it was carried into the Church, The proof was afforded on that same day, for the Saints Eligius and Aubert arrived to consecrate the Church. In their presence and before the great concourse of people who had assembled from all parts to be present at the solemnity, Leutsinda, persisting in irreverence, ordered the pall to be lifted and the body exposed. Immediately she cried out that she was stricken blind for her impiety, and falling on the ground before the living professors of sanctity, she bewailed her wickedness at their feet, and intreated them that they would beseech the offended St. Fursey to restore her sight. They accordingly began to intercede; the assembled multitude, struck with compassion, as well as horror, joined in their supplications; a miracle of mercy was announced; and Leutsinda, being now enabled to see the holy body, perceived that it was as fresh as at the moment when life had departed. His brother Saints then took it in their arms, chaunting a hymn as they bore the precious burden, and deposited it near the altar, laying with it an abundance of spices and perfumes.

Erchenwald established a convent of Regular Canons here, and endowed it largely. St. Fursey, while he lived, had deposited in the

Church which previously existed there, the remains of those holy men Patrick and Beoan and Meldan, formerly his companions, whose souls he had recognized in Heaven when he was carried thither in spirit, and whose bodies it seems he must have brought from Ireland. These appear to have been removed to the new edifice. At the end of four years, the wealth, which had been collected there in offerings, was entrusted by the Patrician, with some addition from his own stores, to St. Eligius, that this Saint, who had been the king's goldsmith before he became a Bishop, might construct an elaborate shrine for Fursey. The body, when it was deposited in this costly receptacle, was found still uncorrupt, and more spices and perfumes were added to keep it so. There it remained in this genuine odour of sanctity till the year 1256, when in the presence of King St. Louis it was removed into a new shrine, the translation being certified by the king's seal and those of the prelates who assisted. Handkerchiefs used to be inserted through a little window behind the altar, to touch the place whereon the body had first been laid, and derive a sanative influence from the virtue which it had left there. And of such efficacy was the body itself, that to its presence

in Peronne the deliverance of that city is specially ascribed when it was besieged by the troops of the Emperor Charles V. under the Count of Nassau.

LETTER IV. (continued.)

Like as a ship that through the ocean wide
Directs her course unto one certain coast,
Is met of many a counter-wind and tide,
With which her winged speed is let and crost,
And she herself in stormy surges tost;
Yet making many a board and many a bay,
Still winneth way, ne hath her compass
lost;

Right so it fares with me in this long way,
Whose course is often staid, yet never is astray.

SOME twenty years ago, Sir, I accompanied my old friend Davy, (not then Sir Humphry,) to the top of Skiddaw; it was the first time he had ascended that noblest of the English mountains, which for nearly half my life has been to me as a neighbour. When we had reached the summit, and enjoyed for a while the splendid prospect from the foot of one of those stone piles which the boys erect there, he cast his eyes upon the fragments of slate with which the ground is strewn, and stooping to pick up one as he spake, said "I dare say I shall find something here!" The words

were hardly uttered when he gave one of those slight starts which indicate pleasurable surprize, and added, “I have found something indeed! Here is a substance which has lately been discovered in Saxony, and has not been met with elsewhere till now." It was the chiastolite. I introduce this little anecdote with the freedom which the easy forms of epistolary composition allow, not because it is to me a pleasant recollection while the distinguished philosopher to whom it relates is living and flourishing in the enjoyment of those honours which he has deserved so well, but because it is to the point in this place, and of useful application. "Seek and ye shall find," are words to be borne in mind as well in exploring the field of history as of science.

We shall find something in the legend of St. Fursey,.. which I have not selected as remarkable either for extravagance or any thing else, but have taken it because it came in our way. The first part of the story is manifestly the growth of his own country: it has the characteristic stamp of Irish sacred romance, . . a raciness as peculiar as the smaak of the Cape wines, and which any person versed in hagiologic reading may immediately recognize. It was indeed originally written in Irish, as many of the