116 SFfje NuUSTm of &o0amont)'$ <5rabe. 



forests of Chippenham and Melksham. Yonder, and at a 

 distance over the wide wood, rises the high and lonely 

 arch of Malmesbmy Abbey, the " august, but melancholy 

 mother," as the poet Bowles has well observed, with a 

 poet's feeling, of many a cell or monastery beside the 

 Avon. Battlements and buttresses, seen far off in the 

 bright sunshine, point out the remains of Bradenstoke 

 Abbey, rising among old trees, and seeming to overlook 

 the river as it winds through the vale and pastures of 

 Somerford and Christian Malford. Scarcely a vestige 

 remains of Stanley priory ; its walls are low and roofless, 

 but the bright blue " forget-me-not," nestling itself 

 among ferns and foxgloves in the fissures of the walls, 

 seems to call upon the passenger to remember that men 

 once thought, and felt, and suffered, where all now is 

 silent and deserted an emblem-flower, a living motto, 

 inscribed on the wrecks of ruin. But Lacock Abbey, 

 standing on the verge of the spacious and level meadow, 

 is still inhabited, and its cloisters are fresh, as if they 

 were just completed, although the arches are hung with 

 ivy. More than six centuries have passed since the 

 Countess of Salisbury came, in the year 1232, accom- 

 panied by such persons as she loved to consort with, to 

 this remote part of her hereditary domain. The woods 

 around were bursting into leaf, and the " one word 

 spoken" of the contented cuckoo was heard at intervals. 

 It was early in the month of April,* and as yet the 

 * Book of Lacock. 



