It was at the time when one of the great transatlantic passenger ships had been destroyed by fire with the loss of many lives. One of those saved was a Dublin clergyman of the Low Church school of divinity, who, returning to Dublin, and finding himself the hero of many tea-tables, was wont to moralise down the great event of his life after the fashion of those who will have it, _quand même_, that the tower of Siloam _did_ fall because of the wickedness of those whom it crushed. And one day, at one of those _levées_ of which Miss Whately speaks, he was improving his usual theme, the centre of a knot gathered around him, when the Archbishop strolled up to the group, according to his fashion, and having heard, said: “Yes, truly Mr. ----, a most remarkable experience! But I think I can cap it” (a favourite phrase of Whately’s, who was fond of the amusement of capping verses). “It is little more than a month ago that I crossed from Holyhead to Kingston, and by God’s mercy _the vessel never caught fire at all_!” I cannot bring to an end my reminiscences relating to so remarkable a man as Whately without relating a story, which he told me, as having been told him by his old and highly valued friend and _protégé_, Blanco White, once so well known a figure among all the Oriel set of that period. The story was introduced, I remember, as an illustration of a favourite (and doubtless correct) theory of Whately’s to the effect that the popular English “hocus pocus,” as applied to any sleight of hand deception, is simply a derisory corruption of the “_hoc est corpus_” used in the Romish liturgical formula for the consecration of the eucharistic elements. It may be that the story in question has been told in print before now, but I have never met with it. “A priest,” said Blanco White, “was for some heinous crime condemned to capital punishment at Seville. But of course before he could be delivered over to the secular arm for the execution of the sentence, a ceremonial degradation from his sacerdotal character had to be performed. And this was to be done at the place appointed for his execution immediately before that was proceeded to; and for the greater efficacy of the terrible example to be inculcated on the people, the market day at Seville had been chosen for the purpose.