did great miracles, and a great one it was to feed five thousand people with two or three small fishes, and a like number of loaves but Saint Francis, the founder of the Franciscan order, has found out a way to feed daily one hundred thousand lubbards with nothing at all;" meaning the Franciscans, the followers of Saint Francis, who have no visible revenues; yet in their way of living come up to, if they do not exceed, any other order.

Another day, talking of the place, it naturally led us into a discourse of the knight of la Mancha, Don Quixotte. At which time he told me, that, in his opinion, that work was a perfect paradox, being the best and the worst romance that ever was wrote. "For," says he, "though it must infallibly please every man, that has any taste of wit; yet has it had such a fatal effect upon the spirits of my countrymen, that every man of wit must ever resent; for, continued he, before the appearance in the world of that labour of Cervantes, it was next to an im

possibility for a man to walk the streets with any delight, or without danger. There were seen so many cavalieros prancing and curvetting before the windows of their mistresses, that a stranger would have imagined the whole nation to have been nothing less than a race of knight errants. But after the world became a little acquainted with that notable history, the man that was seen in that once celebrated drapery, was pointed at as a Don Quixotte, and found himself the jest of high and low. And I verily believe, added he, that to this, and this only, we owe that dampness and poverty of spirit, which has run through all our councils for a century past, so little agreeable to those nobler actions of our famous ancestors."

many

After of these lesser sorts of confidences, Don Felix recommended me to a lodging next door to his own. It was at a widow's, who had one only daughter, her house just opposite to a Franciscan nunnery. Here I remained somewhat upwards

of two years; all which time, lying in my bed, I could hear the nuns early in the morning at their matins, and late in the evening at their vespers, with delight enough to myself, and without the least indecency in the world in my thoughts of them. Their own divine employ too much employed every faculty of mine, to entertain any thing inconsentaneous or offensive.

This my neighbourhood to the nunnery gave me an opportunity of seeing two nuns invested; and in this I must do a justice to the whole country, to acknowledge, that a stranger, who is curious, (I would impute it rather to their hopes of conversion, than to their vanity,) shall be admitted to much greater freedoms in their religious pageantries, than any native.

One of these nuns was of the first quality, which rendered the ceremony more remarkably fine. The manner of investing them was thus: In the morning her relations and friends all met at her father's house ; whence, she being attired in her most sump

tuous apparel, and a coronet placed on her head, they attended her, in cavalcade, to the nunnery, the streets and windows being crowded, and filled with spectators of

all sorts.

So soon as she entered the chapel belonging to the nunnery, she kneeled down, and, with an appearance of much devotion, saluted the ground; then rising up, she advanced a step or two farther; when on her knees she repeated the salutes: This done, she approached to the altar, where she remained till mass was over: after which, a sermon was preached by one of the priests in praise, or rather in an exalted preference, of a single life. The sermon being over, the nun elect fell down on her knees before the altar; and, after some short mental orisons, rising again, she withdrew into an inner room, where, stripping off all her rich attire, she put on her nun's weeds: in which making her appearance, she, again kneeling, offered up some private devotions; which being over, she was led to the door of the

nunnery, where the lady and the rest of the nuns stood ready to receive her with open arms. Thus entered, the nuns conducted her into the quire, where after they had entertained her with singing, and playing upon the organ, the ceremony concluded, and every one departed to their proper habitations.

The very same day of the year ensuing, the relations and friends of the fair novitiate meet again in the chapel of the nunnery, where the Lady Abbess brings her out, and delivers her to them. Then again is there a sermon preached on the same subject as at first; which being over, she is brought up to the altar in a decent, but plain dress, the fine apparel, which she put off on her initiation, being deposited on one side of the altar, and her nun's weeds on the other. Here the priest in Latin cries, Utrum horum mavis, accipe: to which she answers, as her inclination, or as her instruction, directs her. If she, after this her year of probation, show any dislike, she is at li