faith, I cannot comprehend the feeling that attaches holiness to some of these relics: it is impossible to understand what kind of sacredness that is, which belongs to articles that have been the instruments of insult to the Divine Being. Besides these relics of our Saviour, there are several parts of the garments of the Virgin; there are ten entire skeletons of saints and martyrs; the body of one of the innocents, massacred by command of Herod; and upwards of a hundred heads of saints, martyrs, and holy men; besides numerous other bones still distinguishable. But the peculiar glory of the Escurial, and its most wondrous relic, is the Santa Forma, as it is called; in reality, “the wafer,” in which the Deity has been pleased to manifest himself in three streaks of blood; thus proving the doctrine of transubstantiation. This relic has been deemed worthy of a chapel and an altar to itself. These are of extraordinary beauty and richness; and adorned with the choicest workmanship: jaspers, marble, and silver are the materials; and _bas reliefs_, in white marble, relate the history of the Santa Forma; which is shortly this. It was originally in the cathedral church of Gorcum in Holland, and certain heretics (Zuinglianos) entering the church, took this consecrated host, threw it on the ground, trod upon it, and cracked it in three places. God, to shew his divine displeasure, and at the same time, as a consolation to the christians, manifested himself in three streaks of blood, which appeared at each of the cracks. One of the heretics, struck with the miracle, and repenting of his crime, lifted the Santa Forma from the ground, and deposited it, along with a record of the miracle, in a neighbouring convent of Franciscans, who kept and venerated it long; the delinquent, who abjured his heresy, and who had taken the habit, being one of their number. From this convent it was translated to Vienna, and then to Prague; and there its peregrinations terminated: for Philip II. being a better Catholic than the Emperor Rodolph, prevailed upon the latter to part with it, and deposited it in the Escurial; where it has ever since remained. It had a narrow escape from being again trodden upon, during the French invasion: upon the approach of the enemy it was hastily snatched from the sacred depositary, and unthinkingly hid in a wine butt, where it is said to have acquired some new, and less miraculous stains: and after the departure of the French, a solemn festival was proclaimed on the 14th of October, 1814; upon which occasion, his present majesty, assisted by all his court, and by half the friars of Castile, rescued the Santa Forma from its inglorious concealment, and deposited it again in the chapel which the piety of Charles II. had erected for it. The Santa Forma is not shewn to heretics; but its history is related: and it was evident, by the manner of the friar who related it to me, that he placed implicit belief in the miraculous stains.