MUCHELNEY ABBEY. 77 



eventually lost in the inisty horizon. At intervals the ear 

 also may be employed, and can detect the lowings of unseen 

 herds, borne faintly on the wind from remote pastures. 

 Far away in the mietet of this ocean of greenery, lies, 

 eingularly contrasting with the unvarying flatness of the 

 6urrounding tract, an island of trees — dark, sombre, and 

 motionless — giving mysterious suggestions of reward to 

 feet which shall undertake the toil and travail of the in- 

 tervening reach. After an hour's walk the shady eminence 

 is gained. The aspect of the scene immediately and 

 entirely changes. A church and ancient vicarage house 

 are first visible, leaving which on his left hand, and makino- 

 his way through a large farm-yard, surrounded by goodly 

 barns, rieks and wheat niows, the traveller is suddenly 

 brought to a stand, in a mode which he will not easily 

 forget. An exquisite group of buildings —half ecclesias- 

 tical, half doraestic — lies before him. Luxuriant ivy 

 conceals the greater portion of the nearest edifice ; but he 

 can catch delightful glimpses of mullioned windows, and 

 rieh buttresses, and delicate battlements, topped by a pic- 

 turesque Stack of ornamental chimneys, and, beyond the 

 main dwelling, of a wall, pi-ofusely covered with panel- 

 work and other decorative adjunets, in which the builders 

 of the Perpendicular era delighted to indulge. The 

 mysterious indications which were suggested to him several 

 miles away have not, he finds, deeeived him. He feels a 

 charm, and breathes an atmosphci-e of beauty. The very 

 name of the place, uttered, written, or printed, has for him, 

 or at least for many a wayfarer, something, and not a little, 

 about it of special and peculiar fascination. He is within 

 the sacred precinets of Muchelney Abbey ! 



For many hundred ycars Religion has called the place 

 her own. Here, §o far away ae in Anglo-Saxon times, a 



