246 St. Omef, [MARCH, 



It only remains for me to mention the ruins which form so distin- 

 guishing a feature of this town; they are situated near the lower or 

 south-eastern extremity, within the walls, and consist of nearly the 

 whole external parts of a great Gothic temple, formerly the church of 

 the monastery of St. Bertin. It is nearly four hundred years since 

 this once magnificent temple was erected; and yet, to judge from 

 its remains, it must, before its mutilation at the period of the revo- 

 lution, have borne all the appearance of* a newly erected building, so 

 fresh and perfect are all its remaining parts. The great square tower 

 over the western entrance is nearly perfect, and its belfry still contains 

 the original bells. In all other respects the building is a ruin, all its 

 windows being vacant, no vestige of a roof remaining to any part, and 

 the great fourfold arch, which formed the centre of the transept, stand- 

 ing self-supported, as it were, against the grey sky, and looking as if a 

 breath would bring it to the ground ; within, too, and all about, lie 

 broken columns, fragments of capitals, cornices, &c. intermixed with 

 piles of square stones, formerly composing the inner and outer walls. 

 By climbing through certain breaches in the latter, you readily reach 

 the interior, which presents a still more dreary and desolate appearance. 

 The almost fearful effect of the whole is also heightened by every part 

 appearing to be on the point of falling. By a crack which traverses 

 the body of the great tower itself, you see evidently that that must 

 have fallen long ago, but for a huge buttress of modern stone work, 

 which has been applied to one side of it. As I have said above, the 

 exterior walls, and nearly all the stone work of the windows, are still 

 standing. Of the interior walls, all are destroyed but that which formed, 

 with the exterior wall on the same side, the northern side aisle. This 

 form, together with the beauty of the ornamental flower-work of the 

 capitals, cornices, &c., gives a most rich appearance to the details of 

 the noble ruins, which sadly contrasts with their desolate general con- 

 dition, and with the feeling of their absolute nullity which a contem- 

 plation of them causes. Every thing you look upon seems to breathe 

 forth a sense of that utter uselessness which results from the view of 

 parts arbitrarily disconnected from each other, and consequently de- 

 prived of all consistency, and referring to no object or end. Here stands 

 a pillar, rising abruptly out of the earth, with nothing above looking to 

 it for support : there a broken shaft, half buried in the soil, for the cor- 

 responding parts of which you may look in vain. On one hand stretches 

 forth a long line of pointed arches, elegantly designed, and delicately 

 executed ; and when you turn, to look for the corresponding line, its 

 place is occupied by a pile of shapeless unhewn stories. Meanwhile, 

 where a solemn silence should reign, and every thing be wrapped in a 

 " dim religious light," the winds are whistling, birds are crying, 

 and the sun is throwing its sharp shadows and its dazzling lights. Most 

 great piles of ruins are so situated, that vegetation of some kind or other 

 has more or less overgrown their deformities ; and in some (Tintern 

 Abbey, for instance) it has so entirely possessed itself of them, and in 

 so doing, has so connected and knit their various parts together, that 

 they are even more whole, consistent, and beautiful to look upon than 

 when in their pristine state, especially ruins of the Gothic kind, the 

 leading idea and genius of which evidently had its origin in those first 

 and finest of all temples, the antique woods and groves. But here, not 

 a trace of vegetation is to be seen; all is bare as the bleak side of. ai 



