NOKMA A DRUIDICAL AUTHORITY. 2:il 



remains of tlie great admiral, who was wrecked as he re- 

 tm-ned 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 subject, 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 Remains 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 

 respectable 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 witli 

 fact. I even cleared my throat for a pathetic burst of moriam 

 ■insieme, when I should really stand beside a Tolmen, and 

 with the mind's eye behold my casta diva about to perish, 

 the victim of a superstition which had small sympathy witli 

 lovers. 



Following Borlase's directions, I soon came upon a tower- 



