Heaven. Morales, however, says, it is more certain that the king had it made to go out with it to battle at Covadonga. It was covered with gold and enamel in the year 908; when Morales wrote, it was in fine preservation, and doubtless so continued till the present generation. Upon the top branch of the cross there was this inscription: "Susceptum placide maneat hoc in honore, Dei quod offerunt famuli Christi Adefonsus Princeps et Scemena Regina. On the right arm, Quisquis auferre hæc donaria nostra presumpserit, fulmine divino intereat ipse. On the left, Hoc opus perfectum est, concessum est Sancto Salvatori Ovetensis Sedis. Hoc signo tuetur pius, hoc signo vincitur inimicus. On the foot, Et operatum est in Castello Gauzon anno Era DCCCCXLVI.

Regni nostri XVII discurrente

"There is no other testimony," says Morales," that this is the cross of King Don Pelayo, than tradition handed down from one age to another. I wish the king had stated that it was so in his inscription, and I even think he would not have been silent upon this point, unless he had wished to imitate Alonso el Casto, who, in like manner, says nothing concerning the Angels upon his cross." This passage is very characteristic of good old Ambrosio,

Like a mirror sparkling to the sun. XXV. 136.

The Damascus blades are so highly polished, that when any one wants to arrange his turban, he uses his scymetar for a looking-glass. Le Brocquiere, p. 158.

Who from their thirsty sands,

Pray that the locusts on the peopled plain

May settle and prepare their way. — XXV. p. 172.

The Saharawans, or Arabs of the Desert, rejoice to see the clouds of locusts proceeding towards the north, anticipating therefrom a general mortality, which they call elkhere, the good, or the benediction; for, after depopulating the rich plains of Barbary, it affords to them an opportunity of emanating from their arid recesses in the desert, to pitch their tents in the desolated plains, or along the banks of some river. Jackson's Marocco,

p. 106.

Oh who could tell what deeds were wrought that day,
Or who endure to hear!— XXV. p. 171.

I have nowhere seen a more curious description of a battle between Christians and Saracens than in Barret's manuscript:

The forlorn Christian troops Moon'd troops encharge,
The Mooned troops requite them with the like;
Whilst Grecian lance cracks (thundering) Parthian targe,
Parth's flame-flash arrow Grecian through doth prick:
And whilst that Median scymetar unlimbs

The Christian knight, doth Christian curtle-axe
Unhead the Median horsemen; whilst here dims
The Pagan's goggling-eyes by Greekish axe,
The Greek unhorsed lies by Persian push,
And both all rageful grapple on the ground.
And whilst the Saracen with furious rush
The Syrian shocks, the Syrian as round
Down shouldreth Saracen: whilst Babel blade
Sends soul Byzantine to the starred cell,
Byzantine pike with like-employed trade,
Packs Babel's spirit posting down to hell.

But where was he whose hand

Had wielded it so well that glorious day? XXV. p. 174. The account which the Fabulous Chronicle gives of Roderick after his disappearance, is in so singular a strain of fiction that I have been tempted to translate it. It strikingly exemplifies the doctrine of penance, of which monastic history supplies many instances almost as extraordinary as this fable.

Chap. 238.- How the King Don Rodrigo left the battle and arrived at a hermitage, and of that which befell

him.

on,

"Now when the King Don Rodrigo had escaped from the battle, he began to go as fast as he could upon his horse along the banks of the Guadalete, and night came and the horse began to fail by reason of the many wounds which he had received; and as he went thus by the river side deploring the great ruin which had come upon him, he knew not where he was, and the horse got into a quagmire, and when he was in he could not get out. And when the king saw this he alighted, and stript off all his rich arms and the furniture thereof, and took off his crown from his head, and threw them all into the quagmire, saying, Of earth was I made, and even so are all my deeds like unto mud and mire. Therefore my

pomp and vanity shall be buried in this mud till it has all returned again to earth, as I myself must do. And the vile end which I have deserved will beseem me well, seeing that I have been the principal cause of this great cruelty. And as he thus stript off all his rich apparel, he cast the shoes from his feet, and went his way, and wan

dered on towards Portugal; and he travelled so far that night and the day following, that he came to a hermitage near the sea, where there was a good man who had dwelt there serving God for full forty years; and now he was of great age, for he was well nigh a hundred years old. And he entered into the hermitage, and found a crucifix therein, being the image of our Lord Jesus Christ, even as he was crucified, and for the remembrance of Him, he bent both his knees to the ground, and claspt his hands, weeping and confessing his sins before God, for he weened not that any man in the world saw or heard him. And he said thus, O true Lord, who by thy word hast made all the world from nothing which it was, and hast created all things, those which are visible to men, and those which are invisible, the heavenly as well as the earthly, and who didst incarnate thyself that thou mightest undergo thy passion and death, to save those who firmly put their trust in thee, giving up thy holy ghost from thy glorified body upon the tree of the true cross, - and who didst descend into Hell, and deliveredst thy friends from thence, and didst regale them with the glory of Heaven: And afterward thy holy spirit came again into that most holy body, which thou wast pleased to take upon thee in this world; and, manifesting thyself for the true God which thou wert, thou didst deign to abide in this dark