recollect the splendid gateway which terminates the vista of St. Paul's
street, and stands there yet in all its pristine beauty. The tiny train
of miniature artillery which now adorns its battlements is, it is true,
an ornament of a later date; and is said to have been added some
centuries after by a learned but jealous proprietor, for the purpose of
shooting any wiser man than himself, who might chance to come that way.
Tradition is silent as to any discharge having taken place, nor can the
oldest inhabitant of modern days recollect any such occurrence.
[Footnote: Since the appearance of the first edition of this Legend
"the guns" have been dismounted. Rumor hints at some alarm on the part
of the Town Council.] Here it was, in a handsome chamber, immediately
over the lofty archway, that the Superior of the monastery lay buried
in a brief slumber, snatched from his accustomed vigils. His mitre--for
he was a mitred Abbot, and had a seat in parliament--rested on a table
beside him: near it stood a silver flagon of Gascony wine, ready, no
doubt, for the pious uses of the morrow. Fasting and watching had made
him more than usually somnolent, than which nothing could have been
better for the purpose of the Saint, who now appeared to him radiant in
all the colors of the rainbow.

"Anselm!" said the beatific vision,--"Anselm! are you not a pretty
fellow to lie snoring there when your brethren are being knocked at
head, and Mother Church herself is menaced?--It is a sin and a shame,
Anselm!"

"What's the matter?--Who are you?" cried the Abbot, rubbing his eyes,
which the celestial splendour of his visitor had set a-winking. "Ave
Maria! St. Austin himself! Speak, _Beatissime!_ what would you with the
humblest of your votaries?"