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unskilfulness of the surgeon, and the man died. It is very possible that the whole of this story may have originated from the single incident of Taylor having met with his death in the way he did; the added circumstance of the previous dream, etc., are not beyond the license of embellishment, of which rumour and tradition are accustomed to avail themselves in such cases. The accident which befell Taylor, however, being popularly attributed to the special interposition of Heaven, is said to have, for the time, saved the abbey from demolition. But the place soon after passed out of the possession of the earls of Huntingdon, and has since been successively in that of various other families."

When musing amid the broken pillars and mouldering walls of time-worn ruins, surrounded by forest trees, a consciousness of seclusion must be communicated to the mind; but when these trees are found, not only in the immediate neighbourhood of a ruin, but absolutely rooted within the building itself, and lifting up their aspiring heads through the roofless apartments, they tell a tale of yet deeper interest. Thought is compelled by them to retrograde, and reflection is flung back to a distant period. The ruined pile must have been a ruin, long before the trees could have rooted themselves in their

deserted floors. It is thus that the gazer on Netley Abbey is affected: he concludes, from the desolation round him, that ages have passed in succession over the mouldering pile; but the tall trees add their living testimony to this truth.

This mingling of massy walls with the stems, branches, and foliage of goodly trees, has a strange effect. Nature appears to be asserting her sovereignty once more, and taking possession of what for ages she has been deprived. I could muse here for a day. The place is overgrown with vegetation; the grass is rank beneath the foot. Before me is a goodly and luxuriant shrub, springing from a fissure in the decayed stone wall, from the very bosom of the building, adorning the hoary walls with leaves and flowers.

Netley is, undoubtedly, one of the most romantic and picturesque ruins in England; though nothing but its grey stone walls are standing, to tell the tale of what it was in former years. So small a portion of the edifice remains, that it strikes the visitor as an abbey in miniature; and perhaps this circumstance increases, rather than diminishes, its influence over the spectator. The eye takes in at once the entirety of its attractions; and the mind,

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undistracted by a multiplicity of parts, thus brought to a point, more distinctly and more pleasingly indulges its meditations. The poet Bowles has thus addressed the ruin.

"Fallen pile! I ask not what has been thy fate;
But when the weak winds wafted from the main,
Through each lone arch, like spirits that complain,
Come hollow to my ear, I meditate

On this world's passing pageant, and the lot
Of those who once might proudly, in their prime,
Have stood with giant port; till, bowed by time
Or injury, their ancient boast forgot,

They might have sunk, like thee; though thus forlorn
They lift their heads, with venerable hairs

Besprent, majestic yet, and as in scorn

Of mortal vanities, and short-lived cares;
E'en so dost thou, lifting thy forehead grey,

Smile at the tempest, and time's sweeping sway."

Standing, as I now am, on a fallen fragment of the ruin, and gazing on that fair eastern window, surrounded by the ivy-clad, grey, dilapidated walls, and the branches of goodly trees, I am beckoning from the shadows of long-past ages, the father abbots and the cowled monks of other days: ay! and they come at fancy's bidding. They are gliding through the gothic arches in procession, telling their beads, and bowing down at an image of the cross. Even now, their chanted matins and requiems are ringing through these roofless walls. The past

is before me; yonder is a nook with a skull and a cross, and here comes a pale-faced, bare-headed, and bare-footed monk, to offer up his Ave Marias, kneeling on the cold flint stone.

A visitor has entered the ruin; I see no procession; I hear no chant; the nook, the skull, and the cross are gone; the bare-headed monk has departed; the picture of my imagination is destroyed; and, less disposed for company than for meditation, I leave the ruins of Netley.

DOVER.

TRULY this is a drenching day; and though the glimpse I have taken of the pier, the castle, and the cliffs, has told me that Dover has something to offer to the attention of a rambler, yet is the present prospect any thing but cheering. Well! it will not rain always; if we have the shade to-day, we may have the sunshine to-morrow; and it is hardly worth while to be out of temper with that which a bad temper may make worse, but cannot mend.

Half an hour ago, I entered this hotel, or inn, for it appears to be both the one and the other. The welcome given me by its proprietor was quite enough to win a heart much more churlish than mine. "Welcome to Dover, sir," said he, with a most influential bow. "Glad it will make me, if I can give you any information, or render you any service as a stranger; and proud indeed shall I be of your patronage, if you are not otherwise engaged. We have spa

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