we erect any thing equally excellent and durable now, is equally impossible. Therefore it is that I would preserve their ruins and when practicable, restore them to their original design by repairs. Where it has been found convenient to inhabit the remains of the abbey houses, I do not find that any thing has lately been done to destroy. On the contrary, the square increased windows were Decessary to our comparative mode of living. But here I draw a line.

Once enter the Cloisters, and I would have even every ornament restored, and the same through the whole church; for, with jusfice do I dread, such another will never rise on its ruins. Dean'syard is certainly an odd mixture of decayed grandeur, modern rains, strong old flinty walls, and crumbling new bricks. Even the very trees nod in unison with falling structures and broken rails; and the earth, in many a rise and fall, shews some remote effects of Heury the Eighth's dissolution of monasteries. There is a silent monastic air in the small court from which is the entrance to the Jerusalem Chamber,* now extremely different from its ancient state, having undergone various alterations from the Reformation to the present time. It is used for a Chapter House. The picture of Richard the Second, so often engraved, and written of, which was removed from the choir, now adorns the room. This, with some tapestry, and an old chimneypiece, and a little painted glass, remind us of past days.

Two anti-chambers are more in their original state; in one is a handsome niche. The Abbot's hall is on the western side, and contains a gallery at the south end. East of the passage leading to the school, is a long ancient building, whose basement story

This chamber is noted for having been the place where Henry the IVth. breathed his last, Shakespeare in one of his plays thus notices it:

Laud be to God even then my life must end;

It hath been prophesied to me many years,

I should not die but in Jerusalem,

Which vainly I suppos'd the Holy Land !"

is roofed with semi-circular groined arches, arising from pillars with handsome capitals. At the north end the Regalia is said to have been formerly kept. Since that has been removed the Standard-money has been deposited there. An architect, in the Gentleman's magazine for July, 1799, has given an account of this place, so much to my purpose, that I shall transcribe it without ceremony. "I likewise noticed, at the east end of the first division, a complete altar-table, raised on two steps; which of late years has been erroneously called the Tomb of Hugolin: with a curious piscina on its right side. I saw the double doors closed, and fastened by seven locks, each lock a different key, and each key a different possessor." The upper story is used as the school-room. The building just mentioned, if we may pronounce from the Saxon style, is the most ancient in the precincts of the Abbey. Very little is left of the lesser cloisters; some Saxon columns were accidentally discovered a few years past in the neighbouring garden. Near it is another portion, or room, of equal antiquity. The place in which the records of the House of Lords are kept, was originally a great square tower, erected for a treasury to the Abbey; it is now greatly altered; and so indeed is the inside of the Old Chapter-house, to make room for the records of the Treasury of the Exchequer, and the everlasting Domesday-book. The roof, as usual in such buildings, is supported by a centre column; but the galleries, shelves, and presses, are determined enemies to description. I shall therefore leave them undescribed; and conclude this survey of the Exterior of the Abbey and its dependencies, by saying, fragments in some cases, and large portions in others, of walls and gates, may be found in many directions; by means of which, the ancient inclosure might be traced with considerable accuracy.*

Since these remarks were made, such records, &c. have been found, as are absolutely necessary to the restoration of this admirable structure, and the use that has been already made of them is apparent.

Mal. Lond. Red.