There was a beautiful ornament to the table, a silver-gilt oval vase, about two feet and a half long (sunk in the table), with two graceful dolphins rising in the middle of it, who spouted water into the vase, where some gold-fish seemed to make themselves very happy. It was the prettiest centreornament to a table that I ever saw, and it occupied no little of our attention, for the monks liked to have it noticed.

An abundance of pure delicious water is one of the luxuries and beauties of this grand monastery, in different parts of which they have forty fountains, running to waste. When supper was over, . we left the hall with ceremonies similar to those by which we entered it.

I finished the evening by enjoying the sunset and twilight views of the valley and the mountains, in a long walk with Professor Heinrich, on the hill overlooking the monastery... Everybody who had once seen them knows how beautiful are such mountains in the receding twilight, reflecting it back with ever-varying tints from the purple rocks and glittering snows, while the rich valleys below are already grown dim or become entirely lost in the gray darkness.

July 6.-We are so comfortably off and so kindly treated that we have determined to stay till tomorrow. Two young monks, one of them a rather smart jaunty young man of twenty-seven, were deputed by the prior to show me whatever I desired to see. I went with them, therefore, to the library, which contains about thirty thousand volumes, but

has a very antiquated and monastic look; there are also fifteen hundred manuscripts, incunabula, etc.

In the farming establishment I saw forty cows, who are never allowed to leave their stalls, eating grass out of marble mangers; a neat dark dairy, with running water; another large reservoir full of a sort of large salmon and fresh-water lobsters; in short, whatever should belong to the luxury or comfort of such an establishment, when arranged on the grandest scale. We dined with the prelate, and after dinner were carried through a long series of rooms-covered with pictures, generally poor, and engravings, some of which, by Albert Durer, were very curious-to his saloon, where we had coffee... When this was over, we were carried to the observatory, a heavy, imposing building, erected on the solid rock, nine stories, and nearly two hundred feet high; the upper part is filled with astronomical instruments, some of which, by Frauenhofer, are probably good. The rest of the afternoon I passed in talking with the monks, and in visiting that part of the establishment devoted to education, which seemed very well managed, and has its refectory, kitchens, church, etc., apart. I supped with the prelate, and went to bed early, quite fatigued with walking over this wilderness of irregular buildings, which, if not in as good taste as those of Mölk or St. Florian, have a massive grandeur about them greater than that of either of those establishments, large as they are.

George Ticknor.

LXXIV.

FROM LADY FRANKLIN TO CAPTAIN

Mc.CLINTOCK.*1

ABERDEEN, June 29, 1857.

MY DEAR CAPTAIN MC.CLINTOCK,

You have kindly invited me to give you 'instructions;' but I cannot bring myself to feel that it would be right in me in any way to influence your judgment in the conduct of your noble undertaking; and, indeed, I have no temptation to do so, as it appears to me that your views are almost identical with those which I had independently formed before I had the advantage of being thoroughly possessed of yours. But had this been otherwise, I trust you would have found me ready to prove the implicit confidence I place in you by yielding my own views to your more enlightened judgment; knowing, too, as I do, that your whole heart also is in the cause, even as my own is. As to the objects of the expedition and their relative importance, I am sure you know that the rescue of any possible survivor of the Erebus and Terror would be to me, as it would be to you, the noblest result of our efforts.

To this object I wish every other to be sub

*From Arctic Discovery and Adventure, by kind permission of the Religious Tract Society.

ordinate; and next to it in importance is the recovery of the unspeakably precious documents of the expedition, public and private, and the personal relics of my dear husband and his companions.

And lastly, I trust it may be in your power to confirm, directly or inferentially, the claims of my husband's expedition to the earliest discovery of the passage, which, if Dr. Rae's report be true (and the government of our country has accepted and rewarded it as such), those martyrs in a noble cause achieved at their last extremity, after five long years of labour and of suffering, if not at an earlier period.

I am sure you will do all that man can do for the attainment of all these objects: my only fear is that you may spend yourselves too much in the effort; and you must therefore let me tell you how much dearer to me even than any of them, is the preservation of the valuable lives of the little band of heroes who are your companions and followers.

May God in His great mercy preserve you from all harm amidst the labours and perils that await you, and restore you to us in health and safety, as well as honour! As to the honour, I can have no misgiving. It will be yours as much if you fail (since you may fail in spite of every effort) as if you succeed; and be assured that, under any and all circumstances whatever, such is my unbounded confidence in you, you will possess and be entitled to the enduring gratitude of your sincere and attached friend,

JANE FRANKLIN,

LXXV.

FROM T. GRAY TO HIS MOTHER.

ROME, April 15th, 1740. GOOD FRIDAY.

To-day I am just come from paying my adoration at St. Peter's to three extraordinary relics, which are exposed to public view only on these two days in the whole year, at which time all the confraternities in the city come in procession to see them. It was something extremely novel to see that vast church, and the most magnificent in the world, undoubtedly, illuminated (for it was night) by thousands of little crystal lamps, disposed in the figure of a huge cross at the high altar, and seeming to hang alone in the air. All the light proceeded from this, and had the most singular effect imaginable as one entered the great door. Soon after came one after another, I believe, thirty processions, all dressed in linen frocks, and girt with a cord, their heads covered with a cowl all over, only two holes to see through left. Some of them were all black, others red, others white, others party-coloured; these were continually coming and going with their tapers and crucifixes before them; and to each company, as they arrived and knelt before the great altar, were shown from a balcony, at a great height, the three wonders, which are, you must know, the head of the spear that wounded