between the period of Henry's expedition against La Châtre and his visit to the Limousin, the English king had held another conference with Louis, regarding the sovereignty of Auvergne. Nothing was terminated indeed, at that conference; but all passed amicably between the two monarchs, and the decision of their respective claims was still left to the judgment of the arbitrators who had been named by the treaty of Nonancourt.

Towards the end of the year 1177, another event took place, which gave to Henry a considerable addition of territory. While pausing at Grammont, as he returned from one of his expeditions, he completed a negociation with the lord of La Marche, by which he acquired the whole of the lands of that nobleman, who had not long before lost his only son, the sole surviving heir of his titles and estates, and who, seized with the spirit of the times, was now eager to sell his patrimony, in order to pass the rest of his days in Palestine. The price given for the whole county of La Marche, only amounted to fifteen thousand angevin pounds; but to this sum were added twenty mules and twenty palfreys, with which the Count went away well content, intending to spend all he had thus obtained in that distant land, which had already drawn so much treasure from the western world. The vassals of La Marche did homage to the King of England; but before we go on to notice the further proceedings of Henry and his sons, it will be necessary to

take a general view of the state of Palestine, and to give some brief account of the various efforts that had been made by European princes to rescue the holy city from the hands of the Mahommedans, as the question of a new crusade, to be undertaken by the monarchs of France and England, now mingles more or less with almost every transaction of the times.

BOOK V I.

PARTICULAR places become dear to the heart of man more generally by the associations attached to them, than by their beauty, convenience, or fertility. Nor is this the case only as affecting individuals; for attachment founded on memories or traditions binds tribes and nations likewise to certain spots, and this is carried so far that occasionally, at the very name of a distant country, the bosoms of men who have never seen it will yearn with feelings of affection or devotion, or will throb with emotions of joy, or pride, or hope. In regard to no land can such deep and strong sensations be excited by the great power of association, as those which are awakened by that country where dwelt the nation chosen to preserve, through ages of the darkest idolatry and in the midst of all the abominations of paganism, the knowledge of the true God, and the oracles of His holy will. That region, too, but especially the holy city its capital, must be rendered even more

sublimely dear to the heart of every Christian, when he recollects by whom and how was there worked out the crowning mercy of man's salvation. Thus the natural reverence which the whole of Christendom has ever felt towards the scene of our Saviour's miracles and sufferings, has made Palestine an object of pilgrimage to numbers in all ages, since first the Empress Helena herself set the example, and proceeded to visit the newly-discovered tomb of Christ. The sepulchre itself, or that which was supposed to be the sepulchre, was found, we are assured, beneath a temple erected to Venus by the Romans, after the capture and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus; and, Constantine, having caused the heathen temple to be cast down, and a Christian church to be erected in its place, that edifice became the chief object of the pilgrim's devotion in Jerusalem, and the journey was generally called "the visit to the holy sepulchre."

From the time of the conversion of Constantine till the apostacy of Julian, the pilgrimages continued uninterrupted under the Roman Emperors; and it is probable that during that period the Christians of the holy city, barbarous and ignorant as they were, and corrupted by those false doctrines which too soon began to mingle with the truths of Christianity, contrived to multiply superstitious inducements, in order to lure greater numbers of the devout to the scene of man's redemption. The cross on which our Saviour suffered was said

to have been found buried in the earth; and though suspicions in regard to the fact have of course been propagated and received in after ages, at those times this wonderful discovery was never doubted by any Christian, or, at most, doubted in silence and secrecy. A number of other relics, the perishable nature of which rendered their reappearance at the end of three hundred years even more miraculous than that of the cross itself, were speedily added to the treasures of Jerusalem, and were regarded with the utmost devotion by the pilgrims, who increased the wealth of the holy city, not only by the money that they spent therein, but also by the purchase of parts of all these sacred objects, which soon became endowed with the quality of infinite divisibility.

At length, however, succeeded Julian the Apostate, whose great military and political talents have been considered a sufficient compensation for his religious insanity. But even Julian himself, with all his passionate eagerness in favor of the Pagan deities of Rome and Greece, his fondness for the idol and the sacrifice, could not divest himself of the reverence universally felt for a city in which the worship of one pure God had been maintained from immemorial ages, while all the rest of the world was in darkness and pollution; and at the same time that he insulted the Jewish priest by offering to admit the God of the Hebrews into the number of the deities which he worshipped, his capacious superstition proposed to rëerect the