After we had breakfasted by the light of our fire (for the casements admitted but a very feeble gleam), I sat down to the works of St. Bruno; of all medleys the strangest. Allegories without end: a theologico-natural history of birds, beasts, and fishes: several chapters on paradise; the delights of solitude; the glory of Solomon’s temple; the new Jerusalem; and numberless other wonderful subjects, full of enthusiasm and superstition. Saint Bruno was certainly a mighty genius; I admire the motives which drew him to this desert; but perhaps before we come to that part of the story, you will like to know what preceded it. My Saint (for Bruno has succeeded Thomas of Canterbury) was of noble descent, and possessed considerable wealth. He was not less remarkable for the qualities of his mind, and his talents gained him the degree of Master of the great sciences in the University of Rheims; here he contracted a friendship with Odo, afterwards Urban the Second. Being always poetic, singular, and visionary, he soon grew disgusted with the world, and began early in life to sigh after retirement. His residence at Grenoble, where he was invited by Hugo, its bishop, determined him to the monastic state. This venerable prelate imparted to him a vision in which he seemed to behold the desert and mountain beyond his city visible in the dead of night by the streaming of seven lucid stars that hung directly over them. Whilst he was ardently gazing at this wonder, a still voice was heard declaring it the future abode of Bruno—by him to be consecrated as a retirement for holy men desirous of holding converse with their God. No shepherd’s pipe was to be heard within these precincts; no huntsman’s profane feet to tread these silent regions, which were to be dedicated solely to their Creator; no woman was to ascend this mountain, nor violate by her allurements the sacred repose of its inhabitants. Such were the first institutions of the order as the inspired Bishop of Grenoble delivered them to Bruno, who selecting a few persons that, like himself, contemned the splendours of the world and the charms of society, repaired with them to this spot; and, in the darkest parts of the forests which shade the most gloomy recesses of the mountains, founded the first convent of Carthusians, long since destroyed. Several years passed away, whilst Bruno was employed in actions of the most exalted piety; and, the fame of his exemplary conduct reaching Rome (where his friend had been lately invested with the papal tiara), the whole conclave was desirous of seeing him, and entreated Urban to invite him to Rome. The request of Christ’s vicegerent was not to be refused; and Bruno quitted his beloved solitude, leaving some of his disciples behind, who propagated his doctrines, and tended zealously the infant order. The pomp of the Roman court soon disgusted the rigid Bruno, who had weaned himself entirely from worldly affections.