you went also another way to the refectory, which was on the south side of the quadrangle: this was a large curious building, and rebuilt about the year 1247, by the Isaid Abbot Leech. About the middle of the court was a lavatory or conduit, from whence water was conveyed into the kitchen, which was ample and convenient, and adjoined to the refectory on the west side; and behind, more to the south, stood the infirmary, where was a neat chapel or oratory, for the sick monks to attend divine service as long as they were able.

The next place observable was the dormitory, which was a long room divided into several partitions; but the most remarkable building of its kind was the Abbot's lodgings, which were without the common court or quadrangle, near the great gate. These were spacious, fair, and large, and had a hall more befitting a common society than a private man. The great stairs leading up into it were broad enough to contain five or six persons walking up a-breast. Between the two gates was a row.

of buildings allotted to poor clerks and other indigent persons, and these had also a chapel adjoining their habitation, dedicated to St. Nicholas.

The fabrick of the Abbey Church was more than ordinary excelling, and not only the envy of other religious houses in England, but also beyond the seas, it being equally admired by foreigners, as well as our own neighbouring inhabitants, for the curiousness of its architecture, according to those times, the variety and exquisiteness of every window, the uniformity of the pillars and pinnacles, two stately. towers, one at the west end, and another between the body and chancel or choir; neither was it more rare for the elegancy without than within.

Had Osney Abbey (says Willis*) been suffered to continue, and the four Oxford Friary Churches to have stood, scarcely any place whatsoever would have been

*Survey of Oxford Cathedral,

adorned with such stately churches as Oxford for it is certain these excelled what are left standing, as much as the best church now in being does the meanest in that city.

After the dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII. the king, to make some amends, was pleased to project the erection of some new collegiate churches and bishopricks, and to endow them out of the revenues of the late religious houses. These he in some measure effected by adding six episcopal Sees to the old number, five of which yet remain, viz. Chester, Gloucester, Bristol, Oxford, and Peterborough, that of Westminster, after ten years continuance, having been abolished by his son and successor, Edward VI. How five other intended bishopricks came never to be settled, viz. Dunstaple, Colchester, Shrewsbury, Bodmin cum Launceston, and Southwell, to which he had appointed bishops, is said to have been owing to the king's luxury, who had found other means for his money, which unhappily occasioned him, at the latter end of his reign, to make several al

terations, and strip many episcopal Sees of their best estates and patrimonies, particularly this of Oxford, and alter and remove the first settlement of it from the most magnificent Abbey Church of Osney, to the Priory Church of St. Frideswide, not half so large or beautiful a fabric as where it was first fixed.

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IV. OSNEY BELLS.

The invention of bells, that is to say, such as are hung in the towers or steeples of Christian churches, is, by Polydore Vergil, and others, ascribed to Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, in Campania, about the year 400; it is said that the names Nola and Campanæ, the one referring to the eity, the other to the country, were for that reason given to them.

In the times of popery, bells were baptized and anointed. They were exorcised and blessed by the bishop, from a belief, that when these ceremonies were performed, they had power to drive the devil out of

the air, to calm tempests, to extinguish fire, and to recreate even the dead.

The bells of Osney Abbey, near Oxford, were very famous; their several names were Douce, Clement, Austin, Hauteeter,* Gabriel, and John.

Near Old Windsor is a public house, vulgarly called the Bells of Bosely; this house was originally built for the accommodation of bargemen, and others navigating the river Thames between London and Oxford. It has a sign of six bells, i. e. the bells of Osney.

From the dexterity of the English in composing and ringing musical peals, wherein the sounds interchange in regular order, a practice which is said to be peculiar to them, England has been called the ringing island.

V. OXFORD TOWERS.

In conformity to the pedantry of the

*Potius Hautcleri