III. THE DABCHICKS. 1 77 



to write a lecture for the first School of Art in 

 Oxford in the Sacristan's cell at Assisi,* or 

 ever — among such poor treasures as I have of 

 friends' reliquaries — I should fondly keep a 

 little ' pinch ' of his cloak. 



Rough cloak of hair, it is, still at Assisi ; 

 concerning which, and the general use of 

 camels' hair, or sackcloth, or briars and thorns, 

 in the middle ages, together with seal-skins 

 (not badgers'), and rams' skins dyed gules, by 

 the Jews, and the Crusaders, as compared with 

 the use of the two furs. Ermine and Vair, and 

 their final result in the operations of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company, much casual notice 

 will be found in my former work. And now, 

 this is the sum of it all, so far as I can shortly 

 write it. 



There is no possibility of explaining the 

 system of life in this world, on any principle 

 of conqueringly Divine benevolence. That 

 piece of bold impiety, if it be so, I have always 

 asserted in my well-considered books, — I con- 

 sidering it, on the contrary, the only really 

 pious thing to say, namely, that the world is 



* See 'Ariadne Florentina,' chap, v., § 164; compare 

 ' Fors,' Letter V. 



M 



