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;
When each house was a fortalice-as tell

The annals of full many a line undone;
The gallant cavaliers who fought in vain,
For those who knew not to resign or reign.

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,
And love the high embowered roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim, religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced choir below;

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In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness through mine ear
Dissolve me into ecstasies,

And bring all heaven before mine eyes.

Look upon this picture, and upon this, the abbey in its pride, the building in its decay

The hour has been, this mouldering pile
Was robed in symmetry sublime;

Seen in stupendous strength to smile,

And seemed to dare the power of Time.

Netley Abbey, in days long gone by, was among the most famous of our monaftic establishments. It neftled amid the luxurious foliage and rich verdure on the banks of the broad water at Southampton; the towers of the abbey were the landmark of the happy mariner, and the peafant listened with reverent joy to the vefper bell, and to the folemn chant of its inmates. All is changed. Ingoldsby reflects and moralizes over the scene,

I saw thee, Netley, as the sun
Across the western wave

Was sinking slow,

And a golden glow

To thy roofless towers he gave ;

And the ivy sheen,

With its mantle of green,

That wrapt thy walls around,
Shone lovelily bright

In that glorious light,

And I felt 't was holy ground.

Then I thought of the ancient time

The days of thy monks of old;

When to Matin, and Vesper, and Compline chime,

The loud Hosanna roll'd,

And thy courts and "long drawn aisles" among,

Swell the full tide of sacred song.

And yet, fair Netley, as I gaze

Upon that grey and mouldering wall,

The glories of thy palmy days

Its very stones recall!

They "come like shadows, so depart"

I see thee as thou wert-and art.

For many years after the first dawn of the Reformation, the people loved to congregate in the old abbeys, but the stately fabrics, neglected and defecrated, gradually funk into fuch graceful ruins as Tintern, and Kirkstall, and Newftead, and others. In the golden age of good Queen Befs, Bolton Abbey was a favourite place of Sabbath refort; poetic legends fuch as that of "The White Doe," "foft and filent as a dream," and "beauteous as the filver moon," had taken root in the popular mind and invested the time-worn buildings with the charms of romance, and drawn to them the homage of a devout veneration. It is one of the days of Elizabeth's golden reign that Wordsworth defcribes

From Bolton's old monastic tower,

The bells ring loud with gladsome power;

The sun is bright, the fields are gay,

With people in their best array

Of stole and doublet, hood and scarf,
Along the banks of the crystal Wharf;
Through the vale retired and lowly,
Trooping to that summons holy.
And up among the moorlands, see
What sprinklings of blithe company!
Of lasses, and of shepherd grooms,
That down the steep hill force their way,
Like cattle through the budded brooms;

Path or no path, what care they?

And thus in joyous mood they hie

To Bolton's mouldering Priory.

*

For in the shatter'd fabric's heart
Remaineth one protected part;

A rural chapel, neatly drest,

In covert like a little nest;

And thither young and old repair,

This Sabbath-day, for praise and prayer.

Fast the churchyard fills;-anon,

Look again, they all are gone;

The cluster round the porch, and the folk

Who sate in the shade of the Prior's Oak!
And scarcely have they disappeared
Ere the prelusive hymn is heard :—
With one consent the people rejoice,
Filling the church with a lofty voice!
They sing a service which they feel,

For 't is the sunrise now of zeal;

And faith and hope were in their prime

In great Eliza's golden time.

If there is one idea which more than another is affociated with the past of these old abbeys, it is that they were the abodes of peaceful and contented minds, of men who knew