348 THE ANTIQUITIES 



in the undermining a portion of that fine old ruin at 

 the north end of Basingstoke town, well known by the 

 name of Holy Ghost Chapel. Very providentially the vast 

 fragment, which these thoughtless little engineers en- 

 deavoured to sap, did not give way so soon as might have 

 been expected ; but it fell the night following, and with 

 such violence that it shook the very ground, and, awaken- 

 ing the inhabitants of the neighbouring cottages, made 

 them start up in their beds as if they had felt an earth- 

 quake. The motive for this dangerous attempt does not 

 so readily appear : perhaps the more danger the more 

 honour thought the boys ; and the notion of doing some 

 mischief gave a zest to the enterprise. As Dryden says 

 upon another occasion, 



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



Had the Priory been only levelled to the surface of the 

 ground, the discerning eye of an antiquary might have 

 ascertained its ichnography, and some judicious hand might 

 have developed its dimensions. But, besides 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 dimensions, 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 



