The Benedictines were introduced into England about fifty years after the death of their founder, in A.D. 543. Augustine the monk, however, was not the first Christian missionary to this country, as it has commonly been represented. The Benedictine order was established here by him. The whole Christian world was then divided upon the question, whether the Eastern or Western Patriarch should be acknowledged head of the universal church. Under him England was subjected to Rome. St Benedict was of a noble family, and born at Norcia, in the duchy of Spoleto, about A.D. 480. Sent to Rome to study literature, and disgusted by the profligacy of his companions, at a period when opinions as to the efficacy of solitude and penance were prevalent, he separated himself from vicious contagion in a hermitage, at fifteen years of age. He would probably have died under suffering and privation had not his nurse, doubting, perhaps, between the idea of his inspiration or his insanity, followed him, begged for him, and administered to his wants. Benedict thought to deny himself this comfort--escaped, and hid himself among the rocks of Subiaco, about forty miles from Rome. He here met with a hermit, and lived three years in a cavern, unknown to his family, and shared with the hermit the scanty fare of bread and water. In this solitude he was not without temptations; visions too earthly, and such as well might assault his age, were rendered vain by increased penance. He is said to have rushed from his cave, and to have thrown himself into a thicket of briars and nettles, until the blood flowed. They still show at Subiaco the rose-bushes propagated from those which wounded the saint. The scenery about Subiaco has even now a monastic charm; it has its lonely recesses, its silent dells. We have ourselves threaded its deep valley, and laying aside the pencil, been the hermit of an hour by the side of its clear mountain river--and then ascended the rocky heights to visit the convents of St Benedict and Santa Scholastica. We well remember to have taken shelter from a land-storm, such as Poussin has painted, and probably from this spot, in a cave which had heretofore doubtless been the home of more than one follower of St Benedict.