SKETCHES AND REVIEWS.

From the Literary World, N. Y., of July 10, 1847.

A DAY AT DURHAM.

EDINBURGH, MAY 9TH, 1847.

I arrived here on the 6th instant, by way of Durham, Morpeth, Alnwick, New Castle, and Berwick. The city of Durham, above all others in the north of England, abounds in interest; both from its rare antiquity, its noble Castle and Cathedral, and its lovely situation. I spent a day there -and one, altogether the most pleasant since I left home. This city is, as you well know, the chief city of the palatinate of Durham. The county was, by William the Conqueror, erected into an independent principality or palatinate, and the Bishops of this See clothed with princely powers, for the purpose of protecting the borders from the incursions of the Scots. The Bishops were not only great ecclesiastical princes, but renowned warriors, leading their hosts of mailed soldiers in most of the famous battles of the border wars. Though much of the ancient glory of the See has departed, still the Bishops hold their court, civil and ecclesiastical, their Chancellor sitting for them; and among these Chancellors, along with other bright names, was Sir Samuel Romilly; and the records of the Abbey and the Cathedral Church have, in consequence, been kept unbroken, and with

the most remarkable minuteness, since its foundation. Indeed, in the ancient refectory in the cloisters, is the banquet library, and the richest in manuscripts of any Cathedral in England. Its history is too curious to be overlooked, and, although its present beauty needs no historic detail to enhance its interest, you will excuse me if I take a short sketch of its eventful story; always premising that the facts stated are not traditionary, but are derived from original and contemporaneous public records, faithfully and regularly kept under the sanctions of the ancient religion, which once flourished so magnificently here. The See of Durham was founded at Lindisfarne, now Holy Island, a few miles east, off this coast, by Oswald, the Saxon King of Northumberland, as early as the year six hundred and thirty-five. Its earliest Bishop was Aidau, a monk of Iona, among whose successors, in the year six hundred and eighty-five, was Cuthbert, the Saint, about whose incorruptible remains so much was written and believed, and upon whose shrine, afterwards erected in the Church of Durham, so many and such costly offerings were made: and to which so many thousands annually went as pilgrims. I need not detail the old legend of how, ten years after his death, the monks at Lindisfarne, on opening his grave, found his body incorrupt and fresh, and, as they said, almost instinct with life; how they then enshrined it near their high altar; and when the Danes invaded England, how they fled with their sacred charge from Holy Island, and how the stone coffin of the

saint, according to their legend, floated swiftly over the rivers, leaving the monks to trudge after it in wonder.

Scott, in his Marmion, as you well recollect, has not forgotten this strange legend of the Borders.

"How, when the rude Danes bestrewed their pile,

The monks fled forth from Holy Isle,

O'er northern mountain, marsh and moor,
From sea to sea, from shore to shore,

Seven years St. Cuthbert's corpse they bore.

The monks thus wandered till they settled at Chester Le Street, where it remained some hundred years or more, and then to Kissou. A country distich well known here, yet speaks of the loss of Chester Le Street in the departure of

the saint.

"Durham lads hae gowd and silver,

Chester lads hae nout but brass."

The ruthless Danes again threatened the retirement of the monks; and again they took up the coffin. It was then revealed to one of their number, in a vision, so runs the legend, that Durham should be its final resting place; but the hapless monks were ignorant where Durham lay. The legend, of course well vouched for, goes on to tell how their distress was at last relieved. Wandering with their charge to a field near by, they sat down in despair; but a woman seeking for

her cowcalled aloud to her companion to know if she had seen her; who answered she was in Durham, or, as it was then called, Dunholme. The grateful monks received this as a heavenly direction, and following the woman and the cow, came here to Durham, the final resting place of their saint. On the front of the Cathedral, the "Durham Cow," carved in stone, still excites the curiosity of the legend-loving visitor. Of course, so great a saint as Cuthbert was enshrined ; miracles were on all emergencies wrought by him; his coffin taken up and carried in great processions; his sacred banner borne in many a bloody battle field of the Border wars, and the appearance of this renowned banner was always hailed by the English as the signal of victory over their Scottish foes. Behind the exquisite altar-screen, now in the Cathedral, which was finished in thirteen hundred and eighty, and principally the gift of the Nevilles, the Lords of Raby Castle, which is still existing some eighteen miles from here, under a large black marble slab, upon a circular stone elevation, now reposes this celebrated stone coffin of St. Cuthbert. All around the circular structure upon which it lies are the remains of the pillars, and other work of the shrine which once covered it. In eighteen hundred and twenty-seven this slab was removed in presence of the authorities of the Cathedral; the ancient coffin found, and the vestments; many of them of course much decayed, but owning to the embalming, some were in tolerable preservation; the gold and silver work upon them was yet entire,