234 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



simply a strip of land on the coast, where no grass 

 will grow by reason of the shifting sand. And yet, if 

 " gossip report " be not wholly a fibber, somewhere in 

 this neighbourhood lie the remains of the great admiral, 

 who was wrecked as he returned home covered with 

 glory, 1500 or even 2000 men perishing with him on 

 these inhospitable rocks. This was a century and a 

 half ago, and tradition, we know, is apt to magnify, 

 vires acquirit eundo. Still, if they will keep up the 

 tradition, they might put up a commemorative stone. 

 Stones are abundant enough, in all conscience ; and, 

 if we believe the antiquaries, some of these stones are 

 invested with the hoar of Druidical sanctity. 



Druidical erudition is not common. On probing the 

 recesses of my own knowledge on this mysterious sub- 

 ject, I found that the principal source of my familiarity 

 with it was the opera of Norma. For more than 

 twenty years I had reverently followed that splendid 

 priestess Giulia Grisi, and that majestic priest Lablache ; 

 and if to these you add the fragments of undeniable 

 Druidical Eemains in the persons of the very ancient 

 virgins of the sun, forming the nightly chorus of that 

 opera, little doubt should be thrown on the accuracy of 

 my historical conceptions. With that erudition I had 

 been content. But on reaching Scilly, where the re- 

 spectable Borlase assured me Druid temples and sacred 

 rock-basins did veritably exist, I was not a little anxious 

 to bring my operatic erudition into direct confrontation 

 with fact. I even cleared my throat for a pathetic 

 burst of moriam insieme, when I should really stand 



