I hearkened again, being infinitely pleasured by such natural music. And, mending my pace somewhat, soon found myself at Bridge Hewick, looking down from the parapet of the old grey bridge upon the rushing, boulder-broken, glancing waters of the Ure, which, after gladdening fruitful Wensleydale, flows through Ripon; and after skirting Givendale and Newby, and laving “the green fields of England,” in front of Mulwith, hurries on towards Boroughbridge; thence to Myton, where, by the junction of the Ure and Swale, the Ouse[A] is formed, that majestic flood, which, with broad swelling tide, flows past the towers of York, the far-famed Imperial City, whose only peer in the western world is Rome. [Footnote A: The winding Nidd, known to St. Wilfrid and dear to St. Robert, pours itself into the Ouse at Nun Monkton, a few miles above York, and not far from historic Marston Moor.] I say I set out upon my quest for Givendale, Newby, and Mulwith alone, yet not alone; because I had the companionship of lively historical ideas. Thus much is true. And more: for romantic fancy conjured up visions before my mental gaze during that sunny Rest-Day morning, “When all the secret of the spring Moved in the chambers of the blood,”[B] [Footnote B: Tennyson’s “In Memoriam.”] as I traversed those fair budding country-lanes, “made vocal by the song” of a thousand warbling birds, and paradisaical “With violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phœbus in his strength.”[C] [Footnote C: Shakespeare’s “Winter’s Tale.”——Shakespeare may have possibly known, or at least heard of, Father John Gerard, S.J., the life-long friend of Mary Ward, and the first “to English” Lorenzo Scupoli’s “_Spiritual Combat_.” Any educated Buddhist or Mohammedan British subject who wishes to understand the genius of Christianity should carefully study the “_Spiritual Combat_.” It will repay his pains.