THE OLD ABBEYS OF ENGLAND. 000000000000 HE old Abbeys of England! how picturesque they stand in their ruins! proud 0000000000 and defolate memorials of a time when the new-born freedom of thought and mind indulged in the wildeft freaks of its youthful exceffes; and, aided by fovereign power, marked its progress towards reflecting manhood by the wanton deftruction of some of the nobleft edifices of our country. Time, the ruthless deftroyer, ftill spares the old abbeys; and Nature kindly clothes them with the mantling ivy, to protect them in their green old age. I do love these ancient ruins : We never tread upon them, but we set Of stormy weather, some lie interred, Loved the church so well, and gave so largely to't, Many a one who has gazed upon an old abbey noble in its ruins, the rank grass growing in its deferted cloisters, the chambers and refectories, once the busy haunts of men, now filent and tenantless, will have felt something of that feeling which Shakespeare has put into the mouth of Cromwell The infant yet unborn Will curse the time the altars were pulled down. I pray now, where is Hospitality? Where now may poor distressed people go A Norman abbey, while yet fome of its glories clung around it, is thus defcribed by Byron:— It stood embosom'd in a happy valley, Crown'd by high woodlands, where the druid oak His host, with broad arms 'gainst the thunder-stroke ; The dappled foresters-as day awoke, A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile (While yet the church was Rome's) stood half apart In a grand arch, which once screen'd many an aisle; These last had disappear'd-a loss to art: The first yet frown'd superbly o'er the soil, And kindled feelings in the roughest heart Which mourn'd the power of time's or tempest's march, In gazing on that venerable arch. Within a niche nigh to its pinnacle, Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone : But these had fallen, not when the friars fell, But in the war which struck Charles from the throne; The annals of full many a line undone; But in a higher niche, alone, but crown'd, The Virgin Mother of the God-born child, With her Son in her blessed arms, look'd round, Spared by some chance when all beside was spoil'd; She made the earth below seem holy ground. This may be superstition weak or wild, But even the faintest relics of a shrine, Of any worship, wake some thoughts divine. Great changes have taken place in these edifices, even fince Milton, in "Il Penferofo," was wont To walk the studious cloisters pale, |