THE ANTIQUITIES [LETT. 



thought the boys ; and the notion of doing some mischief gave 

 a xest to the enterprise. As Dryden says upon another occa- 

 sion 



'' It look'd so like a sin it pleased the more." 



Had the Priory been only levelled to the surface of the 

 ground, the discerning eye of an antiquary might have ascer- 

 tained its ichnography, and some judicious hand might have 

 developed its dimensions. But, beside other ravages, the very 

 foundations have been torn up for the repair of the highways : 

 'so that the site of this convent is now become a rough, rugged 

 pasture-field, full of hillocks and pits, choked with nettles, and 

 dwarf-elder, and trampled by the feet of the ox and the heifer. 



As the tenant at the Priory was lately digging among the 

 foundations, for materials to mend the highways, his labourers 

 discovered two large stones, with which the farmer was so 

 pleased that he ordered them to be taken out whole. One of 

 these proved to be a large Doric capital, worked in good taste ; 

 and the other a base of a pillar ; both formed out of the soft 

 freestone of this district. These ornaments, from their dimen- 

 sions, seem to have belonged to massive columns ; and show 

 that the church of this convent was a large and costly edifice. 

 They were found in the space which has always been supposed 

 to have contained the south transept of the Priory church. 

 Some fragments of large pilasters were also found at the same 

 time. The diameter of the capital was two feet three inches 

 and a half; and of the column, where it had stood on the base, 

 eighteen inches and three quarters. 



Two years ago some labourers digging again among the ruins 

 found a sort of rude thick vase or urn of soft stone, containing 

 about two gallons in measure, on the verge of the brook, in the 

 very spot which tradition has always pointed out as having been 

 the site of the convent kitchen. This clumsy utensil, 1 whether 

 intended for holy water, or whatever purpose, we were going to 



1 A judicious antiquary, who saw this vase, observed, that it possiblymight 

 have been a standard measure between the monastery and its tenants. The 

 Priory we have mentioned claimed the assize of bread and beer in Selbonu- 

 manor : and probably the adjustment of dry measures for grain, &c. 



