ally off their guard, two persons entered the church, silently lifted the cover of the shrine, and put in their hands. To their astonishment they found the coffer empty. Supposing that they had been anticipated, they left the church as noiselessly as they came and the clergy of Rheims carried home their relics in safety. The thieves, however, subsequently made a full confession: And it was placed among one of the most remarkable miracles of the saint, how his relics had become invisible and intangible, when an attempt was made to steal them. This system of relic-stealing had become so common, that in some houses extraordinary precautions were taken to prevent it. We are told that it was an ordinance strictly enforced in the church of St Cadoc at Beneventum, that no native of the British Isles should be allowed to pass the threshold, in consequence of an old prophecy that a monk of Lancarvan would one day steal and carry away St Cadoc's relics. Other arts than that of robbery were employed at times to gain possession of relics. St Romanus, the abbot, was buried at Fontrouge, near Auxerre. It appears that the clergy of this place did not make the most of his relics, and, under pretence that the saint was dissatisfied with so obscure a resting-place, they were removed to a church in Auxerre. There they soon became famous for miraculous cures, and the bishop, not without much trouble, effected their translation to his cathedral. But even here they were not allowed to rest quietly; for, at a subsequent period, the Archbishop of Sens employed similar intrigues to obtain them for the metropolitan church.

It was not only found necessary to guard against these attempts to steal the bodies of the saints: there were many depredators on a smaller scale, who attempted to gain possession of a bone or a fragment. In such cases the bones, when taken away, either lost their power of working miracles, or they became hurtful, and even fatal, in the hands of their new possessors. The bodies of St Deicolus and St Columbanus were deposited in shrines in the church of Lure. The Countess Hildegardis was anxious to carry some portion of the relics with her into Alsace: she went to the church, and tried in vain to lift the cover of the coffin of St Deicolus. As she persisted in her attempt, a sudden earthquake, accompanied with thick darkness, shook the monastery from its foundation, and struck the inmates with terror. The Countess now desisted; and, turning to the shrine of St Columbanus, opened it with comparative ease, and abstracted a tooth. From this moment, until the time she returned, and publicly restored the tooth, we are told that the Countess was never free from excruciating toothache! When the relics of St Genevieve

were carried about in fear of the Norman invaders, an abbot, Herebert, more pious than wise, (zelum quidem pietatis habens, sed non secundum scientiam,) stole one of the teeth; but he was punished with a succession of fearful dreams and visions, until he restored it. Something of a similar kind happened to the relics of the Belgian hermit, St Gerlac. A stranger came from a distance to offer at his shrine, and under pretence of devoutly kissing his head, drew out a tooth unperceived, and went his way, exulting in the possession of so holy a relic. His joy, however, was not of long duration; for, within a year, he brought back the relic in penitent humility, and showed the guardians of the shrine that, in the interim, he had himself lost every tooth in his head.

When, however, the clergy sold their relics, which they often did by bit and bit, their virtues remained unimpaired; and this became, in course of time, a very lucrative source of revenue. Long before the Reformation, the bones (or pretended bones) of the principal saints of the Romish ritual had been scattered over every part of Europe; and, by some mysterious power of development or multiplication, there were, often found as many heads, arms, hands, &c., of the same saint, as, put together, would have made a dozen individuals.

Such is, in brief, the history of saints' lives and saints' miracles. It must be confessed not a very flattering one for human reason; although an instructive one for those who would study the errors of the past in the light of a warning for the future. The Reformers were not far from the truth when they charged with idolatry the church of the middle ages; that church which, after it had once lost its original purity, seems to have gone on adopting some of the most exceptionable characteristics of almost every pagan creed with which it came in contact. At first, probably, these corruptions were taken up unwittingly: And various allusions in old canons and homilies would seem to show, that there were at all times enlightened members of the Roman communion, who set their faces against them. There are instances of fathers of the medieval church lifting up their voices against these pretended miracles, as mere instruments of worldly vanity. Few, indeed, of the wiser Catholics, even of the middle ages, who must have known well the secrets of their order, can have ever looked upon them as any thing better than as parts of the painful chapter of serviceable frauds.

If any thing on such a subject ought to astonish us, the revival of these legends in our own age and country is surely an astonishing phænomenon. But it it useless to talk of reason and of evidence to enthusiasts, young or old, who have made up their minds to believe, without evidence and against reason. We will

end with a modern story, which our readers may apply. Every body has read of the miraculous cures performed, not long ago, by Prince Hohenlohe. In 1821, the magistrates of Bamberg forbade him to exercise his miraculous powers without first acquainting the police, nor unless in the presence of a commission deputed by the authorities, nor unless one or more physicians were in attendance. The Prince appealed to the Pope. The Pope ordered him to conform to the restrictions. The miracles have not been heard of since.

Ghosts prudently withdraw at peep of day.'

ART. III.—1. A Brief Sketch of the Life of the late Miss Sarah Martin of Great Yarmouth: with Extracts from the Parliamentary Reports on Prisons; and her own Prison Journals. 8vo. Yarmouth: 1844.

2. Selections from the Poetical Remains of the late Miss Sarah Martin of Great Yarmouth. 8vo. Yarmouth: 1845.

THE

HE town of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, which has been for many ages a place of considerable commercial importance, was originally a mere fishing-station. The men of the Cinque Ports, who were in early times the principal fishermen of the kingdom, used to assemble on that coast during the herringseason; and a sand-bank, situate at the mouth of an arm of the sea, which then flowed far into Norfolk, was their usual landing-place. There, upon the deanes, or dunes, by the seashore, they spread their nets to the sun, repaired their boats, and cured or otherwise disposed of their catch of fish. The recession of the sea, the convenience of the situation, and the periodical visits of a concourse of busy men, led to the permanent occupation of this bleak and barren spot. The rearing of a few huts for the residence of such handicraftsmen as could assist the fishermen in the repair of their barks and nets, and of such dealers as could supply their accustomed wants, was the first advance towards a settlement. The next was the erection of a little chapel upon a green, bent-covered hill in the sand, which was indiscreetly dedicated to the patron of black monks, Saint Benedict. Hence arose discord and confusion. The men of the Cinque Ports had probably begun to doubt the efficacy of the winds which they bought before they started upon their voyages; and, in lieu of the

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ancient application to the wise woman, now took with them a chaplain, some true clerk of St Nicholas, the seaman's universal patron. The fisher-priest soon quarrelled with the clerk of St Benedict upon the subject of oblations; and, as must have seemed likely from their respective habits of life, the worshipper of St Nicholas removed, expelled, and evil-intreated,'* his adversary. He probably even pulled down the little opposition chapel to the ground; for antiquarian diligence has never been able to discover the slightest trace of it. But the triumph of this vigorous stroke of conservative policy was short-lived. Some few years afterwards, a bishop of Thetford, the same who removed that see to Norwich, happened to be the king's chancellor, and a churchbuilder. He heard the Norfolk priest's cause in his equitable tribunal, and, with an appearance of kindness, as well as impartiality, settled the dispute, by himself erecting, not far from the mouth of the river Yare, a church so large, that both priests might officiate in it at separate altars! and, by way of compensation to the prescriptive rights of the men of the Cinque Ports, he dedicated the whole building to the true saint of the sea-shore, St Nicholas. The church thus erected was rendered by subsequent additions one of the largest parish churches in England, and remained, until a comparatively recent period, the only church in Yarmouth.

Within the next hundred years after the settlement of this church question, the importance of Yarmouth increased rapidly, and, at the end of that time, the town was raised into the first rank of English municipalities by a royal charter, which conferred upon the burgesses a great variety of privileges, and, amongst them, that of trying pleas of the crown, or criminal causes, ac'cording to the law and custom of Oxford.' Hence arose the necessity for a prison; and a building was erected for that use on the site of the present strange, grotesque, and in part ancient jail, whose ugliness seems intended to aid the law in exciting feelings of terror and aversion in the minds of evil-doers.

According to the theory of our ancestors, the people of Yarmouth had now advanced to the point of completeness as a borough. Law and gospel had each its representative amongst them. Their sanctions and their penalties were brought home to every man's own door. When men sinned, the church assessed a compensation to Heaven, in the shape of penances, and insisted upon external marks of contrition before the offender was permitted to resume his standing in the visible congregation of

Swinden's History of Yarmouth, p. 9.

the faithful. When men committed crimes, the law mulcted them in pecuniary fines, or deprived them of their liberty, sequestered them from kirk and market, but, instead of aiming at reformation, or even at penitence, sought only punishment; secluded them in loathsome places of confinement; subjected them to the tyranny of ignorant, and often brutal keepers, who were responsible only for their safe custody; and herded them all together, whatever their ages, stations, or offences, without occupation, without instruction, and sometimes even unfed and unclad, save by the poor proceeds of a begging-box, the rattling of which invoked the charity of passers-by. Strange as this now seems, it continued for centuries. The church was the first to awake. She discovered that her outward penances were unavailing towards the rectification of the heart, and following out that principle, effected all the changes of the ecclesiastical Reformation. There, for a time, the course of social improvement seemed stayed. The law, in spite of this glimmer of right reason in its sister institution, still held its ancient way. Jails were thought to be places by means of which men were to be intimidated from crime; but it was not seen, or the fact was disregarded, that such jails were mere academies of crime, and that, through their instrumentality, the law itself was the principal teacher of the science of law-breaking.

Yarmouth was one of the last places in the kingdom to become convinced of this fact. The town, however, increased in size and importance. A spacious quay afforded accommodation for the numerous fleet which carried the produce of Yarmouth fisheries, and the manufactures of Norwich, to the remotest quarters of the globe; noble mansions testified to the wealth of Yarmouth merchants; while no less than four hundred narrow lanes, locally termed rows, by which the principal streets are intersected at right angles, demonstrated the existence of a dense population. The whole place looked prosperous, cheerful, busy; and gay visitors flitted about, in search of health or pleasure, upon that very beach on which the men of the Cinque Ports had spread their nets. Still there stood that jail, with its long succession of corrupt and ever-corrupting inmates. Infinite changes and improvements had taken place around it, but within, the system of mismanagement remained almost untouched. Generation after generation passed along that narrow street, and looked with the outward eye upon that hideous abode of misery and built; but their feelings were so thoroughly engrossed by their own affairs, their merchandise or their farm, their pleasures or their griefs, that they remained mentally unconscious of the guilt which the continued existence of such a building and such