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O LET the soul her slumbers break,
Let thought be quickened, and awake,
Awake to see

How soon this life is past and gone,
And death comes softly stealing on,
How silently!

Swiftly our pleasures glide away,
Our hearts recall the distant day
With many sighs;

The moments that are speeding fast
We heed not, but the past,-the past,-
More highly prize.

Onward its course the present keeps,
Onward the constant current sweeps
Till life is done;

And, did we judge of time aright,
The past and future in their flight,
Would be as one.

Let no one fondly dream again,
That Hope and all her shadowy train
Will not decay;

Fleeting as were the dreams of old,
Remember'd like a tale that's told,
They pass away,

Our lives are rivers, gliding free
To that unfathomed, boundless sea,
The silent grave!

Thither all earthly pomp and boast
Roll, to be swallowed up and lost
In one dark wave.

Thither the mighty torrents stray,
Thither the brook pursues its way,
And tinkling rill.

There all are equal. Side by side
The poor man and the son of pride
Lie calm and still.

[LONGFELLOW'S Translation of Coplas de Manrique.]

BE and continue poor, young man, while others around you grow rich by fraud and disloyalty; be without place or power, while others beg their way upwards; bear the pain of disappointed hopes, while others gain the accomplishment of their's by flattery; forego the gracious pressure of the hand, for which others cringe and crawl. Wrap yourself in your own virtue, and seek a friend, and your daily bread. If you have in such a course grown grey with unblenched honour, bless God, and die.-HEINZELMANN.

THERE is no more potent antidote to low sensuality than the adoration of beauty. All the higher arts of design are essentially chaste, without respect of the object. They purify the thoughts, as tragedy, according to Aristotle, purifies the passions. Their accidental effects are not worth consideration. There are souls to whom even a vestal is not holy.-SCHLEGEL.

BEFORE the invention of the art of printing, a scholar and a beggar seem to have been terms very nearly synonymous. The different governors of the universities, before that time, appear to have often granted licences to their scholars to beg.-SMITH's Wealth of Nations.

Ir is a painful fact, but one which every day's experience establishes, that a student may go through a series of lectures upon the most momentous subjects, without realizing the conviction that his own being is connected with any of them. We are bound by all that is pure, and honest, and sacred, to see that this is not the case with the citizens of our land. I know that the college system cannot prevent it; but I know that it can do this,-it can make the student feel that there is a strife and contradiction within him, when his understanding is going one way and his heart another. It chafes and frets him, and makes him restless, and this is one great cause of the obloquy which the discipline, and especially the worship, has incurred. Can it be well, we are often asked, that the service of God should cause vexation and irritation? I believe it is well. I believe the conscience of every man who has had experience, if he lets it speak fairly, will say that it was well for him There is something more necessary for a man than being comfortable. If he has not formed a habit of doing right, by all means let him have a continued witness that he is doing wrong.-MAURICE on Education.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE SYRIAN CHRISTIANS IN INDIA.

II.

We know nothing of the Indian church from its foundation until the arrival of the rich Armenian merchant already mentioned, Thomas Cana, who settled in the country, built several churches, and brought many Christian teachers from Syria, who introduced the Syrian ritual, which is still in use. He had two separate establishments, one towards the north, near Angamale, and the other further to the south. The latter residence was under the superintendence of his wife; in the former lived a Christian woman, said to have been a slave, but most probably a second, or inferior wife. He had large families by both wives, and, somewhat inconsistently with the received tradition, most of the present Christians call themselves descendants of this Thomas; those of the south consider themselves more noble than the others, as sons of the free woman; they are proud of the distinction, and rarely intermarry with those of the north, or communicate with them in their churches, although both follow the same ritual.

Thomas Cana had great influence with the princes of Travancore, and from them he obtained the extensive privileges which were during several centuries enjoyed by the Syrian Christians in India, and which have been already detailed. These privileges were engraved on plates of copper, in the language of the country, and preserved until the arrival of the Portuguese, to whose care they were entrusted by a bishop of Angamale, named Jacob, and unfortunately lost; unless, which we think probable, these plates are the same as those ve shall presently mention.

After the death of Thomas Cana, communication with the Christians of the west ceased for a time, and discord began to spread over the church. The episcopal functions were usuped by the priests of each community, and laymen disregarded the injunctions of their pastors. As we do not know the era of Thomas, we cannot say how long this state of anarchy lasted; but in the year 825, two Syrian priests, named Shapoor and Firoze, arrived in Malabar from Babylon, which may signify either Bagdad, Ctesiphon, or Seleucia; they received protection and favour from the king of the country, who granted them a yearly revenue, allowed them to erect as many churches as they pleased, and to baptize all those who might desire to embrace Christianity. These privileges were engraved on copper plates, in the four languages of the south of India; and, like those above mentioned, were delivered to the Portuguese, and said to be lost; but in the year 1806 they were carefully sought after by the British Resident in Travancore, found, to the great joy of the Christians, and deposited in the college of Cottayam. Fac-simile impressions of these plates have been recently obtained by the Asiatic Society in London, and are published in their Journal; the plates are six in number; they have not yet been deciphered, but they appear to be in one language only, with the exception of the signatures of the witnesses, ten of which are in Arabic, and four in Hebrew.

Shapoor and Firoze were followed by a succession of prelates from the west, whose superiority in learning and morals recommended them as much to the princes of the country as to their flocks. The skill and fidelity of the Christians in general raised them to the highest employments in the state, and their courage was said to be superior to that of other Indians; "the strength of a pagan prince was estimated by the number of Christians he could rank among the warriors of his kingdom."

The Christians at length became so powerful that they declared their independence, and elected a king of their own body, whose name was Baliarte. But this separation did not last long; one of the successors of Baliarte being childless, adopted the son of a chief of Diamper, who succeeded him as king of the Christians;

after this, by a similar adoption, they passed under the sovereignty of the King of Cochin, among whose subjects they were incorporated when the Portuguese arrived in India.

The Portuguese were for some years too busy in making conquests to pay much attention to the Indian church, and for forty years we find no mention of it in the annals of that nation. About the middle of the century a Franciscan missionary resided at Cranganor, named Fra Vicente, who had accompanied to India Joao d'Albuquerque, the first Bishop of Goa, in 1545. The Christians of India at that period were Nestorians; and Fra Vicente, failing to convert them to Catholicism, requested the Viceroy of Goa to found a college at Cranganor, where their children might be educated in the tenets of the Romish church, in order that their influence might be available in bringing the Syrians under the see of Rome. The college was founded, and many children educated there, who were afterwards ordained priests; but the scheme was fruitless: the Syrians refused to admit them into their churches, although they made no objection to Portuguese clergy; in this they were guided by the authority of the ancient canons, which enjoined courtesy to strangers, but considered as apostates those of their own body who followed any other ritual.

The Jesuits, seeing the failure of the Franciscans, resolved to try what might be effected by a closer approximation; they established a college at Vaipicotta, near Cranganor, in the midst of a Christian community, to whom they taught the Syriac language, which was eagerly desired by them. But this measure also failed: the Christians learned the language, and were ordained priests according to the Roman forms; but they all adopted the ancient faith as soon as they returned to their own people.

The Portuguese Government were now determined to interfere more directly; they seized upon Mar Joseph, the Syrian bishop, ordained by Ebed Jesu, the Patriarch of Babylon, who had been present at the Council of Trent in 1562, and despatched him to Portugal to answer for his heretical opinions. But Queen Catherine received him at Lisbon with great kindness, and sent him back with letters to the authorities of Goa, directing that he should be restored to his diocese.

On the return of Mar Joseph, he found his place preoccupied by another bishop, Mar Abraham, whom the Christians had received from the patriarch of Babylon, in the absence of Mar Joseph. The church was now divided: Mar Joseph appealed to the Government at Goa, who seized Abraham, and despatched him, as they had done Joseph. But the ship touching at Madagascar on the voyage, Abraham made his escape, and found his way to Mosul on the Tigris; there he formed the bold resolution of proceeding to Rome, to seek the protection of the Pope. He was well received by Pius the Fourth, but at the cost of his religious consistency; being induced to own an entire submission to Rome, and to receive all the forms of ordination and consecration from Catholic hands, from the tonsure to the episcopal dignity. He was then sent back to India, with a brief addressed to the Portuguese viceroy and bishops, directing them to receive Abraham as metropolitan.

On the arrival of Abraham, he found that his rival Mar Joseph had disappeared. The Portuguese had remarked that he still preached the doctrines of Nestorius: they had in consequence arrested him, and sent him for the second time to Portugal, from whence he was dispatched to Rome, "where he ended his days."

Mar Abraham, though now the recognised Bishop, was still in an unhappy predicament: he was suspected by the Portuguese, and compelled to conform in many points to their directions, and at the same time was apprehensive of the displeasure of his own patriarch, to whom he wrote an apologetic letter, detailing his unfortunate

position, and stating that the Portuguese "were as close upon his head, as the hammer upon the anvil." His conduct was cautious, but his fears were well founded: the patriarch, displeased at his temporising, appointed a new bishop, named Simeon, who arrived at his diocese in 1596. Another schism in the church now began, which was finished by the seizure of Mar Simeon, who was sent by the Portuguese to Lisbon, where he was said to have been put to death by the Inquisition. Mar Abraham continued to enjoy a precarious security until his death in 1596.

The time was now arrived for the Pope to claim immediate authority over the Indian church. A bull dated at Rome, the 27th January, 1595, had already ordered that no person should be bishop in India, who was not appointed by the Holy See; and on the death of Mar Abraham, Alexis Menezes, Archbishop of Goa, a bold, unscrupulous and able man, but entirely attached to the Jesuits, resolved to carry out to the utmost the intentions of Rome. The government of the Indian church had been left by Mar Abraham to his archdeacon, named George, who appears to have been an amiable man, much beloved by his people, but little fitted by talents or courage to cope with the power arrayed against him. He temporised with Menezes, promised a qualified submission, and agreed to adopt the Romish ceremonies: both priests and people, unsuspecting and simple as they were, understanding little of the language and purpose of their proselytising conquerors, yielded in appearance to what they had no power to resist; but they had an unalterable attachment to their ancient church, and constantly reverted to their own forms, so soon as the direct force which compelled a change was a little relaxed. Menezes became angry, and he resolved to proceed to extremities. Goa in September, 1598, and in the February following reached Cochin, whither he summoned the Archdeacon to a meeting. George came attended by three thousand armed followers, who had sworn to defend their leader to the last extremity; but his courage quailed before the resolute menaces of Menezes: he tendered his submission to Rome, and agreed to attend a synod at Diamper, near Cochin, where the state of the church in India should be settled upon a firm foundation, meaning that it should conform to that of Rome in all points.

He left

The Synod of Diamper was opened on the 20th of June, under the swords of the Portuguese: it lasted eight days, during which it was decreed that all the practices of the Church of Rome should be adopted by the Syrian Christians: that they should receive the seven sacraments, the mass, transubstantiation, purgatory, images, indulgences, celibacy of the priesthood, and auricular confession. They also gave up all Syriac books and other documents, to be burned or corrected: they anathematized the Patriarch of Babylon, allowed the Scriptures to be altered so as to conform to the readings of the Vulgate, and submitted in every thing to the Inquisition established at Goa. The decrees were signed by one hundred and thirty-three priests, and six hundred and sixty representatives of the people, "amidst the curses and anathemas, the shouts and execrations of the surrounding multitude, which trembled with horror at abandoning the religion of their ancestors, for a new baptism, and what they considered idolatry."

REFLECT that life at best is but short, and that we cannot afford to suffer any part of it to run to waste. In youth you must lay in a stock of knowledge which may carry you through life, whatever your after pursuits may be, be done without exertion, without the frequent sacrifice of with usefulness and honour. But recollect, this is not to momentary pleasure and gratification. Self-denial is a virtue of the highest quality, and he who has it not, and does not strive to acquire it, will never excel in anything.— CONYBEARE.

192

J

THE NEW ROYAL EXCHANGE.

A NATIONAL SONG.-By MRS. CRAWFORD.

WHEN Commerce rose, in ages past,
To fill the world with light,
And feudal days were fleeting fast,
Like shadows of the night;
Then her wings she gave

To the ocean-wave,
For she loves at will to roam,
With the fresh'ning breeze,
O'er the bounding seas;

But in England she found her home.
"Twas then that Gresham's master-mind-
Name still to Commerce dear!-
Her rising glories proudly shrined,
And fix'd her palace here:
And from this proud spot

(Be it ne'er forgot)

She rose to life and light;

And her sails unfurl'd

To the wond'ring world,

In the pride of her new-born might.
Then Britain's thunders shook the earth,
And sea's remotest shore,

The palm of honour, truth, and worth,
Her merchant-princes bore;

And they long shall bear,
And as proudly wear,

As in the by-gone days;

For the bright renown

Of her laurell'd crown

Is entwined with the civic bays.
Amid the battle's thunder-crash,

When England braved the foe'Mid volumed smoke and lightning-flash 'Twas Commerce nerved the blow: She the pow'r and pride

Of the earth defied,

Alike on land and main,

When her bolts she hurl'd

At a hostile world.

May we ne'er see the like again.

Now daring Commerce spreads at will Her sails on ev'ry wind;

The march of armies now stands still,
To wait the march of mind;

Now in labour's hive,
Loom and spindle thrive,

As golden Commerce smiles;
And the lib'ral arts,

That refine our hearts,

Are the boast of the British isles.

Eliza's glories all revive

In

young

Victoria's reign;

And Gresham's stainless laurels live,
To bud and bloom again;

As in those proud days,
We to commerce raise

Once more the stately pile,

And the world's resort
Is the regal court,

That she holds in her own loved isle.
Now, long may Britain's thunder sleep,
And bright her laurels shine!
Long may her merchant-princes keep
Their court in this proud shrine;
Here may freedom's light
Wing its glorious flight

Across the boundless main;

And the good old cause,

Of the throne and laws,

Be the pride of Victoria's reign!

DINNER PARTIES IN NORWAY. THE dinner hour is generally one or two o'clock; even at the Stadtholder's state parties we did not dine later than three. This meal always occupies a long time; as each dish is handed round repeatedly to each guest, and frequently pressed upon him in what used formerly to be considered the true spirit of hospitality, in our own country. The fare is

good and substantial, much more in the Germán, than in the French style: the sweet things are almost always excellently made. In all the best houses, there is abundance of claret, of fair quality; often also a pleasant white wine they call Madeira, more probably of Spanish growth; and occasionally Port, though of very different flavour from that we are accustomed to drink. It is much lighter, both in body and colour, being invariably tawny; but it is very agreeable to the taste, and very possibly more genuine than the strong Port manufactured for the English market. When strangers are present, there are seldom wanting toasts complimentary to him or his nation, as an excuse for a fair supply of wine during the dinner, after which they never sit, as we do in England. When this lengthened operation is at last over, and all have eaten, and drunk, and talked, and sung, to their full content, there is usually a slight pause of expectation, when the guest of most consequence proposes the health of the host and hostess, with thanks to them for their entertainment: upon which the chairs are instantly removed with great noise, and the whole party shake hands with each other, and with the host, saying to him, "Tak for Mad," or "Thanks for our repast;" to which he replies, "Velbekommen," "May it agree with you!" Each gentleman then conducts a lady into the adjoining room, where coffee is handed round; and most of the male sex soon drop off, to smoke a pipe, or take a stroll out of doors. An hour or two later, they return for a cup of tea; and finally, about nine o'clock, a supper of cold meat, fruit, &c. is laid out in the dining-room. Owing to the early hours of the country, the children uniformly make a pleasing addition to a Norwegian dinner. But what most surprises, and for a long time even distresses, an Englishman, is the very active share which the ladies take in ministering to his convivial comforts. Not only do they personally superintend, and assist in the various processes of the cookery, but when the dishes are served, they invariably carve them, and, in country houses at least, often hand them round, and supply the gentlemen with clean plates; the host meanwhile sitting quite at his ease, and attending only to the intellectual entertainment of his company. These offices the Norwegian ladies perform with admirable modesty, self-possession, and good humour; and are only distressed when a stranger rises to prevent their fulfilling what they have always been taught to consider a duty, if not a privilege of their sex.Two Summers in Norway.

A WINTER IN ITALY.

I AM glad to have seen one winter in Italy, and certainly I have suffered no inconvenience from it, but if I come again, and for a limited time, it shall be in summer. Every thing here is accomodated to that delightful season of perpetual warmth and light. It is then that the Italian really enjoys his existence, Winter is a vile season, which he rubs through as well as he can by the help of patience and a cloak, and the expectation of a speedy change for the better, and as it can be endured without most of those contrivances which the northern nations have been in a manner forced to employ to resist its greater inclemency, he is much too lazy ever to think of adopting them. Many people here are disappointed with the weather; they expected warmth and sunshine in December and January, which I believe are not to be met with anywhere in Europe; the changes of temperature here are very great and very sudden -quite as much so, I think, as in England. We seldom experience a more abrupt transition than that from a "sirocco" to a "tramontane," either at Florence or at Rome. In short, the merit of the Italian climate seems to be not that the winter is fine, but that it is short; and that the summer, a season which in England is sometimes wholly omitted for a year or two altogether, is always delicious. LORD DUDLEY's Letters.

Be assured that the magnanimity of uprightness, and all the elevating and all the attractive qualities of the human mind, are the best protection of nations, as well as individuals; that the path of honour is the path of true policy; and that the great Governor of the world, in public, as well as in private life, has indissolubly connected, even on this side the grave, the happiness of his creatures, with the exercise of their virtues, and the fulfilment of their duties. -SMYTH'S French Revolution.

JOHN W. PARKER, PUBLISHER, WEST STRAND, LONDON.

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E SOUL BE WITHOU

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MELROSE ABBEY.

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PRESENT APPEARANCE OF THE RUINS.

If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey.

When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruined central tower;
When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;
When silver edges the imagery,

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die
When distant Tweed is heard to rave,

And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave,
Then go-but go alone the while-
Then view St. David's ruined pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear
Was never scene so sad and fair!

SIR WALTER SCOTT. Lay of the Last Minstrel.

In a beautiful vale on a rich tract of land, on the south side of the Tweed, is situated the ancient village, and still more ancient ruined Abbey of Melrose. The district of Roxburghshire to which they belong is said to be unexampled in beauty and fertility, and in interesting

historical and classic associations.

In spite of modern improvements, the old village still preserves much of its curious antique character. It is built in the form of a triangle with small streets leading out at the corners. Many of the houses have evidently been constructed of the ruins of the old abbey. The centre of the triangle is marked by a venerable cross, which is supposed to be coeval with the abbey. It was VOL. XXV.

customary to plant a cross in the principal avenues leading to an abbey, so as to indicate its precincts to pilgrims; but most of these crosses have disappeared, and that of Melrose owes its preservation only to a special endowment. A neighbouring field, called the "Corserig," is held by the proprietor on the sole condition that he maintain the cross in good repair.

The situation of Melrose, like that of most places where the monks permanently settled, is extremely beautiful and salubrious, fertile and secluded. It is sheltered on every side by hills, the most remarkable of which are the Eildons, called Trimontium by the Romans, who settled a military station on the loftiest of the three peaks, which commands a most extensive view, including a great portion of the south-eastern province of Scotland.

The first seat of a religious institution was at Old Melrose, situated about two miles to the east of the village, on the south of the Tweed, which, taking a remarkable sweep, nearly encircles the ground on which which it stood.

The smooth, sloping sides of this river peninsula, which rises to a gentle eminence in the centre, are gracefully conrocky, fringed with wild shrubs, and overhung with woods. trasted with the opposite banks, which are high, abrupt, In ancient times, when all the surrounding country was a thick forest, this spot is said to have presented an open surface of green turf, whence it derived its name, which is compounded of two Celtic words, mull, signifying bare, and

795

rhos, a promontory. The agreeableness of the place, no less than its retired situation, must have recommended it to the missionaries, who, settling here, first instructed the inhabitants of this part of Britain in the knowledge of the Christian religion".

In the year 635, Oswald, the Anglo-Saxon king of Northumberland, while in the enjoyment of an asylum among the Scots or Picts, having embraced the religion of the Gospel, he prevailed on some of the brethren of the Culdee monastery in Icolmkill to assist him in converting his subjects. In the course of time their so great, that churches were built and societies of priests or monks settled in different parts of the country, for the purpose of instructing the people and celebrating religious worship. One of these religious fellowships was established at Old Melrose, on the

success was

site above described.

During many years this house continued to be the centre of a wide sphere of usefulness in those benighted times. The monastery was burned in 839 by Kenneth II., king of Scots, during one of his invasions of the country of the Saxons: the monastery also suffered greatly from the Danish invaders, so much so that the monks were either unable or thought it inexpedient to

rebuild their cells.

At length, after a few attempts made to restore this ancient monastery, it was abandoned, and re-established by David I. in 1136, in a level meadow contiguous to the present village of Melrose. The monks, invited by the munificent founder to occupy the new buildings, were of the reformed class called Cistertians, from their having established their first monastery at Cisteaux, in France, in the year 1098, when they revived the strict observance of monastic life as regulated by St. Benedict

five centuries before.

The monks of Melrose were brought from the abbey

of Rievaulx in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and were

the first of this order who went into Scotland. They were not long established in the new institution before they experienced the bounty of the royal founder. They were granted "the lands of Melrose, Eldun, and Demevie; the lands and wood of Galtenside, with the fishings of the Tweed, along the whole extent of those lands, with the right of pasturage and pannage in the king's forests of Selkirk, Traquair, and in the forest lying between the Gala and the Leader, and also the privilege of taking wood for building and burning from the same forests." Succeeding monarchs and nobles bestowed on the monks of Melrose numerous other privileges and several churches, so that during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they had accumulated vast possessions and various immunities. They possessed lands in Ayr, Dumfries, Selkirk, Berwick, &c. In 1172 Jocelin, bishop of Glasgow, granted them a place called Hassendean, for the purpose of establishing a house of hospitality for wayfarers. Whereupon the monks settled a cell at Hassendean, where several monks went to reside for the purpose of accommodating pilgrims and relieving distressed strangers. It appears from the Chronicle of Melrose, that the monastery itself became a species of inn, for the use of both poor and rich.

Little mention is made of Melrose in the history of the fifteenth century, but in the succeeding half century the Reformation commenced the work of demolition in

the southern part of Scotland. In 1545 a great part of the monastery of Melrose was destroyed by Sir Ralph Eure and Sir Bryan Layton. In the same year Melrose,

* REV. JAMES MORTON. Monastic Annals of Teviotdale.

+ "In the principal monasteries a chronicle was kept, in which the

monks recorded in the Latin language the most remarkable events, both of general and local interest, that occurred within their knowledge. The Chronicle of Melrose Abbey, or rather a considerable part of it, was fortunately preserved from that destruction to which so many of the books found in monasteries were consigned at the Reformation, and is considered as one of the most authentic sources of Scottish history; but it is written in a barbarous style, and with too great brevity except towards the end. It commences with the year 735 and breaks off abruptly in

1270.-MORTON.

with its monastery, was again wasted by the English army, under the Earl of Hertford, and in a few years afterwards it sustained the attacks of the reformers, or rather, was pillaged by the nobility and their military retainers. By the Act of Annexation of religious houses and their property to the crown, the abbey of Melrose, its lands and revenues, fell into the hands of Queen Mary, who conferred them on James, Earl of Bothwell; but he lost them by forfeiture in 1568. James Douglas, the son of William Douglas of Lochleven, was now created commendator of Melrose, by the influence of the Earl of Morton. At length the estates were erected into a temporal lordship for Sir John Ramsey, who had protected James VI. in the Gowry affair; but the greater part of the property was given to Sir Thomas Hamilton, who was created Earl of Melrose in 1619. The Abbey and its domains were acquired in subsequent times by the family of Buc

cleuch.

The buildings within the convent for the residence and service of the abbot and monks, with gardens and other conveniences, were of considerable extent, and

formerly inclosed within a high wall about a mile in circuit. At present the sole remnant of this once magnificent monastery is the ruined church, of which the following description is abridged from the Rev. Mr. Morton's work already quoted.

The church is in the usual form of a Latin cross, with a square tower in the centre, of whch only the west side remains, raised upon a lofty pointed arch. The nave, extending westward from the central tower, consists of a middle avenue, and two narrow side aisles. The pillars are all clustered, and the corbels and key-stones are elegantly and grotesquely carved into the forms of fruit, flowers, vegetables, masks, historical figures, and religious emblems. Eight small square chapels run along the south side of the nave, each of which is lighted by a pointed window, the tracery of which is rich, and varied in every window. The west end of the nave, and five of the chapels included in it, are now roofless. The end next the central tower is arched over, the side aisles and chapels with their original Gothic roof, and the middle avenue with a plain vault thrown over it in 1618, when this place was fitted up for religious worship.

The transept has an arcade in the east side of it next the choir. The north transept is roofless; but the original ribbed and groined vault still covers part of the south transept. It has eight windows, and the tracery of one of them represents a crown of thorns. On the west side, upon two elevated niches in the wall, are and keys, the other a sword. In the north end is a recess in the wall with pedestals for small statues. Under this is a Saxon door opening into a low vaulted chamber, called the wax-cellar, where the tapers and other things used in religious worship are supposed to have been kept. Near this was the remains of a turnpike stair; under the first step of which there was formerly a small concealed vault; probably an armarium, in which the most valuable effects of the monastery might have been secreted in times of disturbance and danger.

statues of St. Peter and St. Paul; the one having a book

The choir and chancel are built in the form of half a

Greek cross. Here the greatest architectural taste is displayed, especially in the structure of the eastern exceedingly light and graceful. The original stone roof, window, which is very beautiful, the tracery being beautifully fretted and sculptured, still crowns the east end of the chancel; and on the floor in the south side of it is a large slab of polished marble, of a greenish black colour, and of a semi-hexagonal form, which is believed to cover the dust of King Alexander II., who was buried beside the high altar of this church in 1249.

The walls are strengthened on the outside with but tresses, some of which shoot up into elegant pinnacles;

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