LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 85 



Ibrty years before, at Stonyhurst in England, and our meeting was 

 joyous in the extreme. Nothing could exceed the disinterested 

 friendship which these two learned and pious disciples of St Ignatius 

 showed to us during our stay in Rome. Father Glover became our 

 spiritual director. The care which he took to form the mind of my 

 little boy, and the kind offices which we were perpetually receiving 

 at his hands, can only be repaid, on our part, by fervent prayers to 

 Heaven that the Almighty may crown the labours of our beloved 

 foster parent, with the invaluable reward of a happy death. When 

 my foot had got well, after a long and tedious confinement, Father 

 Glover introduced me to the present General of the Society of Jesus. 

 He is a native of Holland ; so engaging is his deportment, so mild 

 is the expression of his countenance, and so dignified is his address, 

 that it was impossible not to perceive immediately that I was in the 

 presence of one eminently qualified to be commander-in-chief of the 

 celebrated order, the discerning members of which had unanimously 

 placed him at their head. 



" I had long looked for the arrival of the day in which the Roman 

 beasts of burden receive a public benediction. Notwithstanding 

 the ridicule thrown upon this annual ceremony by many a thought- 

 less and censorious traveller, I had figured in my own mind a cere- 

 mony holy in itself, and of no small importance to the people at 

 large. " Benediciie omnes bestia et pecora Domino ! " I conceived 

 that the blessing would insure to these poor dumb animals a better 

 treatment at the hands of man than they might otherwise receive ; 

 and the calling upon our kind Creator to give His benediction to a 

 horse, which, by one false step, or an unruly movement, might en- 

 danger the life of its rider, appeared to me an act replete with 

 Christian prudence. I recalled to my mind the incessant and hor- 

 rible curses which our village urchins vent against their hauling 

 horses on the banks of the Barnsley canal. This aqueous line of 

 commerce passes close by my porter's lodges ; and as the first lock 

 is only a short distance from them, the horrid din of curses com- 

 mences there, and is kept up by these young devils incarnate from 

 week to week (Sundays not excepted) with the most perfect im- 

 punity. 



"At last the day arrived on which the beasts of draught and 



