DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 181 



into his judgment from the consideration, that these noble masses 

 of architecture were in times of internal warfare and general inse- 

 curity the sanctuaries in which peaceful industry, trade, agriculture, 

 and arts found an asylum ; and it must not be dissembled, often did 

 he who fled from the pursuit of justice there find protection, and 

 sometimes presumable it is, amendment of life — the place being so 

 fitted to throw the mind into a train of serious and solemn reflection. 

 In the following lines of a Protestant Poet and Divine, Crabbe, 

 may be said to be chanted the dirge over these fallen monuments of 

 another age : — 



" They look, they can but look with many a sigh 

 On sacred buildings doom'd in dust to lie ; 

 Where trembling penitents their guilt confess'd, 

 Where want had succour, and contrition rest ; 

 There, weary men from trouble found relief, 

 There men in sorrow found repose in grief : 

 To scenes like these, the fainting soul retired, 

 Revenge and anger in their cells expired, 

 By pity soothed, remorse lost half her fears, 

 And softened pride dropped penitential tears." 



Be it further observed, that the monasteries were the infirmaries, 

 the dispensaries, the hospitals of the aged sick and needy — the hos- 

 telries of the weary and benighted traveller — the retreats of 

 the penitent, and of those who shrunk from the tyranny of the 

 baronial castle, and from the strifes and storms of the open world ;f 



instantly took fire, and the deluded multitude seemed to rejoice in this 

 shameful familiarity with the Divine Spirit. The forms and ceremonies of 

 the Romish Church, thus addressing the senses and the weak imaginations 

 of the ignorant vulgar, render the attendance on them more a matter of 

 pleasure and relaxation, than the performance of a solemn and important 

 duty, or an act of pure worship." — Portugal Illustrated, second edit., p. 149. 

 This statement, if made by a nameless writer, might almost be discredited on 

 the ground of its not being a possible or conceivable thing, that any Europe- 

 an nation in the nineteenth century could be still in the infancy of the world 

 with respect to the cause of truth and the gradual progress of the human 

 mind. The scrupulous veracity, however, of Mr. Kinsey, renders his testi- 

 mony of facts of the greatest weight; while his acute and just observations, 

 graphic descriptions of scenery, in addition to the faculty which he has of 

 seizing with a rapidity of glance so happily expressed by the French phrase, 

 coup d'oeil, the character of a country or people, enable the most impartial 

 criticism to rank his name high among British travellers. 



* There is much deep reflection and calm extension of view in this re- 

 mark of Hume: — "A woman of family, who failed of a settlement in the 

 marriage state — an accident to which such persons were more liable than 



