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condescended to marry with one so much beneath her, but that letters and messages had arrived from her husband, assuring her of his life and safety. When the earl returned he demanded protection of the king, not against Raymond, whom perhaps he considered too much beneath him, but against Hubert, the justiciary, threatening, if justice were not granted him, to exact it for himself, though he should throw the kingdom into confusion in the pursuit. Hubert confessed and excused his conduct, and purchased a reconciliation by costly gifts. On the earl's part it was sincere; he accepted an invitation from Hubert to a dinner at Marlborough, and it was supposed that poison was then administered to him in his food; a supposition which easily arose and obtained credit, because of the general dislike with which the justiciary was regarded. The earl, from whatever cause, was immediately taken ill; he returned to his castle of Sarum, and dying there, was interred in the unfinished cathedral, where only eight weeks before he had been welcomed on his return from Bourdeaux, with a procession from the church, and with every other demonstration of public joy for his escape. The Lady Ela, who was left with nine children, executed the office of sheriff for Wiltshire three times after her widowhood, and then purchased, for 200 marks, the custody of Sarum Castle for her life. But growing weary of the world, she founded a monastery at Lacock for Augustinian nuns, and retiring thither herself became the abbess.

William Longspee is said to have lived in habitual neglect of his essential duties as a Christian, till he was converted by hearing a sermon, and conversing afterwards for some hours with the preacher, who was canon and treasurer of the new cathedral. That person, who, from this station was raised to the primacy and afterwards canonized as St. Edmund of Canterbury, flourished then at Salisbury in the latent odour of sanctity, and his history, as written by his companion and secretary Bertrand, Abbot of Pontigny, (not as weeded for the use of English Roman Catholics,) is curiously characteristic of those times, and of the system of the Romish church. Reynold Rich, his father, was a tradesman at Abingdon, who, with his wife's consent, retired from the world and became a monk at Evesham. This son was named Edmund, because his mother was engaged in prayer at King St. Edmund's shrine when she felt the first indication of his existence; and on that saint's day he was born, with the happy augury of an immaculate birth, coming into the world in such perfect purity as not to spot or stain the linen wherein he was wrapt. His education was in conformity to this portent: for his mother trained him to observe a bread and water fast regularly on Fridays, by promising and giving him little rewards for the observance; and

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when she sent him with his brother to pursue their studies at Paris, she gave them each a haircloth shirt, charging them to wear it next the skin twice or thrice a week. This mother, Mabylia, who is called in her epitaph the flower of widows, trained her children up in the way which she went herself, being a woman of heroic and iron virtue. As soon as her husband had separated himself from her, she assumed a dress which, by its outer appearance and inner materials, might arm her against temptation: the under garment was of haircloth, reaching to her heels; and over this, that the bristles might be pressed to the skin and felt there, she wore a coat of chain-mail of equal length, in which two plates of iron were inserted for the more discomfort. These were the material arms which she used in her spiritual warfare.

Miserable as those ages were in so many respects, they were favourable to poor scholars. The widow of a tradesman at Abingdon could send her two sons to Paris to pursue their studies, with money enough only to maintain them frugally for a short time, but in full confidence that if they proved themselves deserving, they might rely upon Providence for support. What friends Edmund found there, and how he distinguished himself, as he must have done, his biographer has not thought worthy of record; but he relates that, being troubled with continual head-ache, his mother supposed the cause to be that his clerical tonsure had not been made large enough, and accordingly the razor which enlarged the mystic circle, effectually removed the pain. He tells us also that our Saviour had appeared to him when a boy, and enjoined him every night to trace with his finger the words Jesus of Nazareth upon his forehead, a practice which, it was added, would secure any person from sudden death. And he informs us, which there is no reason to disbelieve, that when Edmund made a vow of chastity before an image of our Lady, he espoused himself to our Lady by putting a ring upon the finger of her image! From that day, his biographer assures us, the Virgin took him under her special protection, et erat ei in umbraculum diei ab æstu tentationum. This was experienced when the devil, performing that office which a heathen poet would have assigned to Cupid, made him find favour without seeking it in the eyes of his landlady's daughter. Weary of repelling the advances of one who is compared to Potiphar's wife, he at length appointed her to come at a certain hour in secret to his chamber; she was true to the assignation, but when at his desire she had taken off some of her upper garments, he flogged her severely with a rod which he had prepared for the purpose, and accompanied the flogging with a lecture, which, according to his own account, made her virtuous for the rest of her life,-vexatio intellectum dedit, et gratiam apposuit.

This was a coarse mode of conversion, to be employed by one who had miracles at command; for Edmund could forbid the rain to fall, when he was preaching in the churchyard, or bid it fall as it listed around on all sides, so that not a drop fell upon him or his numerous congregation. He could light a lamp by pronouncing the name of the Virgin, cure a carbuncle upon his own foot by making upon it the sign of a cross, and translate swellings from his pupil's arm to his own. But if he had recourse to so severe a method, it was in conformity to the severe system in which he disciplined himself. The Abbot of Pontigny, who had lived with him, has accurately described his whole armour of faith, which was not after the pattern of St. Paul's. It consisted, first, in drawers and stockings of haircloth; next in a haircloth shirt, not of the ordinary texture, but knit in knots after a manner of his own devising, wherein he had succeeded in obtaining the perfect uneasiness which he desired. This he bound close by a horsehair rope, which was put so often round his body, from the shoulder to the loins, and fastened so tight, that it was scarcely possible for him to bend his back. This was the secret armour in which he went clad by day, for his warfare with the powers of the air. When it was taken off at night, the neck and the hands, which, because his good works might not be seen by men, escaped all torturing in the day, were disaccommodated with a haircloth tippet and haircloth gloves. He never entered his bed, nor even lay down on it. His utmost indulgence was to recline his head there, when he slept on a bench beside, but sometimes he lay on the ground. He cared little for washing either his head or his body, being, we are told, satisfied with keeping his heart clean. (De corporis seu capitis sui non curabat lavacro, satis esse arbitrans si inesset mundities cordi suo.) It is accounted, therefore, among the miraculous circumstances belonging to his sanctity, that in the linen clothes which he wore over his Romish panoply, there were very few vermin.*

It was as much a matter of course that a saint of this complexion should frequently see the devil, as that a knight-errant should meet with adventures when he sallied forth to seek them. Once it happened that the enemy took him at advantage. He had made it a rule to meditate upon the cross and other instruments

*Hoc etiam pro miraculo advertimus, quod in vestibus lineis, quibus ad occultandas asperitates interiores solebat superindui, cum eas deponeret, fere nullius generis vermes poterant ab ejus cubiculariis inveniri. Constat equidem homines ciliciis etiam simplicibus utentes assiduè hujusmodi vermibus plus hominibus ceteris abundare: ipse vero qui non simplex, sed ut ita loquor, multiplex assiduè cilicium detulit, vermes hujusmodi ex suo corpore nullos, vel ut modestius dicam, rarissimos procreavit. Nec immerito istud descripsimus pro miraculo, cum vix ullus, vel certe nullus hoc probro careat vel tormenta.-Martene et Durand, Thes. Aneo, t. iii. 1802.

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of the Passion, some time in every day or night. One holiday, however, he had been so busily and fully employed, that there had been no leisure for this; when night came, there was a lecture to prepare for the morrow; night was far spent before this was done; and then, though he was sensible that he had not observed the usual rule, the fear of inducing a head-ache, which might disable him for the next day's duties, if he contended longer against the sense of weariness, induced him to lie down. No sooner had he done this, than the devil in all his dreadful ugliness appeared. The terrified saint raised up his right hand to protect himself with the sign of the cross; but inasmuch as he had neglected to impress that sign that day upon his heart, the enemy, having power to prevent him from making the outward and visible sign, caught his hand. He raised the left hand for the same purpose, and in like manner the devil caught that with his right, and having both hands thus in his hold, fell upon him then like a sack. The saint's strength forsook him, but he retained his presence of mind, and called upon the Lord in spirit with such effect, that the devil, as if plucked off him by some mightier arm, fell between the bed and the wall. Upon this, Edmund sprang up, and becoming the assailant in his turn, took him by his horrible throat, and made him tell by what adjuration he was most annoyed, before he disappeared.

Such are the exploits and the virtues which are recorded of the Canon of Salisbury, who is said to have been the first person that taught Aristotle's logic at Oxford. Neither Canterbury nor Salisbury possessed any relics of this saint, in whom both churches might claim a part. The monastery of Pontigny, which from him was called St. Edmund's, was literally enriched by them, the offerings which were made at his shrine amounting, it is said, to more than four times the expense which the monks had incurred by entertaining him and his predecessors, Langton and Becket, during their exile. Salisbury Cathedral had, however, a respectable collection of relics, containing no less than two hundred and thirty-four specimens, arranged under the four classes of apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins. Among these treasures were the breast-bone of St. Eugenius, a jaw-bone of St. Stephen, a tooth of St. Macarius, a tooth of St. Anne, a toe of St. Mary Magdalene, and the identical chain with which St. Catharine bound the Devil! The church was so far completed in the course of thirty-eight years, that a grand festival was then held for its more solemn dedication; the expenses of the building up to that time are said to have amounted to 40,000 marks. About a century afterwards the spire is believed to have been added, when Robert de Wyvile was bishop, a prelate of whom this ugly cha

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racter has been transmitted to posterity, that it was hard to say whether he was more dunce or dwarf, more unlearned or unhandsome. While he held the see, a mandate was obtained from Edward III. for taking down the walls of the former cathedral at Old Sarum, and of the houses there which had belonged to the bishop and the chapter, that their materials might be applied, as the king's gift, to the improvement of the church at Salisbury. Not only the spire but the two upper stories of the tower were added when these improvements were made. This was so bold an undertaking in the architect that nothing but success could justify it. Michael Angelo's conception of hanging in the air the dome of St. Peter's did not imply a stronger confidence in his own skill than was manifested in this ambitious design of raising one of the loftiest spires in the world upon a building where the foundations had already received the load which they were calculated to support. The old wall of the tower, though strong enough when it was the summit of the pile, was slight in relation to the weight which it was now to bear. Half its thickness was occupied by an open gallery, and moreover it was perforated by eight doors, eight windows, and a staircase at each of its four angles. For the purpose of strengthening it, the windows were filled up; an hundred and twelve additional supports were introduced into this part of the tower, exclusive of iron braces; and three hundred and eighty-seven superficial feet of new foundation were formed. It is presumed also that at this time the arches and counterarches were raised across the small transept. The difficulties were so evident and so great that it has been said they were enough to have frightened any man in his senses from pursuing so rash and dangerous an undertaking.' It has, however, withstood the storms and the sap of more than five centuries, and we are told that, if carefully inspected, it may remain twice five centuries to come. Two stories of the tower were evidently raised at the time when the spire was added. From the centre of the tower the spire rises; four of its sides (for it is octangular) resting on the walls of the tower, and four on arches raised at the angles. The wall of the tower is there five feet thick, two of which are occupied by the base of the spire, two by a passage round, and one by the parapet. The wall of the spire gradually diminishes till, at the height of about twenty feet, it is reduced to nine inches, of which thickness it continues to the summit.

It is a remark of Mr. Fosbroke's (we believe) that architects should be cautious how they raise ponderous additions to old buildings, for who can say that the original builders may not, in many places, have stopt short in despair of completing their designs with safety? The spire of Redcliff church was evidently left

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