If the Crotalophoboi had not devoured the missionary Dodekanus, we should assuredly never have heard of Monsignor Perrelli, the learned and genial historian of Nepenthe.  It was that story, he expressly tells us, which inflamed him, a mere visitor to the place, with a desire to know more about the island.  A people like the Nepentheans, who could cherish in their hearts a tale of such beauty, must be worthy, he concluded, “of the closest and most sympathetic scrutiny.”  Thus, one thing leading to another, as always happens where local researches are concerned, he soon found himself collecting other legends, traditions, historical data, statistics of agriculture and natural productions, and so forth.  The result of these labours was embodied in the renowned antiquities of nepenthe.

This book, a model of its kind, is written in Latin.  It seems to have been the author’s only work, and has gone through several editions; the last one—­by no means the best as regards typography—­being that of 1709.  The Crotalophoboi therefore, who procured the sanctification of Dodekanus by methods hardly commendable to decent folks, can be said to have done some good in the world, if the creation of a literary masterpiece like these antiquities, for which they are indirectly responsible, may be classed under that head.

It is a pity we know so little of the life of this Monsignor Perrelli.  He is disappointingly reticent about himself.  We learn that he was a native of the mainland; that he came here, as a youth, afflicted with rheumatic troubles; that these troubles were relived by an application of those health-giving waters which he lived to describe in one of the happiest sections of his work, and which were to become famous to the world at large through certain classical experiments carried out under his contemporary, the Good Duke Alfred—­a potentate who, by the way, does not seem to have behaved very prettily to our scholar.  And that is absolutely all we know about him.  The most painstaking enquiries on the part of Mr. Eames have failed to add a single item of positive information to our knowledge of the historian of Nepenthe.  We cannot tell when, or where, he died.  He seems to have ended in regarding himself as a native of the place.  The wealth of material incorporated in the book leads to the supposition that he must have spent long years on the island.  We may further presume, from his title, that he belonged to the church; it was the surest path of advancement for a young man of quality in those days.

A perfunctory glance into his pages will suffice to prove that he lacked what is called the ecclesiastical bent of mind.  Reading between the lines, one soon discovers that his is not so much a priest as a statesman and philosopher, a student curious in the lore of mankind and of nature—­alert, sagacious, discriminating.  He tells us, for example, that this legend of the visions and martyrdom of Saint