Of his Burying




Introduction


In the winter of 1903-4 I had occasion to pass several months in
Rome.

Among other Religious Houses, lately bought back from the Government by
their proper owners, was one (whose Order, for selfish reasons, I prefer
not to specify), situated in the maze of narrow streets between the
Piazza Navona and the Piazza Colonna; this, however, may be said of
the Order, that it is one which, although little known in Italy, had
several houses in England up to the reign of Henry VIII. Like so many
other Orders at that time, its members moved first to France and then to
Italy, where it has survived in penurious dignity ever since.

The Religious were able to take with them at the time of exodus, three
and a half centuries ago, a part of the small library that existed at
the English mother-house, and some few of these MSS. have survived to
the present day; many others, however, have certainly perished; for in
the list of books that I was looking over there one day in March, 1904,
I observed several titles, of which, the priest-librarian told me, the
corresponding volumes have disappeared. To some half-dozen of these
titles, however, there was appended a star, and on enquiring the meaning
of this symbol, I was informed that it denoted that a translation had