‘Quell’ anima lassu, c’ ha maggior pena,’
     Disse ’l Maestro, ’e Giuda Scariotto,
     Che ‘l capo ha dentro, e fuor le gambe mena.’

The traditional epithet which the world has justly attached to the name of Dante Alighieri is ‘the Sublime’.  I am almost afraid to say it, but we all know how proverbially short is the distance between the sublime and the ridiculous.  And I venture to submit to the private personal thought of each of you whether it be not merely the horror of the subject and of the conception, and the almost stupefying grandeur of the poetry, which separates this idea from the grotesque; and whether, if the thing be to be touched at all, the old Irish fabulist has not produced a conception both more tender and more truly tragic.

They then go for three days southward and find a small precipitous rocky island, quite round, and about one furlong in circumference.  Here they find a narrow landing-place, and dwelling on the summit an hermit aged one hundred and forty years, of which he had passed ninety in the island.  He had no clothes except his own hair, which was long and white.  He was an Irishman named Paul, and had known Patrick.  For thirty years he had lived on fish brought him by a beast, presumably an otter, in its fore-paws, along with fuel wherewith to cook it, and which he kindled by striking a flint, and for sixty years upon the water of a spring.  He gave them of the water of the spring, and bade them go their way, telling them that in forty days they would keep the Passover as usual, and so also Pentecost, and thereafter would they find ’the land holier than all lands.’

They remained therefore on the open sea during all Lent, living only on the water of the hermit’s spring, and passed Easter and Pentecost in the usual places.  But this was the last time.  Their provider came to them and said, ’Get ye up into the ship and fill your bottles with the water of this fountain.  I also now will be the companion and leader of your journey, for without me ye cannot find the land which ye seek, even the land which is promised unto the Saints.’  As they embarked, all the white birds sang in chorus, ’The God of our salvation make your way prosperous’ (Ps. lxvii. 20, Vulg.).  They went to their provider’s island and there took in provision for other forty days and set forth.  And now comes the discovery of the Land of Promise, which I had better read in full:—­

’And when forty days were past, and the evening was drawing on, a great darkness covered them, so that scarcely could one see another.  Then the provider saith to holy Brendan, “Father, knowest thou what is this darkness?” The Saint saith, “Brethren, I know not.”  Then saith the other, “This darkness is round about that island which ye have sought for seven years.  Behold, ye see it; enter ye into it.”  And after the space of an hour, a great light shone round about them, and the ship stood upon the shore.  When they went out of the ship, they saw a land, broad,