied I heard sonal compliment--yet it now seems the most be- || the burden of that impressive requiem, Dies iræ, fitting chant to render at a poet's grave. And it is dies illa, chanted within the abbey-walls, which at a poet's grave that thoughts frequently are most || Scott has paraphrased so beautifully in his “ Lay impressive : for his very ashes are suggestive, even of the Last Minstrel:"in their deep silence; and his written words, if worth any thing, are recalled. He has communed

Hymn for the Dead.

“That day of wrath, that dreadful day, with all things, and we commonly learn, from his

When heaven and earth shall pass away, patient or soaring mind, such knowledge as he may What power shall be the sinner's stay? have acquired. The poet's perceptions, images, and How shall he meet that dreadful day? fancies, are identified in our memory with his whole When, shrivelling like a parched scroll, career, from his cradle to his sepulchre. Thus, as

The flaming heavens together roll;

When louder yet, and yet more dread, I gaze at this romantic landscape, glowing in all

Swells the high trump that wakes the dead !the vernal beauty of midsummer, and listen to the

Oh! on that day, that wrathful day, music of the Tweed, as I catch a distant view of it,

When man to judgment wakes from clay, flowing onwards amongst scenes beloved by the Be Thou the trembling sinner's stay, minstrel, and rendered famous by his verse,I Though heaven and earth shall pass away!" ramble with him still. I can scarcely believe him

After a time, the outline of some heath-covered slumbering near, insensible to an hour like this ;

mountains came in sight-they were the Eildon

Hills I immediately designated by the coachman. 1 But perhaps the most touching evidence of the lasting || But he pointed at the same time in another directenderness of his early domestic feeling was exhibited to

tion with much national pridem for he was a Scotchhis executors, when they opened his repositories in search of his testament, the evening after his burial. “On lifting man--remarking, that yonder was the Tweed, and up his desk, we found arranged in careful order a series | if I were only upon the summit of those hills I of little objects which had previously been so placed there might behold Leader Water and Sandyknow, ihe that his eye might rest on them every morning before he began his tasks. These were the old-fashioned boxes

spot where Sir Walter Scoit passed his boyhood that had garnished his mother's toilet, when he, a sickly | days! Now I approached the ancient town of child, slept in her dressing-room--the silver taper-stand || Melrose, and beheld the ruins of its beautiful which the young advocate had bought for her with his

|| abbey seated in a green and quiet valley. I felt first five-guinea fee - a row of small packets inscribed with her hand, and containing the hair of those of her the spell of the poet's magic art around me still; offspring that had died before her; and more things of the nay, more, it increased with tenfold interest at the like sort, recalling “the old familiar faces.' The same | sight of this favourite object of the " Antiquary's" feeling was apparent in all the arrangement of his private apartment.'-LOCKUART'S Life of Scott, vol, viii, p. 411. Il study. And thus my wanderings have at length

ery

D.

brought me to these venerable ruins—the princi- | ples of the man. And if it be true of the poet pal object of this day's journey-now composing || Wordsworth, as pronounced by Professor Wilson, * the minstrel's sepulchre! Here his mortal body that he has made “every rock an altare is enshrined within this antique fragment of Gothic grove a shrine,” in his native land, by the impress art. He bas descended to the tomb! But his l of an elevated intellect; an equal share of praise living spirit still survives, and even now lights up must be awarded to Scott, for cheering the hearts this interesting corner of the abbey.

of his countrymen, and shedding the genial beams Over all that I have seen to-day has this same re of his benignant genius around the hearth-stones markable and happy influence extended. It has of "stern and wild” Caledonia. pervaded the mountain-torrent and the whimpering burn-over wild heath and savage moor. It has diffused a cheering aspect even to the most wild and rugged scenery-for a time rendered still

THE ITALIAN BRETHREN OF THE more so by a sudden storm. Yet this circumstance

MISERICORDIA.? only served to awaken in my memory some of the This admirable and most profoundly Christian powerful touches of Scott's poetic pencil :

confraternity is said to have been first formed in H ark as my lingering footsteps slow retire.

that fatal year 1348, which was that of the frightSome Spirit of the Air has waked thy string! ful visitation of the plague at Florence. Then it 'Tis now a Seraph bold, with touch of fire,

was, when man fled from man, and, more horrible 'Tis now the brush of Fairy's frolic wing. Receding now, the dying numbers ring

and stranger still, when woman ceased to watch Fainter and falnter down the rugged dell,

and soothe her dying fellow-creatures, then it And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring

was that a small society of brave and holy men A wandering witch-note of the distant

associated themselves together by a vow that they And now, 'tis silent all!" |

would fearlessly go wherever suffering called them. I desire not to exalt genius above the lofty || Such, however, was the horror of infection throughstan'lard of yirtue, above its due elevation : for, as

tue, above its que elevation: for, as | out the city, that no persons known to be thus exremarked by that living embodiment of talent,

Il posing themselves to the danger of it would have combined in poet, critic, and scholar--a prominent

been permitted free entrance anywhere; and for light amongst the nobile fratrum, who have given

that reason, or it might have been, I think, for the intellectual renown to the age in which we live,ll still holier one of not letting themselves be known “ Who is the Swan of Avon (he asks) in compari as the performers of the good deeds thus done, this son to the humblest being that ever purified his

| truly holy brotherhood enveloped themselves in the spirit in the waters of eternal life ?” This is the

| dress which they still wear, the black folds of which proper aspect in which genius should be viewed :

|| cover the wearer from the top of the head to the by this sure test must it be approved or condemned.

ground, and most effectually prevent their being It is an apothegm worthy of remembrance when

recognised, no aperture being left, save small holes estimating the merits of celebrated men, and it for the eyes and mouth. The society thus nobly shall be my peroration in Dryburgh abbey. created, separated not when the horrible visitation I have already glanced at the reverential feelings

| which first brought it together passed away; but, of Scott for sacred themes whenever introduced by

on the contrary, has become one of the most marked, his pen. It is but just and proper, that a kindred as it is one of the most noble, features of the Tuscan reality should be remembered and accredited in States, and is now extremely numerous. The numthis memorial ; for it characterised one of the most llber is, indeed, unlimited ; and contains persons solemn moments of his life. No person who has || from all parts of the country, closely bound togeperused attentively Lockhart's account of his last ther by one common faith, and one common tie, illness, can have forgotten the very striking exhi- ll but that tie so secret and mysterious, that many bition of this sentiment-this religious emission of ll of the members live and die without knowing who words, which spoke so audibly, ay, “ trumpet- ll or how many are united with them. Yet can they, tongued,” from the heart of the dying minstrel. || like freemasons, make themselves known to each The scene referred to occurred in his library at l other when they meet, should such recognition be Abbotsford, into which he had been brought from ll necessary, by secret signs and words known alike his sick chamber, that he might gaze once more ll to all, but known to themselves alone. These men, upon the rippling tide of his beloved Tweed, and

including in their number many of the very highest have his thoughts soothed with its imaginary mur

rank, (among which princes and even popes have mur. But let Lockhart's words detail the rest. || been numbered,) are bound by a solemn oath to " He expressed a wish that I should read to him; |

hold themselves ready whenever called upon, either and when I asked from what book, he said, “Need

| by night or by day, to go to the aid of any who may you ask? There is but one. I chose the 14th

want them, whether suffering from sickness or from chapter of St. John's Gospel.” Further comment

accident. Nay, if an individual be assaulted by an upon this affecting passage in the final days of ll assassin in the streets, no brother of the Misericor. Scotland's bard is unnecessary. I only recall it

dia can pass within reach of knowing it without here to make good my assertion-here, amid these

being bound to hasten to his succour. Secret as impressive ruins, and above his dewy grave, that it

are the laws by which they regulate themselves, or may add another grace to the unfading chaplet rather the manner in which these admirable laws are which rests upon it. For this proof alone, if all

put in practice, no society can be more regularly others were wanting, would assuredly bear testi

organised. A certain number of the brethren are semony to the unostentatious faith and devout princi lected from the whole body as directors, of which ten

are bishops, and twenty unbeneficed priests. Also, i Conclusion of the Lady of the Lake, 9 Professor Wilson.

1 From Mrs. Trallope's Visit to Italy.

from among the laity, they select a certain number of and duties of the clergy, called Liber Pastoralis. nobles, and double the number of plebeians; from When such a man, therefore, beheld, as part of the among these, twelve are chosen every four months

freight of the Roman vessel, a band of Saxon youths, to officiate, six called captains, and six counsellors. To these are added a hundred and five of the breth

recently purchased as slaves,-for at this time the ren, seven of whoin hold themselves constantly in

horrid traffic in human flesh was common,-no readiness to attend any special summons, or to obey wonder that he blushed for his countrymen, and the sound of the bell by which they are frequently mourned for the unhappy victims of their avarice. called. But this is only for the ordinary events of

Besides, the very appearance of the Saxon youths, each day; any extraordinary necessity is provided

with their fair hair and ruddy countenances, was for promptly and readily by extraordinary aid. Another portion of the society is bound to collect |sufficient to interest one who was accustomed to the the charitable contributions of the public by per darker complexions of Italy. Gregory anxiously sonal applications, which, be it observed, are never inquired whence the youths had come; and on being refused. The smallest offering may suffice, but

informed that the isle of Britain was their home, something is always given. Nor does the obvious

and that the islanders were involved in the darkconjecture of its being probable, in a catholic country, that such a society may be entered by the rich

ness of paganism,“ he heaved a deep sigh," says and the noble for a limited time (which is a stipula- || Bede, “ from the bottom of his heart, and extion permitted), as an act of penance, in any degree claimed, “Alas ! what pity that the author of darklessen the respect which it is calculated to inspire.

ness is possessed of men of such fair countenances; ..... One of the duties of this holy brotherhood,

and that being remarkable for such graceful aspects, and one which is regularly and constantly per.. formed, is visiting the prisoners, and praying with

their minds should be void of inward grace.'" lle those who are condemned to death. ... That this further asked what was the name of that nation, institution is of great and constant utility, may | and was answered that they were called Angles. be inferred from the fact, that it is next to im

“Right,” said he ; " for they have an angelic face, possible to pass through the streets of Florence

and it becomes such to be co-heirs with the angels without meeting them in the performance of their duty. Sometimes they are carrying the sick or

in heaven." " What is the name," he continued, the maimed to the hospitals ; sometimes passing | “ of the province from which they are brought ?'' to the homes of sufferers to attend upon them; It was replied, that the natives of that province were sometimes carrying those who have expired to the || called Deiri. “ Truly they are De ira,” he said : grave. The species of respect manifested to them

“ withdrawn from wrath, and called to the mercy of as they pass along, tells plainly in what estimation they are held; I know not how it might chance to

|| Christ." "What is the king of that province called ?”. be in other countries, but I thiok it would be im Alla, was the reply. "Allelujah,” he exclaimed: possible to see a brother of the Misericordia jostled “the praise of God the Creator must be sung in in this."

those parts."

After this conference, Gregory hastened to his LETTERS ON ENGLISH HISTORY.

bishop (Pelagius II.); and having informed him

of what he had seen and heard, entreated that he No. IV.-The Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. | might be sent to evangelise the island, in favour of MY DEAR ,

which these Saxon youths had so greatly excited It was a circumstance apparently accidental, though his sympathy. This request was refused, the Church of course providential, which opened the way for of Rome being unwilling to risk the life of so disthe conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. The arrival tinguished a member amongst the savage Saxons. of a merchant-vessel of Rome from Britain (A.D. | But he himself, about two years afterwards, A.D. 588), drew together a concourse of citizens curi 590, was elected, much against his inclination, to ous to see what might be the nature of the cargo. | occupy the Roman see, as he trembled at the Among these spectators there was one more dis- | responsibility of so high an office—and in those tinguished than the rest, named Gregory, a Chris | days men shrunk from, rather than coveted, the tian priest, of remarkable learning and piety. He Il episcopal function. He then soon carried out the had passed from high civil functions to a monas | design in wbich he had been before frustrated. tery of his own founding, where several years of || Having persuaded his friend Augustine, a Ro his life had been spent in the service of the altar ; 1 monk, to undertake the good work, he left his and had afterwards been sent by Pelagius II., as monastery, with forty attendants, for Britain. Afhis nuncio, to the court of Constantinople; inter proceeding some way on the journey, the prowhich city he had gained a high reputation for the | spect of the dangers to be incurred intimidated assistance he had afforded in suppressing a heresy, ll several of his companions, who refused to proceed then newly risen, respecting the resurrection of the further. Augustine immediately returned to Grebody. He was also the author of several theologi. || gory with this sad intelligence, from whom he cal works, among which were, an Exposition of the || brouglit back a hortatory letter to his companions, Book of Job, and a treatise explanatory of the office the fervour and piety of which soon dispelled all

Loman

« PreviousContinue »