It is boldly affirm'd, by the folks great and small, squall. So, I think, when the facts of the case you recall, Viz., that, spite of the hope Held out by the Pope, Sir Ingoldsby Bray was d-d after all! MORAL. Foot-pages, and Servants of ev'ry degree, See what comes of lying! don't join in a league Ladies!-married and single, from this understand Put it into the post, and don't cheat the revenue! Reverend gentlemen!-you who are given to roam, Don't keep up a soft correspondence at home! But while you're abroad lead respectable lives; Love your neighbours, and welcome,-but don't love their wives! And, as bricklayers cry from the tiles and the leads When they're shovelling the snow off, "TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEADS!" Knights!-whose hearts are so stout, and whose arms are so strong, Learn, to twist a wife's neck is decidedly wrong! If it's business of consequence, DO IT YOURSELF! The state of society seldom requires People now to bring home with them unburied Friars, But they sometimes do bring home an inmate for life; Now-don't do that by proxy!-but choose your own wife! For think how annoying 'twould be, when you're wed, To find in your bed, On the pillow, instead Of the sweet face you look for-A SARACEN'S HEAD! Alas, for Ingoldsby Abbey!-Alas that one should have to say Periêrunt etiam Ruinæ! Its very Ruins now are tiny! There is a something in the very sight of an old Abbey -family associations apart-as Ossian says (or MacPherson for him), "pleasing yet mournful to the soul!" nor could I ever yet gaze on the roofless walls and ivyclad towers of one of these venerable monuments of the piety of bygone days without something very like an unbidden tear rising to dim the prospect. Something of this, I think, I have already hinted in recording our picnic with the Seaforths at Bolsover. Since then I have paid a visit to the beautiful remains of what once was Netley, and never experienced the sensation to which I have alluded in a stronger degree;-if its character was somewhat changed before we parted-it is not my fault. Still, be the drawbacks what they may, I shall ever mark with a white stone the day on which I for the first time beheld the time-worn cloisters of NETLEY ABBEY. A LEGEND OF HAMPSHIRE. 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 'twas holy ground. Then I thought of the ancient time- When to Matin and Vesper, and Compline chime, And thy courts, and "long-drawn aisles" among, And then a Vision pass'd Across my mental eye; * And silver shrines, and shaven crowns, Stiff, and staid, and solemn, and sad, - Then came the Abbot, with mitre and ring, And "dear little souls," In clean linen stoles, (Then you know, They'd a "movable Do," Not a fix'd one as now and of course never knew * "In my mind's eye, Horatio!"- Hamlet. How to set up a musical Hullah-baloo.) It was, in sooth, a comely sight, And I welcom'd the vision with pure delight. But then "a change came o'er" My spirit-a change of fear- And mortar and bricks All ready to fix, And I said, "Here's a Nun has been playing some tricks! That horrible hole!-it seems to say, 'I'm a grave that gapes for a living prey!'" And my heart grew sick, and my brow grew sad- Ah me! ah me!-'tis sad to think That Maiden's eye, which was made to wink, Or be closed for aye In this kind of way, Shut out for ever from wholesome day, And that Maiden's lip, Which was made to Should here grow wither'd and dry as a chip! |