London to John O 1 Groat's. 323 



mother of several of them. Some of its walls are still 

 as entire and perfect as those of Tinturn, on the Wye. 

 It was founded by the monks of the St. Bernard order, 

 in 1131, according to the historical record. Really 

 those black-cowled masons and carvers must have given 

 the enthusiasm and genius of the early painters of the 

 Virgin to these magnificent structures. I will not go 

 into the subject at large here, leaving it to form an 

 entire chapter, when I have seen most of the old 

 abbeys of the country. In looking up at their walls, 

 arches and columns, one marvels to see the most 

 delicate and elaborate vine and flower-work of the 

 carver's chisel apparently as perfect as when it 

 engraved the last line ; and this, too, in face of the 

 frosts and beating storms of six hundred years. The 

 largest ivy I ever saw buttressed one of the windowed 

 walls with ten thousand cross-folded fingers and 

 foliage of vivid green piled thick and high upon the 

 teeth-marks of time. The trunk was a full foot 

 through at the butt. A few years ago a large 

 mound was uncovered near the ruin, and found to be 

 composed of cinders, showing incontestably that the 

 monks had worked iron ore very extensively, thus 

 teaching the common people that art as well as agricul- 

 ture. These cinders have been used very largely in 

 repairing the roads for a considerable distance around. 



