was the constant resort of foreigners as well as townsmen.  They filled every portion of it.  Now, you observe there is only a narrow, worn walk, which gives indication of the route of a few straggling pedestrians.  Even the very chimes of yonder bells (which must have delighted you so much at every third hour of the night!) have lost their pleasing tone;—­and sound as if they foreboded still further desolation to Salzburg.”  The man seemed to feel as he spoke; and I own that I was touched by so animated and unexpected a reply.

I examined two or three old churches, of the Gothic order, of which I have already forgotten the names—­unless they be those of Ste. Trinite and St. Sebastien.  In one of them—­it being a festival—­there was a very crowded congregation; while the priest was addressing his flock from the steps of the altar, in a strain of easy and impassioned eloquence.  Wherever I went—­and upon almost whatever object I gazed—­there appeared to be traces of curious, if not of remote, antiquity.  Indeed the whole town abounds with such—­among which are some Roman relics, which have been recently (1816) described by Goldenstein, in a quarto volume published here, and written in the German language.[84]

But you are impatient for the MONASTERY OF ST. PETER.[85] Your curiosity shall be no longer thwarted; and herewith I proceed to give you an account of my visit to that venerable and secluded spot—­the abode of silence and of sanctity.  It was my first appearance in a fraternity of MONKS; and those of the order of ST. BENEDICT.  I had no letter of recommendation; but, taking my valet with me, I knocked at the outer gate—­and received immediate admission within some ancient and low cloisters:  of which the pavement consisted entirely of monumental slabs.  The valet sought the librarian, to make known my wishes of examining the library; and I was left alone to contemplate the novel and strange scene which presented itself on all sides.  There were two quadrangles, each of sufficiently limited dimensions.  In the first, there were several young Monks playing at skittles in the centre of the lawn.  Both the bowl and pins were of unusually large dimensions, and the direction of the former was confined within boards, fixed in the earth.  These athletic young Benedictins (they might be between twenty and thirty years of age) took little or no notice of me; and while my eye was caught by a monumental tablet, which presented precisely the same coat-armour as the device used by Fust and Schoeffher,—­and which belonged to a family that had been buried about two hundred and fifty years—­the valet returned, and announced that the Principal of the College desired to see me immediately.