ourselves in a spacious area, which had formerly the name of the Fountain court. The south side, by which we enter, appears to have been heretofore chambered, and divided into various offices. So was

also the left or west side of the court; where some imagine the bakery and ovens may still be traced. But to whatever uses the apartments which formerly belonged to these two sides might have been applied, the traces of them are now extremely obscure.

On the third side, opposite to the entrance, is the south wall of the church, clothed with an exuberance of ivy; through which are seen the apertures of the windows, no longer decked with storied glass, nor contributing by their gloom to superstitious devotion. Where legendary saints and martyrs, on the ornamented panes, once testified the zeal of the founder and the skill of the artist, the ivy flaunts, and the daw builds her nest; while, to a fanciful eye, Nature and Time

seem proud of their triumphs over the labour and the ingenuity of man.

Along the fourth side, range the only apartments that retain any conspicuous vestiges of their former use.

Not far from the door of entrance, on the right, a cavity in the wall is pointed out, whence a ponderous chest of treasure is said to have been formerly removed. In the discovery of this treasure, the dream-inspiring influence of Netley was again made evident. The subject was a poor husbandman; who, in the visions of the night, was repeatedly advertised of a certain place in the abbey, wherein riches were concealed. He at length resolved to attend to the suggestion; and, at the very spot which his dream had pointed out, he discovered the wealth it had promised him. But unluckily forgetting to dream of the most prudent method of securing his acquisition, the country man's good fortune reached the ears of his master; who contrived to secure the booty to him

self, without the trouble of dreaming about it.

Entering the first doorway on the right or eastern side, we are brought into a passage; from which, turning again to the right, we enter a small ruined apartment; remarkable for being the only room on the ground floor, except the kitchen, and the ruins mentioned at the entrance, that has any traces of a fire place.

The next apartment is generally supposed to have been the refectory, or dining room, of the monastery. It is about forty-five feet long, and twenty-four in width.

The founders of religious orders did not leave even the dining hour without its regulations. The abbot was to sit at the head of the table, the monks below him, in order of seniority; while one of their number ascended a pulpit, and read to them a portion of history or divinity. In

the mean time, the monks, with their eyes fixed on the table, were enjoined to listen in silence; and even to drink, to lay aside their platters, and to roll up their nap. kins, in a prescribed order and time.*

The formality and unsociableness of snch a meal, even had it been conducted with strict conformity to rule, might have been in some degree compensated by its becoming a season of mental improvement, if the subjects which the reader selected had been adapted to such a purpose. Yet is it not to be feared, that nothing better than an increase of religious absurdity and bigoted superstition, was likely to arise from the history and divinity to be found in the majority of conventual libraries; at a period when the marvellous chronicles of immoral saints, and the perplexing subtilties of sophistical schoolmen, had superseded the unvarnished facts and the simple doctrines of that

Mon. Ang. in Pref. in Introduc. et tom, ii, p. 955.

divine volume, which alone is the source of pure and undefiled religion.

It does not appear that any discussion of the topics which came before the auditory, was permitted on these occasions. This indeed would have converted the hour of social refreshment into an excel. lent opportunity for the diffusion and cor rection of knowledge by the interchange of sentiments. But that church which never ceases to preach an implicit faith, would not be forward to encourage any such dangerous experiments. To preserve uniformity of sentiment, men must shut their eyes, and follow their leaders.

But there is little reason to suppose that the dinners of Netley refectory long continued to be silent meals. An old Popish writer, lamenting the degeneracy of monastic discipline, and that of the Cistercians among others, confesses that in his time there was "nothing of the Scriptures, nothing that concerned men's souls, nothing but idle talk and laughing, when the E