For this superior illumination of mind, let us thank not ourselves, but
the Light of the world; and, warned by the history of ages, let us
beware how we place created things to mediate between us and the most
High; let us be shy of symbolic emblems--of pictures, images,
observances--lest they grow into forms that engross the mind, and fill
it with a swarm of substantial idols.

Now, this tale of the '_Prior of Marrick_' would, but for the present
premature abortion, have seen daylight in the form of an
auto-biography--the catastrophe, of course, being added by some
brother-monk, who winds up all with his moral: and to get at this
auto-biographical sketch--a thing of fragments and wild soliloquies,
incidentally laying bare the heart's disease, and the poisonous
breathings of idolatrous influence--I could easily, and after the true
novelist fashion, fabricate a scheme, somewhat as follows: Let me go
gayly to the Moors by rail, coach, or cart, say for a sportsman's
pastime, a truant vicar's week, or an audit-clerk's holiday: I drop upon
the ruined abbey, now indeed with scarcely a vestige of its former
beauty remaining, but still used as a burial-place; being a bit of an
antiquary, I rout up the sexton, (sexton, cobbler, and general
huckster,) resolved to lionize the old desecrated precinct: I find the
sexton a character, a humourist; he, cobbler-like, looks inquisitively
at my caoutchouc shooting-shoes, and hints that he too is an artist in
the water-proof line; then follows question as how, and rejoinder as
thus. Our sexton has got a name among his neighbours for his capital
double-leather brogues, warranted to carry you dry-shod through a river;
and, warmed by my brandy-flask and _bonhomie_, considering me moreover
little likely to set up a rival shop, cunningly communicates his secret:
he puts parchment between the leathers--Parchment, my good man? where
can you get your parchment hereabouts? I spoke innocently, for I thought
only of ticketing some grouse for my friends southward: but the question
staggered my sexton so sensibly, that I came to the uncharitable
conclusion--he had stolen it. And then follows confession: how, among
the rubbish in a vault, he had found a small oak chest--broke it
open--no coins, no trinkets, "no nothing,"--except parchment; a lot of
leaves tidily written, and--warranted to keep out the wet. A few
shillings and a tankard make the treasure mine, I promising as extra to
send a huge bundle