JARROW ON THE TYNE,-DURHAM.

The village of Jarrow, giving name to a populous and extensive parish, is pleasantly situated on the south side of the Tyne, at the point where the river expands, and forms the Slake of Jarrow, and is distant six miles east from Newcastle. This place was anciently called Gyrvy, the Saxon name for a marsh or fen; and the inhabitants were known by the appellation of Gyrvii, or Fen-men.

For some time prior to the evacuation of Britain by the Romans, Jarrow had been a place of considerable importance, and so continued for several centuries afterwards, till the dissolution of its celebrated monastery, when it gradually fell into decay. Hutchinson says, "little more remained of this once famous town, when we visited it in 1782, than two or three mean cottages, the distracted ruins of the old monastery; the church, a venerable pile, then patched up so as to retain few traces of its original figure, and the capacious haven, now called the Slake, washed full of sand, and left dry by the river Tyne at ebb of tide."

Jarrow was anciently in the occupation of the Romans, as is evidenced by two inscriptions discovered during the rebuilding of the church; from one of these we gather, that "the army erected this, on the extension of the Roman dominion in Britain from the western to the eastern sea;" the other is on the fragment of an altar, and supposed to have been "erected pro salute, of all the adopted sons of Adrian." Roman pavements have also been discovered in the immediate neighbourhood; and the foundations of buildings, distinctly referring to Imperial era, have been found in the fields on the north side of the church.

The monastic edifice at Jarrow was founded by the Saxons; who, according to their usual policy, in availing themselves of the sites of Roman stations, commenced an ecclesiastical structure, in honour of St. Paul, on the 23d of April, A.D. 685. This foundation was consolidated with the monastery of Monkwearmouth, dedicated to St. Peter, which had been established a few years before; and the joint institution is named in records as "the monastery of St. Peter and St Paul." The two buildings were erected and endowed by the same founder and patron, St. Benedict and King Egfrid; the latter of whom set apart for its use forty hides of land. The first abbot at Jarrow was Ceolfrid, who obtained for his church, from King Alfred, an additional grant of eight hides of land, afterwards exchanged for twenty, lying contiguous to the monastery in the village of Sambuce. Under the government of St. Benedict and Ceolfrid, nearly six hundred monks were gathered in the united houses. St. Bede, better known in history as the Venerable Bede, is said to have been born at Monkton in the parish of Jarrow, about the year 672. After receiving the rudiments of education here and at Hexham, he took the tonsure, "and spent the remainder of his life in great piety, and unwearied application to letters, in the monastery