Transcriber’s Notes: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation. Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made. They are listed at the end of the text. Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. MELMOTH THE WANDERER: A TALE. BY THE AUTHOR OF “BERTRAM,” &c. IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. III. EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, AND HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO. CHEAPSIDE, LONDON. 1820. MELMOTH. CHAPTER XII. Juravi lingua, mentem injuratam gero.---- Who brought you first acquainted with the devil? SHIRLEY’S ST PATRICK FOR IRELAND. “I ran on till I had no longer breath or strength, (without perceiving that I was in a dark passage), till I was stopt by a door. In falling against it, I burst it open, and found myself in a low dark room. When I raised myself, for I had fallen on my hands and knees, I looked round, and saw something so singular, as to suspend even my personal anxiety and terror for a moment. “The room was very small; and I could perceive by the rents, that I had not only broken open a door, but a large curtain which hung before it, whose ample folds still afforded me concealment if I required it. There was no one in the room, and I had time to study its singular furniture at leisure. “There was a table covered with cloth; on it were placed a vessel of a singular construction, a book, into whose pages I looked, but could not make out a single letter. I therefore wisely took it for a book of magic, and closed it with a feeling of exculpatory horror. (It happened to be a copy of the Hebrew Bible, marked with the Samaritan points). There was a knife too; and a cock was fastened to the leg of the table, whose loud crows announced his impatience of further constraint(1). (1) Quilibet postea paterfamilias, cum _gallo_ præ manibus, in medium primus prodit. * * * * * * * * Deinde expiationem aggreditur et capiti suo ter gallum allidit, singulosque ictus his vocibus prosequitur. Hic Gallus sit permutio pro me, &c. * * * * * * * Gallo deinde imponens manus, eum statim mactat, &c. Vide Buxtorf, as quoted in Dr Magee (Bishop of Raphoe’s) work on the atonement. Cumberland in his Observer, I think, mentions the discovery to have been reserved for the feast of the Passover. It is just as probable it was made on the day of expiation.