So as I wander through the solemn shade;
No bold intruder my recess invade ;
Whilst all around this ancient hallowed place,
With conscious step and rev'rend awe I trace
Th' extensive vestiges, and grand remains
Of ruin'd walls and mutilated fanes.
Now universal silence, awful, deep!

Night's calm vicegereut reigns-handmaid of sleep:
Reigns uncontrol'd: save that from yon high tow'r
The lone companion of the midnight hour,
The solemn owl, her harsh ill omen'd note,
Discordant, issuing from her artless throat,
With doleful accents strikes the list'ning ear,
Ill-boding, hideous to the mind of fear!
*Where baleful melancholy spreads her wings,
In frantic tone her mournful dirge she sings.
The gloomy recluse shuns each gloom of light,
And, wrapt midst deepest horrors of the night,
In solitary sadness all alone,

To kindly Cynthia makes her woeful moan:
Who now assumes her gently pleasing sway,
Supplying well the loss of absent day!
Who now from orient climes, in borrowed light,
Rides and dispels the dismal shades of night;
In silent state by fleet-wing'd coursers driv❜n,
And leads the grand unnumber'd host of heav'n!
And now, emerging from the hideous gloom,
By the effulgent radiance of the moon,
To view the rocky ruins rise, sublime!
And shew the miserable waste of time-
Time, said I? no-a more destructive foe
To sacred edifices, would you know,
"Tis that mad sect where parity is found,

That levels all-ev'n churches to the ground!
For when these rude reformers acted here,
Zeal led the van, destruction in the rear;
To deformation all their acts did tend;
Where they began they also made an end:
At once corruptions with good forms debate,
And wrongs by wrongs most wrongously defeat.
How trite soever this remark appears

Or harshly sounds in prejudiced ears;

If moderate zeal betwixt the two extremes

Can judge, good sense their barbarous acts disclaims;
All sacred forms who superstitious call;

How right soe'r, no form they lik'd at all.

J. COPLAN

I must now turn to the north of the building, and describe what is to be seen there. I begin with the tall slender window at the north side of the east nave of the cross, whose daylight is thirty-one feet by eight feet nine inches. It has been adorned with three erect bars, whose breadth is seven inches, but there are only two remaining, and the centre one finishes at the top with a beautiful heart; above this window there is another broad window, oroamented with five bars and small cross bars, all pointed in the Gothic style. The angle of the cross here is much destroyed, and likewise the buttresses are greatly shattered; but on the north

nave on the east side are two windows entire, having each of them an upright bar; above them are two small windows with two bars each, and cross bars, having a head on each side of them; one with the mouth awry, and the other with the tongue put out from its mouth ; these small windows have a fine effect by being at a small distance, and shewing the clustered small pillars on the other side through their bars. In the end of the north nave are the remains of the treasury, which joins to the church with a saxon door, that leads into the church with a stair, the remains of which are still to be seen. Upon the threshold of this door are engraved a cross and sword, and a shield bearing a sword bend ways, and a mullet in chief of the sinister. This threshold appears to be more ancient than this part of the building, it being built upon the top of the cross and the end of the sword; it is a grave stone, and I suspect may be exactly above the bones of some noble warrior. Adjoining to this

house are the remains of a beautiful turnpike

stair, which was destroyed about the

year 1738, the first step of this stair had been contrived to

lift up; for below it there is a small vault, which was probably built for concealing the valuable things of the convent, in case of an invasion by the English, with which they were often threatened; above is a beautiful circular window, which is called the north star; it is finely moulded, and has a circle in the centre, from which six semicircles proceed, all pointed in the Gothic cusp, which strikes the eye of the beholder as being the exact imitation of a star, and below this window is seen the raglin, in which to place the roof, that extended round the great cloister.

I now proceed to the remains of the cloister, which was in the west side of the north nave of the church; it is a piece of the finest architecture of the whole building, for the delicacy of its sculpture, and the relief of its work, which is executed in the most accurate man

ner.

Spreading herbs, and flow'rets bright,
Glisten'd with the dew of night;
Nor herb, nor flow'ret, glisten'd there,
But was carv'd in the cloister arches as fair.

SIR W. SCOTT, Bart.

There are just seven niches, or stalls, in this nave, for the dignitaries of the church, which are all seated with stone; these stalls are neatly ornamented with beautiful running flowers and deep mouldings, which have a fine effect: above them are a range of square flowers that run from the one end to the other, viz. acorns, ferns, trefoils, quatrefoils, fir-seed, house-leeks, plantain-leaf, scollop-shells, and others too tedious to enumerate. In the angle here is a bason for the holy water for them to cross themselves before they entered the church from the cloister. Above this work are holes to support the roof which rested upon a colonade of pillars that went round the whole open cloister; and above these are four very plain small Gothic windows.

I have now passed the angle to the long nave of the cross, continuing on to the west with the remains of the cloister. In the first place, the door which enters the church from the cloister is commonly called the valley-door, which is in the saxon form, deeply moulded and mixed with Gothic; its foliage is so very fine, and so