His 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 the wide sense
of that word; for pilgrims may be
understood in two ways,--one wide, and one narrow. In the wide, whoever
is out of his own cou