gave out this speech;--‘In our time,’ he said, ‘it may be spoken more truly than of old that virtue is gone; the Church is under foot; the clergie is in erreur; the Devill raigneth, and Simone beareth the sway.’” A man who in the first part of the fourteenth century could conceive, and for thirty-four years persist in carrying out, the intention of travelling from one country to another over a great part of the habitable globe, must have possessed remarkable qualifications. Indeed, his achievements were so extraordinary, and his narrative agrees in so many particulars with that of the travels of Marco Polo, that it has been suggested that he may never have gone to the East at all, but compiled his book from the journals of his predecessor. But it seems to me impossible to doubt the correctness of Mr. Halliwell’s opinion that this suggestion is wholly unjustifiable, and that, after perusal of the volume, the judgment of any impartial reader would repudiate such a supposition. Sir John Mandeville met with credit and respect in his own day, and the transcriber on vellum of a small folio MS. copy of his book, written in double columns certainly not more than twenty years after his death, prefaces it in a manner which shows that he entertained no doubt concerning it. There are several editions of Sir John Mandeville’s account of his ‘Voiages.’ The most useful to the general reader are, 1st, that printed in London, in 1725, from a manuscript in the Cottonian collection; 2nd, a reprint of the above, with a few notes by Mr. J. O. Halliwell, and various illustrations, which are _fac-simile_ copies by F. W. Fairholt, from the older editions and manuscripts in the Harleian collection, published by Lumley in 1837; and, 3rd, a reprint of this later edition, published by F. S. Ellis, in 1866. Sir John Mandeville died at Liege on the 17th of November, 1371. His fellow-townsmen of St. Albans appear to have believed that his body was brought home to the place of his birth, and buried in St. Albans Abbey, for the following doggrel verses were inscribed as his epitaph on one of the pillars there:-- “All ye that pass by, on this pillar cast eye, This Epitaph read if you can; ‘Twill tell you a Tombe once stood in this room Of a brave, spirited man, Sir John Mandevil by name, a knight of great fame, Born in this honoured Towne; Before him was none that ever was knowne For travaile of so high renowne. As the Knights in the Temple cross-legged in Marble, In armour with sword and with shield, So was this Knight grac’d which Time hath defac’d That nothing but Ruines doth yield. His travailes being done, he shines like the Sun In heavenly Canaan. To which blessed place the Lord, of His grace, Bring us all, man after man.”