$0 CLARKE’S travels/ 
tish prince* or of an innkeeper at Drepaonm,f cannot be suppo¬ 
sed to hare possessed attainments beyond the age in which 
she lived, or the circumstances of her origin. That, she was 
&miabie—thai she merited, by her virtues, her exalted station r 
has not been disputed ; but her transactions in Palestine bear 
the stamp of dotage and infirmity. Few things, considering 
Iter sex and the burthen of her years, have occurred more ex¬ 
traordinary than was her journey to the Holy Land, and its 
consequences. Whatsoever might have been her mental en¬ 
dowments, her bodily energies, at a season of lifej when human 
strength is said to be “ but labour and sorrow, 1 ’ were superior 
to the weight of age, and to the fatigues of a pilgrimage suffi¬ 
cient to have exhausted the most vigorous youth.§ Nothing 
could surpass the zeal with which she visited every spot con¬ 
secrated by the actions of Jesus Christ, and by his Apostles,!] 
from the hills of Jerusalem to the shores of the sea of Galilee, 
and over all Samaria, nor the piety with which she endeavour¬ 
ed to perpetuate tlie remembrance of the holy places by the 
monuments she erected.But, after all, the manner in which 
the identity of any of those places was ascertained seems not 
less an object of derision, than the gross superstition, founded 
upon their supposed discovery, has long been of contempt. 
From the time of Adrian, to that of Constantine, Jerusalem had 
been possessed by Pagans : Helena arrives, overturns their 
temples, and prepares to identify the situation of every place 
connected with our Saviour’s history. The first thing to be 
ascertained is the she of Mount Calvary. An accidental fis¬ 
sure in one of the rocks of Jerusalem suggests the idea of a pos¬ 
sible consequence resulting from the preternatural convulsion 
of nature at the crucifixion, and is immediately adopted 
as an indication of the spot. This fissure had been already 
an object of traditionary superstition,- as the repository 
of the body or head of Ad am.ft It served to identify the 
Filla fuit unius Britanniae Reguli, Coel nomine*” Quaresmii Eluc. T. Stem. 
XI. p. 424. 
f Tnv 7 t6A.iv Apkavov, ’EA.sv6roX{v rnv finrtpa miwv, 7 rpod'n'yopfus. Oppidum Dre~ 
panum, matre-m honorens, Helenopolin adpellavit.” Hicephorus Callistus, lib. Vii. c. 
49. Pari?, 1830. 
X “ Pulo ante mortem, quam octogesimum setatis agens oppetebat, istud itor fecit.” 
Tneodoret, lib. i. cap. 18. Paris, 1642. 
§ “ Cum setate recipiens incrementa virtutum, sexu et sedate quidem infirma, sed 
divina virtute promptior et fortior reddita,” &c. Quaresm. Eiuckl, T. S. lib. v. cap, 
28. Antv. 1639. 
jj Vid. Nicephor. lib. viii c. 30. 
** Nicephorus, (Ibid. Paris, 1630.) after enumerating twenty-six churches and cha¬ 
pels built by Helena in the Holy Land, adds, “ Quin et plures ecclesias alias in sanctis 
ill is locis, supra triginta, amantissima Dpi faemina I mperatoris mater condidit.’' 
•ff “ Venitenim ad me traditioqusedam tails,-quod corpus Adae primi hominis ibi 
gepultura est ,uhi crucifixus- est Christas ; ut sicut in Adam omnes moriuntur, sic is 
