’Sante Rosalie was of Palermo, and born of a very noble family, and, when very young, abhorred so much the vanities of this world, and avoided the converse of mankind, resolving to dedicate herself wholly to God Almighty, that she, by divine inspiration, forsook her father’s house, and never was more heard of, till her body was found in that cleft of a rock, on that almost inaccessible mountain, where now the chapel is built; and they affirm she was carried up there by the hands of angels; for that place was not formerly so accessible (as now it is) in the days of the Saint; and even now it is a very bad, and steepy, and break-neck way.  In this frightful place, this holy woman lived a great many years, feeding only on what she found growing on that barren mountain, and creeping into a narrow and dreadful cleft in a rock, which was always dropping wet, and was her place of retirement, as well as prayer; having worn out even the rock with her knees, in a certain place, which is now open’d on purpose to show it to those who come here.  This chapel is very richly adorn’d; and on the spot where the saint’s dead body was discover’d, which is just beneath the hole in the rock, which is open’d on purpose, as I said, there is a very fine statue of marble, representing her in a lying posture, railed in all about with fine iron and brass work; and the altar, on which they say mass, is built just over it.’—­Voyage to Sicily and Malta, by Mr. John Dryden, (son to the poet,) p. 107.

Stanza xxiv. line 408.  The national motto is ’St. George for Merrie England.’  The records of various central and eastern English towns tell of a very ancient custom of ’carrying the dragon in procession, in great jollity, on Midsummer Eve.’  See Brand’s ’Popular Antiquities,’ i. 321.  In reference to the ‘Birth of St George’ and his deeds, see Percy’s ‘Reliques.’

line 409.  Becket (1119-70), Archbishop of Canterbury.  See ‘Canterbury Tales’ and Aubrey de Vere’s ’St. Thomas of Canterbury:  a dramatic poem.’

line 410.  For Cuthbert, see below, ii. xiv. 257.  Bede (673-735), a monk of Jarrow on Tyne; called the Venerable Bede; author of an important ‘Ecclesiastical History’ and an English translation of St. John’s Gospel.

lines 419-20.  Lord Jeffrey’s sense of humour was not adequate to the appreciation of these two lines, which he specialised for condemnation.

Stanza.  XXV. line 421.  Gramercy, from Fr. grand merci, sometimes used as an emphatic exclamation, although fundamentally implying the thanks of the speaker.

line 430 still = always.  Cp., inter alia, 440 and 452 below.  See ‘still vexed Bermoothes,’ Tempest, i. 2. 229, and cp.  Hamlet, ii. 2. 42,—­

     ‘Thou still hast been the father of good news.’

Stanza xxvi. line 452.  Scott quotes from Rabelais the passage in which the monk suggests to Gargantua that in order to induce sleep they might together try the repetition of the seven penitential psalms.  ’The conceit pleased Gargantua very well; and, beginning the first of these psalms, as soon as they came to Beati quorum they fell asleep, both the one and the other.’  Cp.  Chaucer’s Monk and the character of Accidia in ‘Piers the Plowman,’ Passus V.