faint's biography as- a miraculous one; to fuppofe the Deity equally prefent with the faint in vifible powers, as he certainly is in invifible graces; and to fancy thofe communicated, in order to give a kind of vifibility to theje." P. 16.

The author's integrity, fimplicity, and piety, are here mot apparent. He now examines the marvellous acts of St. Neot one by one; and is fuccefsful, we think, in proving, that at the bottom of each fiction lies the truth. The fixth miracle is well illuftrated by the manner of carrying corn in Cornwall.

"The tenants," fays Mr. W., "were once driving the lord's wains loaded with corn, in their ufual manner, to the ufual places. They had scarce begun to move, when, wonderful to be feen, a vehement wind came rufhing among them. So great was its vehemence, indeed, that it forced wains, and oxen, and men fuddenly to turn and go back. All go back together to the field from which the corn had been taken, as with the force of a dart from a hand.”

"The incident is very true, I believe, as it is certainly very probable in itself. A fudden wind arofe as the wains were be ginning to move, and in a direction oppofite to their movement. We know from our own experience in Cornwall at prefent, where we ftill carry our corn on wains, and ftill draw it with oxen, piled artificially in rows upon rows of fheaves, raised to a confiderable height, and bound down by a rope in feveral directions; how readily fuch a tall ftructure catches the force of those rushing winds that frequently annoy us from the fouth-west. This was fuch a wind affuredly. The rifing ftories of fheaves could not ftand the violence of it; the whole mafs tottered from fide to fide, and all will inftantly be thrown to the ground. The attendants feel the diftrefs, run to fupport the load at the fides with their protended pikes, and goad on the oxen. But their labours are all vain; the oxen are not able to advance against such a torrent of air fo obftructed; and the fheaves begin to fly. In this extremity, no refource is left but to turn, to move before the wind, to feek the field in which they took up the load, and there to lay it down again. Such an incident as this may have happened to many, and is likely to happen to all; our Cornish mode of forming our fheaves into round mows within the field, and there leaving them faved (as we naturally prefume to fpeak) till the weather permits us to carry them into our rick-yard, being calculated equally to defend them against the wind as to protect them from the wet." P. 64.

Let us next view St. Neot in his retirement.

"In an eager defire (notes Leland) for the life of a hermit, he went into Cornwall. Yet in this eagerness he acted pru

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dently,

dently, by not burying himself alone amid the wilds of St. Gueryr; but taking a companion with him, and fettling near to a church with its prieft. From this conduct, folitude fmoothed her rugged looks for him; a hermitage loft its drearinefs of afpect; and by the irradiations of social religion,

"There did a fable cloud

Turn forth her filver lining on the night,

And caft a gleam over thefe tufted groves."

P. 110.

But the grand magnet to the lovers of folitude was always a fine fountain of water; and at St. Neot's is a well of high celebrity, about a quarter of a mile from the church.

"At this well (which is to the weft of the church, lying in what is called a meadow under a 'wood at prefent) St. Neot refided as a hermit with Barius, and communicated that reputed holinefs which til! adheres in part to its waters. That there was a good arch of ftone over it, with a large oak fpringing from the arch, and with doors to the entrance, is well remembered now. This beautiful fpring," fays a late author, (who has happily caught fome defcriptive touches concerning it) "with a till luing from it, that conftantly fupplies the neighbouring village with water, is yet to be feen at the foot of a steep wood. About thirty (now forty) years ago, a very large and fpreading oak, which grew almoft horizontally from the bank above, and overshadowed the well" in a fan like form, "was cut down by the tenant of the eftate for repairs," when it had been spared for centuries, probably from a principle of religion. Weakly chil dren ufed alfo, within memory, to be brought from a distance, even from the diftance of Exeter itself, to be bathed in the waters on the three first (we should have written, firft three) mornings in May. Even now the parifh clerk reforts to it in all weathers, a his predeceffors in office have immemorially reforted, to fetch from it the water for the baptifmal font in the church. The water itself is very fine to the eye, and very pleafing to the rafte. Here, adds Ramfay, St. Neot "was daily wont to repeat the whole pfalter throughout; thus going through a length of private prayer, to which our faint and languid fpirits in devotion could never extend. But our fpirits in devotion are not to be compared with a hermit's. When the foul is conftantly en. gaged in the contemplation of that awfully important point of

*

The author in this place refers to his "Hiftorical Survey of the Cornish Cathedral." There the defcription of the well of St. Ruan, very fimilar to the above, was written by the Rev. R. Polwhele, who visited that well for Mr. Whitaker. Rev.

time on which it ftands; is tremblingly alive to its destiny in heaven or in hell, for the whole round of eternity; THEN SEES

ONLY THE SLIGHT TRANSPARENCY OF LIFE, RISING

UP

BEFORE BOTH; and is continually breathing forth its fupplications to God, its hopes or its fears concerning both. Under this habitual difcipline of devoutnefs, what muit be the intenfenefs, the fervidnefs, and the ardency of prayer? Infinitely fuperior mut they be to those fenfations of devoutnefs, which the man of bufinefs, or the man of kudioufnefs, even if very devout, can ever feel in his bofom. The latter can be no more to the former, than THE FUGITIVE CORRUSCATIONS (corufcations) of

AN AUTUMNAL NIGHT, TO THE STEADY RADIATIONS OF A

SUMMER'S SUN. St. Neot, therefore, might well indulge himfelf in fuch a length of prayer, as to go through the whole pfalter every day; by the frequent recurrence of his prayers in the day, and by the continuance for them for a long time at every recur. rence. P. 115.

We have given in capitals two fine illuftrations which occur in the above beautiful paffage. In the hands of fuch an author, no fubject, however dry in itfelf, can be either uninterefting or unedifying. Of Wolflan, who was made precentor of Winchester, on account of his fine voice and fkill in finging, the following is a curious memoir; as alfo of venerable Bede, who died " finging."

"Wolftan, a monk of Winchefter cathedral, in the tenth century, (fays Leland) was not without a voice finely mufical, or without very great skill in finging; on both accounts he became much efteemed by his fellow collegians, and was thus at last made even præcentor, a kind of magiftrate in high honour among the monks formerly," in high honour among ourselves ftill, and the leader purely of the chants in our cathedral fervices.

"But in the eleventh century, when Edmund Ironfide, under 1016, engaged Canute and his Danes within the county of Effex, we behold an amazing picture of devoutnefs in the mid of a camp, in the open field, and in the heat of a battle; Ednod, bishop of Lincoln, "chanting the communion fervice there," even while the battle was at its very height, being overtaken by the clofe of it before he had concluded; and, while he was praying with lifted hands, having one of them cut off by the victorious Danes. So early do we find (what we do not find in our cathedrals at prefent) the prayers of the Eucharift chanted! Yet ftill earlier do we perceive the chanted prayer in private. In those illuftrious moments of death, when the celebrated Bede thone more than ever he had fhone before, and was placed by the altar at which he had ufed to pray, there "he chanted," even with his expiring breath, "glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit ;" but as foon as he had invoked

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the

the Holy Spirit, "he breathed his own spirit out of his body;" and thus, as the narrator concludes, he was finging "glory be to the Father," with fome other fpiritual fentences, as long as his foul was in his body." P. 118.

After examining the claims of St. Neot's, in Huntingdonfhire, to the remains of this Saint, and given fome ac count of their fuppofed removal to that place, the author triumphs in the refutation of that hypothefis; and then tells us, what remains actually exifted there.

"What then were the remains of St. Neot that Huntingdonfhire really had? At this very epocha it pretended to exhibit only two articles, but two that were totally extrinfic to him, and had merely been once poffeffed by him. Leland himself was curious enough to note what they were. They were the interior tunic of St. Neot, made of cloth of hair in the Irish fashion;" and "the comb of St. Neot made of a small bone two fingers in breadth, but having the teeth of fifh inferted into. it, fo as to appear like the jaw of that river-fish the pike *."

"Huntingdonshire thus fhewed to Leland all that it had of St. Neot. This all was merely the comb and the interior tunic of the Saint. Nor did the monks there pretend to have any thing elfe of his. All proves them to have poffeffed none of his bones, yet to have owned fome remains of his, which in the undiftin.. guishing talk of the times among others, in the ftudied obfcurity of language among themfelves, and in the bold eruptions of partial fondness into pofitive falfehood at times, were vainly eftimated to be bodily relics."

It was worth while to infert the above, for the reflections that follow.

"Nor let my reader fimile at this long and fuccessful labour to appropriate the bones or the duft of an ancient faint to Cornwall. The fondnefs for fainted relics is now paffed its meridian indeed, and the human mind exercifes itfelf at prefent upon what it fuppofes to be the grandeft objects of attention. Yet, even with thefe objects before it, the genius of learning is not more. ufefully or more vigorously employed than it was before. Antiquarianifm particularly, one of the favourite ftudies of the day, has equally its relics, and its fondnefs for them. The impaffioned part of all ftudies must have them: only as religion has lefs hold upon the mind or the affections, that fober rational enthusiasm,

* Leland's Coll. iv. 13. Vidi tunicam inferiorem S. Neoti, ex panno villofo-pecten S. Neoti ex officulo duos digitos lato, infertis pifcium denticulis inftar maxillæ lupi fluviatilis.”

which is properly fond of relics, is transferred from theology to literature; and a coin, an altar, or a teffelated pavement, take place of the comb, the tunic, or the bones of a faint. The fame tafte prevails, but the objects are changed. Yet the antiquary fimiles at the objects of the devotee, while the devotee has greater reafon to fmile at the antiquaries. The fepulchre of fuch a faint as Neotus, is furely more worthy of our affectionate attention, than the grave-ftone of a Roman foldier, or the tomb of a Roman officer, of either of whom we know no more than that he lived, and that he died, or elfe we know that he was brave, fuccessful, and deftructive. And as the truth of hiftory required me to afcertain the permanent place of St. Neot's interment, I felt enough of the fondnefs of antiquarianifm for fuch a king, and of the reverence of religion for fuch a faint, to draw afide the curtain that has hung fo long before his tomb, and to fhew it in all its dimenfions to the eye of my readers. His duft has been always preferved at our St. Neot's, and the cafket of stone continued to our own days the faithful repofitory of it, while thofe remains of his, which were conveyed away into Huntingdonshire, have long fince been destroyed by neglect or by wilfulness, the thrine containing them is equally gone, and nothing remains but a few letters upon a broken pedestal." P. 289.

Among the incidental notices, which will flamp a value on this book, in the opinion of many who have no regard for the hiftory of St. Neot, or any other faint, the author's account of fome wild animals, no longer exifting in these iflands, is not the leaft interefting.

"Little has been done," fays Mr. W., to afcertain the continuance of our wild beafts among us. Thus at what time even that well-known native of our woods once, the wild-boar, became extirpated from them, no one has endeavoured to afcer. tain.

"It roamed in our woods very late, even fo late, could one think it as the fixteenth century. In the fame woods roamed that much more aftonishing animal, the moofe-deer, or elk. Of this fact I can produce an evidence that is very obvious, but has never been noticed; that is, inconteftable in its nature, and that actually demonftrates the animal to have been an inhabitant of our own idle, to have been currently denominated an elk among us, to have even continued under that denomination so late as the middle of the fixteenth century. To our aftonishment we find the breed mentioned by one of our first game-laws, as the 33 Henry 8. c. 6. fection 33. kindly extends its protecting arm to the last remains of the wild-boars and the wild-elks of our country. It allows the inhabitants of certain places to use their guns, "fo that it be at no manner of deer, heron, fhovelard, pheafant, partridge, WILD-SWINE, or WILD-ELK, or any of

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them."