s earthly eyes. Returning to the "New Life,"--

"After this tribulation," he says, "at that time when many people were
going to see the blessed image which Jesus Christ left to us as the
likeness of his most beautiful countenance,[Q] which my lady now beholds
in glory, it happened that certain pilgrims passed through a street
which is almost in the middle of that city where the gentlest lady was
born, lived, and died,--and they went along, as it seemed to me, very
pensive. And thinking about them, I said to myself, 'These appear to me
to be pilgrims from a far-off region, and I do not believe that they
have even heard speak of this lady, and they know nothing of her; their
thoughts are rather of other things than of her; for, perhaps, they are
thinking of their distant friends, whom we do not know.' Then I said to
myself, 'I know, that, if these persons were from a neighboring country,
they would show some sign of trouble as they pass through the midst of
this grieving city.' Then again I said, 'If I could hold them awhile, I
would indeed make them weep before they went out from this city; for I
would say words to them which would make whoever should hear them weep.'
Then, when they had passed out of sight, I proposed to make a sonnet in
which I would set forth that which I had said to myself; and in order
that it might appear more pity-moving, I proposed to say it as if I had
spoken to them, and I said this sonnet, which begins, 'O pilgrims.'

[Footnote Q: The most precious relic at Rome, and the one which chiefly
attracted pilgrims, during a long period of the Middle Ages, was the
Veronica, or representation of the Saviour's face, supposed to have been
miraculously impressed upon the handkerchief with which he wiped his
face on his way to Calvary. It was preserved at St. Peter's and shown
only on special occasions. Compare with this passage the lines in the
_Paradiso_, c. xxxi. 103-8:--

"As one that haply from Croatia came
To see our Veronica, and no whit
Could be contented with its olden fame,
Who in his heart saith, when they're showing it,
'O Jesu Christ! O very Lord God mine!
Does truly this thy feature counterfeit?'"
CAYLEY.

G. Villani says, that in 1300, the year of jubilee, for the consolation
of Christian pilgrims, the Veronica was shown in St. Peter's every
Friday, and on other solemn festivals. viii. 36.]

"I called them _pilgrims_ in