Protestant times. Beneath this aged portal have passed the lordly baron and the crouching serf, the pampered priest and self-denying reformer, the gay and voluptuous cavalier, and the stern and uncompromising

Roundhead.

It has been the writer's good fortune to visit this lovely spot at different seasons, and under various appearances of the atmosphere; how charming to witness the diorama-like effect of light and shade on such an expansive prospect;-one moment some hillock, or grove, or meadow, gleaming in sunshine, and the next the same objects lost in obscurity. The last time I visited this scene of enchantment, the day had been overcast and the atmosphere was lowering; the sun had sunk beneath a canopy of heavy clouds, and a distance that ordinarily appears of the softest grey, now seemed to reflect only the heavy and lurid colour of the heavens ;but there was a single streak of yellow light in the horizon, which served to discover and distinctly relieve three mountains at a great distance; they are contiguous, and I suppose in Brecon, but never had I seen those hills before; the first rises with gentle undulation, the last is bold and precipitous,

"And from out the plain

Heaves like a long swept wave about to break,

And on the curl hangs pausing."

They only who have spent their happiest days amongst mountains and Alpine scenery, can understand the impressions of delight experienced by suddenly beholding these elevated objects, from spots where least expected.

Now, reader, contrast the church of Little Sodbury with many a stately cathedral, whose enamelled walls and gorgeous altars never heard such streams of heavenly eloquence as were poured out in this lowly shrine, from the fervid lips of the earliest and most high-minded of our reformers; and in the scale of truth and reason how insignificant do they appear; how inferior to the associations of intense interest that hover over the white walls of the most diminutive of parochial churches-St. Adeline of Little Sodbury.

Whitby Abbey, co. York.

"High Whitby's cloister'd pile."-MARMION.

Towards the close of the eleventh century, three poor monks set out from Evesham Abbey for the north, with the pious intention of restoring monastic institutions in Northumbria. They travelled on foot, with a little mule to carry their books and priestly garments, and they wended their way onward, slowly, but cheerfully. Inadequate, indeed, must have appeared, in human estimation, the means possessed by these lowly brethren for the mighty task they had undertaken, but a Divine guidance directed their steps, and prospered their endeavours. Having sojourned for a brief period at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, they journeyed on to Jarrow, where they built themselves huts among ruins of the ancient Abbey of Whitby, and erected a temporary place of worship. Here they gathered together a goodly number of followers, and became the

founders of that holy community, which, subsequently, held such puissant sway in

"Whitby's broad domains."

Before, however, proceeding with the history of the lands of Whitby from the revival of the abbey to the present time, we must not omit a description, brief though it be, of the earlier foundation, which thus owed its revival to the piety of the Eversham monks:

This original monastery was founded under the patronage of king Oswy, whose daughter, Elfleda, was the second abbess. Before the great battle of Winwidfield (or Leeds), in which Penda, king of Mercia, was overthrown by Oswy, the latter vowed, that if he should prove victorious, he would devote his infant daughter to the Lord, and, at the same time, give twelve manors, or possessions of land, for founding monasteries. In fulfilment of this vow, Oswy committed the child Elfleda, who was scarcely a year old, to the care of Hilda, abbess of Hartlepool ; and set apart, for the support of monastic institutions, twelve possessions of land, six in Deiro, and six in Bernicia, cach consisting of ten families." As the battle was gained in the end of 655, the infant Ælfleda might be sent to Hartlepool in the spring of 656, and, two years after, that is, in the beginning of 658, Lady Hilda, "having purchased a possession of ten families in a placed called Streoneshalh, (now Whitby) there built a monastery;" where she and the young princess, with many, if not all of the sisterhood who were at Hartlepool, took up their abode. This possession, though stated to be purchased by Lady Hilda, may be supposed to have been purchased at Oswy's expense, and to have been one of the twelve possessions above mentioned, as each of them consisted of "ten families."

Hilda, the foundress and first abbess of the monastery at Whitby, was a lady of high rank. She was grand-niece to the renowned King Edwin, being the daughter of Prince Hereric, his nephew. Her birth occurred in the year 614. The place is unknown, as is also her birth-day; though tradition states the latter to be the 25th day of August, which has been kept at Whitby, in honour of Lady Hilda, from time immemorial.

About the year 647, when she was thirty-three years of age, Hilda resolved to assume the veil; a step which she might be induced to take, not only from the influence of her pious instructors, but from what she had seen of the instability of earthly greatness, in the disasters that befel the royal families of Northumbria and East-Anglia, to both of which she was nearly related; and, especially, from the example of her sister Hereswith, who, having become a widow, had retired into the monastery of Cale (or Chelles), in France. It was her first design, on taking the religious habit to spend her days in the same monastery with her widowed sister; and, with this view she went to the court of East-Anglia hoping that the king, to whom she was so nearly related, would forward her to France. But when she had remained there a year, without finding any opportunity of going over to the continent, Bishop Aidan, hearing of her detention, invited her to settle in her own country, and, having obtained "a place of one family" on the north bank of the river Wear, she there pursued the monastic life with a few female associates.

At the expiration of a year, she was made abbess of Hartlepool; Heiu or Hegu, the foundress, the first abbess of that monastery, and the first

nun in Northumbria, having removed to Tadcaster, where she commenced another nunnery. In her new situation at Hartlepool, Hilda acquitted herself in such a manner as added lustre to her character, and gave the highest satisfaction to Bishop Aidan, and other pious friends, who often visited her monastery. Here she had presided some years, maintaining a high character for piety and wisdom, when she removed on the occasion above mentioned, to the banks of the Esk, taking with her the young Princess Ælfleda, and a large company of pious females.

Being, no doubt, constructed of wood, covered with reeds or thatch, and furnished in the most simple style, like all the other religious buildings of the Scottish missionaries and their disciples, the monastery of Streoneshalh would require but a few weeks to complete it; so that Hilda and her associates would enter on their new habitation, in the same season in which the undertaking was begun. The institution probably commenced on a small scale; but it soon rose to the first rank among the monasteries of Northumbria. The fame of Hilda's piety, intelligence, and prudence, attracted numbers to her community. Those of the higher classes who embraced a religious life, would feel a pleasure in becoming inmates of an abbey, where a lady so respectable presided, and where a young princess was educated. Yet the new monastery was conducted in the spirit of primitive simplicity. Charity and peace were peculiarly cultivated: none were rich, and none poor; but they had all things in common, nothing being deemed the property of any one individual.

Though we have no account of any new grants of land made to Lady Hilda's monastery, in addition to the first endowment, there can be no doubt that it increased in wealth as well as in numbers. Enjoying, as it did in a high degree, the patronage of the royal family of Northumbria, its possessions must have grown rapidly; Oswy and his nobles vieing with one another in advancing its interests. Some of the incidents recorded by Bede, as having occurred in the days of Elfleda, imply that the territories of the monastery were then of great extent; which is also obvious, from the erection of so many new monasteries, subordinate to the parent institution.

The death of the good Lady Hilda happened at the close of the year 680. Her piety, prudence, and learning, caused her to be dignified with the title of Saint, and her claims to the honour seemed to have been well founded. Bede has given us no account of any miracles which she wrought; but his lack of service has been amply made up by later writers, who have emblazoned her memory with splendid fictions. According to these fabulists, the spiral shells called ammonites, which abound in our alum rock, in a petrified state, are the remains of serpents, which once infested the neighbourhood of Streoneshalh, but were beheaded and turned into stone by Lady Hilda's prayers; and her territory was so sacred, that when the sea-fowls attempted to fly over it, they were constrained to do her homage, by lowering their pinions and dropping to the ground. Scott alludes to the tradition:

"They told, how in their convent cell
A Saxon princess once did dwell,

The lovely Edelfled;

And how of thousand snakes, each one

Was changed into a coil of stone,
When holy Hilda prayed;
Themselves, within their holy bound,
Their stony folds had often found.
They told, how sea-fowls' pinions fail,
As over Whitby's towers they sail,
And, sinking down with flutterings faint,
They do their homage to the saint."

MARMION, Canto II.

Hilda was succeeded in the government of Streoneshalh Abbey, by her royal pupil Ælfleda, then 26 years of age. Whatever might be wanting to this young abbess, in years and experience, was amply compensated by the assistance of her mother, the Queen Eanfleda; who, after the death of her husband, King Owsy, retired to this monastery, to spend the remainder of her days with her favourite child, in the practice of piety and virtue.

The death of Elfleda took place in 713, when she was 59 years of age. We have no account of the close of her life, but are informed that she was interred in St. Peter's Church, beside the remains of her royal parents and her venerable predecessor.

The records of the Abbey, from the death of Ælfleda to the irruption of the Danes, are irrecoverably lost. It is, however, a mournful fact of history, that in the year 867 the holy edifice was completely destroyed by those northern invaders, and that it lay desolate to the time to which we have referred, when its revival was accomplished by the monks from Eversham. Of those pious Christians, one, named Reinfrid, had been formerly a soldier of the Conquest, and, as such, had been known to William de Percy, Lord of Whitby, who granted to him and his fraternity the site of the ancient Abbey, with two carucates of land in Presteby for their support.

The ruins of the abbey still bore the marks of its former greatness; for, according to an ancient record, "there were then in that town, as some old inhabitants have told us, about forty cells, or oratories, of which nothing was left but bare walls and empty altars." Among these ruins, Reinfrid and his associates took up their abode; and, while they formed habitations for themselves, they probably, as at Jarrow, repaired some part of the church, or some one of the numerous oratories or porches that surrounded it, to serve as a place of worship. The piety of Reinfrid and his brethren, soon attracted several respectable persons to their society, and the new convent began to prosper.

Not long after, the humble Reinfrid, perceiving the superior abilities and learning of one of the community, Stephen of Whitby, yielded place to that famous churchman, who, not content with the title of Prior, borne by his predecessor, assumed the higher designation of Abbot, and, aspiring at greater things, aimed at nothing less than the restoration of the Abbey to its pristine glory. These ambitious efforts roused the jealousy of the lord paramount, William de Percy, and the quarrels which ensued, as well as the attacks of pirates from the sea, forced the community to retire for a time to Lestingham. At length, all disputes adjusted, the community were again collected at Whitby, in increased power and splendour, and thenceforward they enjoyed their ample possessions undisturbed and respected, until the dissolution of the monas

teries, temp. Henry VIII., when Whitby Abbey was surrendered to the Crown, and the site and manor leased for 21 years to Sir Richard Cholmley.

Thus ended the religious tenancy of these ancient lands; but, before entering on the history of the lay proprietors, we must give some account of one of the peculiar feudal services which the monks required of their homagers, called "the making up of the horngarth." This curious custom derived its name, in all probability, from the assembling of the tenants at a specified time each year in some garth, or inclosure fenced with wood, and from the circumstance of their being called together by the blowing of a horn. Its origin is involved in obscurity, if we discard as fabulous the following romantic legend, invented by some imaginative monk :—

"In the fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Second, after the conquest of England, by William, Duke of Normandy, the Lord of Ugglebarnby, then called William de Bruce, the Lord of Sneaton, called Ralph de Piercie, with a gentleman and freeholder of Fylingdales, called Allatson, did, in the month of October, the 16th day of the same month, appoint to meet and hunt the wild boar, in a certain wood, or desert, called Eskdale-Side. The wood, or place, did belong to the abbot of the monastery of Whitby, who was called Sedman. Then the foresaid gentlemen did meet, with their boar-staves and hounds, in the place aforenamed, and there found a great wild boar, and the hounds did run him very well, near about the chapel and hermitage of Eskdale-Side, where there was a monk of Whitby, who was an Hermit. The boar being sore wounded, and hotly pursued, and dead run, took in at the chapel door, and there laid him down, and presently died. The hermit shut the hounds forth of the chapel, and kept himself within, at his meditations and prayers, the hounds standing at bay, without. The gentlemen in the thick of the wood, put behind their game, following the cry of their hounds, came to the hermitage, and found the hounds round about the chapel. Then came the gentlemen to the door of the chapel, and called the hermit, who did open the door, and come forth, and, within, lay the boar, dead; for the which, the gentlemen, in a fury, because their hounds were put from their game, did, most violently and cruelly, run at the hermit with their boar-staves, whereof he died. Then the gentlemen, knowing and perceiving he was in peril of death, took sanctuary at Scarborough; but, at that time, the abbot, in great favour with the king, did remove them out of the sanctuary, whereby they came in danger of the law, and could not be privileged, but like to have the severity of the law, which was death for death. But the hermit, being a holy man, and being very sick, and at the point of death, sent for the abbot, and desired him to send for the gentlemen who had wounded him to death. The abbot so doing, the gentlemen came, and the hermit being sore sick, said, I am sure to die of these wounds. The abbot answered, they shall die for thee. But the hermit said, not so, for I freely forgive them my death, if they be content to be enjoyned to this penance, for the safeguard of their souls. The gentlemen being there present, and terrified with the fear of death, bid him enjoyn what he would, so he saved their lives. Then said the hermit, You and yours shall hold your lands of the abbot of Whitby, and his successors, in this manner: that, upon Ascension-eve, you, or some for you, shall come to the wood of the Stray-head, which is in Eskdale-side, the same day, at sun-rising, and there shall the officer of the abbot blow his horn, to the intent that you may know how to find him, and he shall deliver unto you, William de Bruce, ten stakes, teu stout stowers, and ten yedders, to be cut by you, or those that come for you, with a knife of a penny price; and you, Ralph de Piercie, shall take one and twenty of such sort, to be cut in the same manner; and you, Allotson, shall take nine of each sort, to be cut as aforesaid; and to be taken on your backs, and carried to the town of Whitby, and so to be there before nine of the clock of the same day aforementioned. And at the hour of nine of the clock (if it be full sea, to cause that service), as long as it is