to the solemnity of the scene; which as the day declined increased every moment in splendour; for the sparkling of several lamps of chased silver that hung from the roofs, and the gleaming of nine huge tapers which I had not before noticed, began to be visible just as I left the chapel.

Passing through the sacristy, where lay several piles of rich embroidered vestments, purposely displayed for our inspection, we regained the cloister which led to our apartment, where the supper was ready prepared. We had scarcely finished it, when the coadjutor, and the fathers who had accompanied us before, returned, and ranging themselves round the fire, resumed the conversation about St. Bruno.

Finding me disposed by the wonders which I had seen in the day to listen to things of a miraculous nature, they began to relate the inspirations they had received from him, and his mysterious apparitions. I was all attention, respect, and credulity. The old secretary worked himself up to such a pitch of enthusi asm, that I am very much inclined to imagine he believed in these moments all the marvellous events he related. The coadjutor being less violent in his pretensions to St. Bruno's modern miracles, contented himself with enumerating the noble works he had done in the days of his fathers, and in the old time before them.

I was

It grew rather late before my kind hosts had finished their narrations, and I was not sorry, after all the exercise I had taken, to return to my cell, where everything invited to repose. charmed with the neatness and oddity of my little apartment; its cabin-like bed, oratory, and ebony crucifix; in short, everything it contained; not forgetting the aromatic odour of the pine, with which it was roofed, floored, and wainscoted. The night was luckily dark. Had the moon appeared, I could not have prevailed upon myself to have quitted her till very late; but, as it happened, I crept into my cabin, and was by "whispering winds soon lulled asleep."

Eight o'clock struck next morning before I awoke; when, to my great sorrow, I found the peaks, which rose above the convent, veiled in vapours, and the rain descending with violence.

After we had breakfasted by the light of our fire (for the case

ments admitted but a very feeble gleam,) I sat down to the works of St. Bruno; of all medleys one of the strangest. Allegories without end: a theologico-natural history of birds, beasts, and fishes several chapters on paradise; the delights of solitude; the glory of Solomon's temple; the new Jerusalem; and numberless other wonderful subjects, full of the loftiest enthusiasm. The revered author of this strangely abstruse and mystic volume was certainly a being of no common order, nor do we find in the wide circle of legendary traditions an event recorded, better calculated to inspire the utmost degree of religious terror than that which determined him to the monastic state.

St. Bruno was of noble descent, and possessed considerable wealth. Not less remarkable for the qualities of his mind, their assiduous cultivation obtained for him the chair of master of the great sciences in the University of Rheims, where he contracted an intimate friendship with Odo, afterwards Pope Urban II. Though it appears that a very cheering degree of public approbation, and all the blandishments of a society highly polished for the period, contributed, not unprofitably one should think, to fill up his time, always singular, always visionary, he began early in life to loathe the world, and sigh after retirement.

But a most appalling occurrence converted these sighs into the deepest groans. A man, who had borne the highest character for the exercise of every virtue, died, and was being carried to the grave. The procession, of which Bruno formed a part, was moving slowly on, when a low, mournful sound issued from the bier. The corpse was distinctly seen to lift up its ghastly countenance, and as distinctly heard to articulate these words “I am summoned to trial." After an agonizing pause, the same terrific voice declared "I stand before the tribunal." Some further moments of amazement and horror having elapsed, the dead body lifted itself up a third time, and moving its livid lips uttered forth this dreadful sentence-" I am condemned by the just judgment of God." "Alas! alas!" exclaimed Bruno-" of how little avail are apparent good works, or the favourable opinion of mankind!

Ubi fugiam nisi ad te ?~~~

Thy mercies alone can save, and it is not in the frivolous and seductive intercourse of a worldly life those mercies can be obtained.”

Stricken to the heart by these reflections, he hurried in a fever of terror and alarm (the sepulchral voice still ringing in his ears) to Grenoble, of which see one of his dearest friends, the venerable Hugo, had lately been appointed bishop.

This saintly prelate soothed the dreadful agitation of his spirits by relating to him a revelation he had just received in a dream. "As I slept," said Hugo, "methought the desert mountains beyond Grenoble became suddenly visible in the dead of night by the streaming of seven lucid stars which hung directly over them. Whilst I remained absorbed in the contemplation of this wonder, an awful voice seemed to break the nocturnal silence, declaring their dreary solitudes thy future abode, O Bruno!--by thee to be consecrated as a retirement for holy men desirous of holding converse with their God. No shepherd's pipe shall be heard within these precincts; no huntsman's profane feet ever invade their fastnesses; nor shall woman ascend this mountain, or violate by her allurements the sacred repose of its inhabitants.'

Such were the first institutions of the order as the inspired Bishop of Grenoble delivered them to Bruno, who selecting a few persons that, like himself, contemned the splendours of the world and the charms of society, repaired with them to this spot; and, in the darkest parts of the forests which shade the most gloomy recesses of the mountains, founded the first convent of Carthusians, long since destroyed.

Several years passed away, whilst Bruno was employed in actions of the most exalted piety; and, the fame of his exemplary conduct reaching Rome, (where his friend had been lately invested with the papal tiara,) the whole conclave was desirous of seeing him, and entreated Urban to invite him to Rome. The request of Christ's vicegerent was not to be refused; and Bruno quitted his beloved solitude, leaving some of his disciples behind, who propagated his doctrines, and tended zealously the infant order.

The pomp of the Roman court soon disgusted the rigid Bruno, who had weaned himself entirely from worldly affections.

Being wholly intent on futurity, the bustle and tumults of a busy metropolis became so irksome that he supplicated Urban for

leave to retire; and, having obtained it, left Rome, aud immediately seeking the wilds of Calabria, there sequestered himself in a lonely hermitage, calmly expecting his last moments.

In his death there was no bitterness.

A celestial radiance shone around him even before he closed his eyes upon this frail existence, and many a venerable witness has testified that the voices of angelic beings were heard calling him to come and receive his reward; but as the different accounts of his translation are not essentially varied, it would be tedious to recite them.

LETTER IV.

I HAD scarcely finished taking extracts from the writings of this holy and highly-gifted personage when the dinner appeared, consisting of everything most delicate which a strict adherence to the rules of meagre could allow. The good fathers returned as usual before our repast was half over, and resumed as usual their mystic discourse, looking all the time rather earnestly into my countenance to observe the sort of effect their most marvellous narrations produced upon it.

Our conversation, which was beginning to take a gloomy and serious turn, was interrupted, I thought very agreeably, by the sudden intrusion of the sun, which, escaping from the clouds, shone in full splendour above the highest peak of the mountains, and the vapours fleeting by degrees discovered the woods in all the freshness of their verdure. The pleasure I received from seeing this new creation rising to view was very lively, and, as the fathers assured me the humidity of their walks did not often continue longer than the showers, I left my hall.

Crossing the court, I hastened out of the gates, and running swiftly along a winding path on the side of the meadow, bordered by the forests, enjoyed the charms of the prospect, inhaled the perfume of the woodlands, and now turning towards the summits of the precipices that encircled this sacred inclosure, admired the glowing colours they borrowed from the sun, contrasted by the

dark hues of the forest. Now, casting my eyes below, I suffered them to roam from valley to valley, and from one stream (beset with tall pines and tufted beech trees) to another. The purity of the air in these exalted regions, and the lightness of my own spirits, almost seized me with the idea of treading in that element. Not content with the distant beauties of the hanging rocks and falling waters, I still kept running wildly along, with an eagerness and rapidity that, to a sober spectator, would have given me the appearance of one possessed, and with reason, for I was affected with the scene to a degree I despair of expressing.

Whilst I was continuing my course, pursued by a thousand strange ideas, a father, who was returning from some distant hermitage, stopped my career, and made signs for me to repose myself on a bench erected under a neighbouring shed; and, perceiving my agitation and disordered looks, fancied, I believe, that one of the bears that lurk near the snows of the mountains had alarmed me by his sudden appearance.

The good old man, expressing by his gestures that he wished me to recover myself in quiet on the bench, hastened, with as much alacrity as his age permitted, to a cottage adjoining the shed, and returning in a few moments, presented me some water in a wooden bowl, into which he let fall several drops of an elixir composed of innumerable herbs, and having performed this deed of charity, signified to me by a look, in which benevolence, compassion, and perhaps some little remains of curiosity were strongly painted, how sorry he was to be restrained by his vow of silence from inquiring into the cause of my agitation, and giving me farther assistance. I answered also by signs, on purpose to carry on the adventure, and suffered him to depart with all his conjectures unsatisfied.

No sooner had I lost sight of the benevolent hermit than I started up, and pursued my path with my former agility, till I came to the edge of a woody dell, that divided the meadow on which I was running from the opposite promontory. Here I paused, and locking up at the cliffs, now but faintly illumined by the sun, which had been some time sinking on our narrow horizon, reflected that it would be madness to bewilder myself, at so late an hour, in the mazes of the forest. Being thus determined, I aban