died, and was buried by the side of his brother, April, 1234. GILBERT MORTIMER, third son. Married a daughter of Alexander II., king of Scotland. Died A. D. 1242. WALTER MARSHALL, fourth son of the above. Died at Goodrich Castle, December 4th, 1245. Buried at Tinterne. ANSELME MARSHALL, fifth son of the above, dean of Salisbury, became last earl of this family, and died at Striguil Castle, December 21, A.D. 1245, surviving his brother only seventeen days. Buried at Tinterne. MAUD, the male heirs failing, was married to Hugh Bigod, earl of Norfolk and Suffolk. ROGER BIGOD, earl of Norfolk and marshal of England, Hugh Bigod's brother's son, granted a charter to Tinterne Abbey, confirmatory of the former charters, with a further increase of territory; dated at Modesgat, (Madget) August 4th, A. D. 1301, in the twenty-ninth year of Edward I.; and immediately afterwards surrendered his estates and honours to his sovereign, Edward I., for a valuable recompense. Thus one hundred and seventy years elapsed from the first foundation of the brotherhood and the grant of the first charter by Walter Fitz Richard de Clare, lord of Caerwent, to the period of the completion of their privileges by Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk. During this lapse, the family of the noble founders had undergone two mutations, so that an illustrious stranger, connected to the Clares by marriage alone, lived to witness and share in the fruits of their piety and munificence; while several generations of monks must have passed away in the same interval of time, between those who rejoiced when the first foundation stone of the stately edifice was laid, and those who sang the loud anthem on that solemn day, when the festal ceremony of the mass was first celebrated at the high altar of St. Mary's shrine. But the period of the destruction of these monastic orders arrived; and the blow of royal indignation and cupidity, which had been so long and seriously apprehended, at length fell with fatal force, involving in one common dissolution six hundred and forty-five monastries, ninety colleges, two thousand three hundred and seventy-four chantries or chapels, and one hundred and ten hospitals. Amidst this general spoliation, Tinterne did not escape. At this time there were thirteen re ligious, and the estates, were, according to Dugdale, estimated at £192 : ls. : 4 d. per annum; or, according to Speed, £256: 11s.: 6d. The ruins were granted in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Henry VIII. to Henry, earl of Worcester, the ancestor of the present proprietor, his grace the duke of Beaufort. "In 1553, there remained in charge £3: 6s. : 8d. in annuities and corrodies," or set allowances of meat, drink and clothing, to which the heirs of the founders were entitled for a certain number of their retinue. III.-A WALK TO THE ABBEY BY MOONLIGHT. LONG after the last crimson streak had faded in the western sky, and an autumnal moon had risen in such unclouded brightness as almost to rival day, we retraced our steps to Tinterne Abbey, and trod in silence its dewy turf. When the meridian sun invests its ivied arches with a golden fringe, and bids the green and perfumed garment which nature has woven expand its ample folds, as if to cover the scars of human demolition,— then is the ruin beautiful; but when the dim shadows of night have shut in obscurity these minor beauties; when the pale moon pencils her silvery rays upon the shrouded columns; when the lofty arches which stride across the starry sky seem loftier far, the whole edifice itself, and not its leafy vestment alone, appearing to expand; then is the ruin sublime. The solemn stillness is interrupted by the unearthy voice of the bird of night alone; bats fearlessly flit along the desolated aile; a chilly breeze steals through the roofless void, and utters a monitory rustling amongst the withered leaves; the dejected moon-beam grows pallid upon the chrystalled grass; the refulgent star of evening, which had just now sparkled beside the phantom shaft of the eastern window, has dipped beneath the hill; the mutilated form of Strongbow, as if indued with life, stands forward fearfully conspicuous amidst the increasing gloom;-and now that indescribable feeling of dread which steals over the soul in the hour of darkness, harmonizes with the scene, and sublimity becomes the parent of awe. The following graphic lines are quoted from an unpublished poem of an intimate friend who accompanied me in most of the rides and walks mentioned in this book, and their insertion here cannot but be deemed highly appropriate. TINTERNE ABBEY. O Art! thou mole-hill of the pigmy Man, Of mortal built, my spirit owns thee now As woods and rock and hills which round in glory stand: The focus where the rays of beauty meet, Bending, confess thee goddess of the scene: Yet how laboriously rude, how mean I tread the moon-lit Abbey: O my soul, How nobly art thou struggling to be free, Spurning the temple's and the world's controul, And feeling most inadequate to thee, The loftiest dome, the grandest scenery; O'er views that would oppress thee or appal, Rising, like light bark o'er the mounting sea; And where if weak or mortal thou would'st fall, Expanding to survey and compass more than all. Palace of piety! devotion here Should wear a crowned angel's robe of white, Of pendant stone, with slumber seems oppressed, Or with a charmed dream of peaceful rapture blessed : And through thy lofty arch a single star E |