. 
1828.] Friar Bacon’s Key. 157. 
only twenty-five guineas, and the treasure perfectly unique !—a rarity that 
has not its parallel!—We may suppose that this was the key of the 
monk’s sanctum,—why should it not be ?—of that celebrated chamber, 
of which the legend says it is to stand till entered by a greater scholar 
than Bacon, when it is to fall on the devoted head of the student, and 
crush it for too much learning.” 
« Egad ! Fudge goes beyond himself to-day,” whispered Dives. “Was 
not that last a glorious bit of the sublime?” 
« Magnificent !” I said, and so loudly that the orator overheard me, 
and replied to the compliment, as if to a bidding, with his customary, 
«“ Much obliged, Sir.—Twenty-five guineas.—Going, for the last time, 
and the relic six hundred years old! Here is a gentleman vouches for 
its being six hundred years old.” 
«I youch for no such thing,” said my young neighbour, “I only 
answer for the friar’s having been dead that time.” 
« Thank you, Sir,—much obliged for the correction,” replied the 
smooth Mr. Fudge, who seemed as little able to travel out of his set 
phrases, as a horse to step beyond his tether. —< Thirty,—forty,—fifty, — 
pray, be speedy, gentlemen, for we have a host of treasures to get 
through.—In one minute, jacta est alea, the die is cast.—Going for fifty 
guineas—gone——.” 
It was to myself that the key was knocked down at this enormous 
price, though why I had bid so much, or why I had bid for it at all, 
was a mystery past my own comprehension. I seemed to be acting under 
the power of some influence from without, independent of my own 
thoughts or my own volition. The key, however, was mine, and, being 
mine, I resolved to put a good face on the business, and elevate its worth 
in the eyes of others, whatever I might think of it myself. Accordingly 
I handled my bargain with as much reverence as if it had been the 
purest gold instead of an old piece of iron eaten up with rust and verdi- 
gris, throwing into my face a certain imposing air of mystery, which 
seemed to say, “ there is more in this, my merry masters, than you have 
the wit to fancy.” Whether I succeeded or not in persuading any one 
else by this manceuvre, is more than I can pretend to say, but that I per- 
suaded myself of it—strange as this will appear—is quite certain. The 
longer I examined my prize, the deeper became my conviction that 
there was something in it, if I could only find out what that something 
was. But there was the difficulty, the pons asinorum, or asses’ bridge, 
which I could not contrive to get over, turn it which way I would. In 
short, I was much in the same plight with my friar’s key that a savage 
of Otaheite would be, or rather would have been some years ago—he is 
wiser now —with a magic lantern, or a Dolland’s microscope—good 
things enough in their way, if you only happen to know how to use 
em. 
I fancy what I felt upon this occasion must have been expressed in 
my face, for the young man at my left hand, who had been at such 
__ pains to correct the orator’s chronology, adding three hundred and odd, 
_ years to the time since Roger Bacon had flourished at Brazen Nose, now 
; ed up to enlighten me. 
:" You have got a prize, Sir,” he said, “ though you must excuse me 
I suspect you are not acquainted with its value.” 
_ “ That is to say,” I replied, “ you think yourself the better anti-. 
quarian.” 
