manner, and as to the sacred personages, by St. Bartholomew! many a holy clerk had praised that part most of all, calling it a deep allegory, most edifying to the advanced believer. At Cologne I parted from the Doctor with many embraces. On my way back to Strasburg I took boat up the Mayne to Frankfurt, whither business called me. We passed a little woody island in the midst of the river, which was pointed out to me as the residence of the leprous barefooted friar, whose songs and airs are so popular throughout the Rhineland. I looked with reverence at the melancholy spot. There he dwells alone, shut out from mankind, yet delighting and touching every heart. His songs are sweet as the old knightly lays of love, full of courtly grace and tenderness, and yet they are songs for the people from one truly of themselves. The burgher has his minstrelsy now, as well as the noble. This at least is a good sign. Note to page 321. From this time forward, Rulman Merswin gave himself up to the spiritual guidance of Nicholas the layman—taking him to be to him ‘in God’s stead.’ He took no step without his direction, and wrote at his command his book entitled _Von den vier ioren sins anevohenden lebendes_—a record of what may be called his spiritual apprenticeship. Nicholas took a copy of it back with him to the Oberland. Schmidt has brought together what is known of Merswin, in the Appendix to his life of Tauler, pp. 177, &c. The _Book of the Nine Rocks_ was commenced in 1352. It has been published in Diepenbrock’s edition of the works of Suso, to whom it was, till recently, attributed. The claim of Merswin to its authorship is established beyond question—(Schmidt, 180). The work opens by relating how, early one morning in Advent, a man (the author) was warned of God to prepare himself, by inward retirement, for that which He should show him. He was made to behold a vision full of strange and alarming appearances. He cried out, ‘Ah, my heart’s Love! what meanest thou with these mysterious symbols?’ He struggled hard against the phantoms of his trance, but the marvellous forms only multiplied the more. He was constrained by a divine voice to gaze, and commanded, in spite of his humble remonstrances, to write in a book what he saw—the image of the corruptions of Christendom, for the warning of the guilty and the edification of the faithful. The dialogues are given at length between him and God—‘the Man’ and ‘the Answer.’ For eleven weeks, in sickness and spiritual distress, he wavered. He was but a poor, ignorant layman; how should he presume to exhort the Church? ‘The Voice of the Answer’ is heard saying, ‘Came not thy reluctance from humility, I would consign thee to the pit. I see I must compel thee. In the name of the Holy Trinity, I command thee to begin to write this day.’