Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: So, for fear I should appear a. very shabby messmate, I promised that I would go too. Presently It began to be debated, which we should wend to, Rome or Compostella. At last, it was determined that, God willing, the next day we should set out for both. Corn. O sage resolve ! more worthy to be written in wine than in brass. Arn. But presently a great mazar walked in, of which each drank in his turn, and the vow was made inviolable. Corn. A new kind of religion ! But say, were all blest with a safe return ? Arn. All but three: of whom one dying on the way commissioned us to salute Peter and James in his name. Another we lost at Rome, and he desired that we should greet his wife and children for him. The third we left behind at Florence, his recovery entirely despaired of. I imagine he is now in heaven. That this statement of the mortality among the pilgrims is not exaggerated is shown by the following passage from the Diary of sir Richard Torkington, rector of Mulbarton in Norfolk, who made his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the year 1517 : " The xxv. day of August, that was seynt Bertilmews day, the morue after seynt Bertilmew deeessyd Robert Crosse of London pewterer, and was buryed in the chirche yard of Salyus [in the island of Cyprus]. And xxvij. day of August deeessyd sir Thomas Toppe, a prest of the West countre, and was cast over the borde : as was many moo, whos soules God assoyle I And thanne ther remayned in the shippe iiij. Englyssh prestis moo." Gentleman's Magazine, vol. LXXXII. ii. 318. 1) Corn. Was he, then, so pious ? Arn. Nay, the greatest trifler imaginable. Corn. Whence, then, do you draw that conclusion ? Arn. Because he had his satchel stuffed full of the most ample indulgences. Corn. I understand; but it is a long road to heaven, ...