to taste and the lovers of nature by publishing his tour. The same year, a greater name connected itself with the Wye-for it was visited by the immortal author of the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." "My last summer's tour," says Gray, in one of his admirable letters to Dr. Wharton, "was through Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Monmouthshire, Herefordshire, and Shropshire— five of the most beautiful counties in the kingdom. The very principal sight and capital feature of my journey was the river Wye, which I descended in a boat for nearly forty miles, from Ross to Chepstow. Its banks are a succession of nameless beauties." The testimony thus bequeathed to it by the illustrious Gray, has been confirmed and repeated by Wordsworth, while other kindred spirits, following each other in the same track, have sacrificed to Nature at the same altar, and recorded their admiration in immortal song:

'Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion, and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

"How oft,

In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight, when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!"

"It may almost be said," remarks the same writer, "that the last happy moments Gray knew in this world were spent upon the Wye; for, a few months after, we find him a prey to ill health and despondency -complaining of an incurable cough, of the irksomeness of his employment at Cambridge, and of mechanical low spirits.' He died in the course of the following summer, æt. 55."-P. M. August, 1835.-See his Life by Mason.

AUTHORITIES quoted or referred to in the preced

WORDSWORTH, July 13, 1798.

ing article.- Dugdale's Monasticon. Baronage.-
Camden's Britannia. — Leland's Itinerary. - County
History. - Local Guides: Heath. Wood. - De la
Williams. - Thomas.
Beche.
Roscoe. - Burke's
Peerage and Commoners.-Chronicles.-Giraldus Can-
brensis.-William of Worcester.-History of the Com-
monwealth.-Life of Cromwell.-Notes by Correspon-
dents.-MS. Tour on the Wye, 1848; with other
sources, which will be found enumerated in the article
upon Tinterne Abbey.

"There are some, I hear, who take it ill that I mention monasteries and their founders; I am sorry to hear it. But, not to give them any just offence, let them be angry if they will. Perhaps they would have it forgotten that our ancestors were, and we are, Christians; since there never were more certain indications and glorious monuments, of Christian piety than these."-CAMDEN'S Britannia Pref. Ages of Faith, Book xi.

HE Abbey of Tinterne, though one of the oldest in England, makes no conspicuous figure in its history, a proof that its abbots were neither bold nor ambitious of distinction, but devoted to the peaceful and retiring duties of their office. We do not find that the secluded Tinterne was ever the scene of any rebellious outbreak, or the refuge of any notorious criminal. From age to age, the bell that summoned to daily matins and vespers was cheerfully obeyed; and all they knew of the great world beyond the encircling hills, was learned, perhaps, from the daily strangers and pilgrims who took their meal and night's lodging in the hospitium.

The name of Tinterne, as etymologists inform us, is derived from the Celtic words din, a fortress, and teyrn, a sovereign or chief; for it appears from history, as well as tradition, that a hermitage, belonging to Theodoric or Teudric, King of Glamorgan, originally occupied the site of the present abbey; and that the royal hermit, having resigned the throne to his son Maurice, "led an eremitical life among the rocks of Dindyrn or Tynterne." It is also mentioned, as a remarkable coincidence in history, that two kings, who sought Tinterne as a temporary place of refuge, only left it to meet violent deaths. The first was Theodoric, who was slain in battle by the Saxons, under Ceolwilph, King of Wessex, in the year 600, having been dragged from his seclusion by his own subjects, in order that he might act once more as their leader. The next was "the unfortunate King Edward,* who fled from the pursuit of his queen," Isabella. The Welsh monarch is said to have routed the Saxons at Mathern, near Chepstow, where his body was buried. Bishop Godwin says, that he there saw his remains in a stone coffin; and on the skull, after the lapse of nearly a thousand years, the wound of which he died was conspicuous—thus verifying the tradition as to the place and manner of his

death.

Nothing could be more happily chosen for the seat of a religious community, than the beautiful valley of which these ruins are the unrivalled ornament. It would be difficult to picture, even with the aid of a fertile imagination, scenes more fitted to cherish devout feelings; to instruct us, from the tranquil bosom of Nature, to look up to Nature's God; and in the exclusion of the busy world, to feel aspirations of gratitude continually ascending towards Him who enriched the valley with his bounty, and in homage to whom that temple and its altars were first erected. The latter, as the work of man, and a prey to neglect and violence, have disappeared or crumbled into ruins; but the former, as the work of God, has lost nothing of its original beauty. The woods that curtain the scene; the river that sweeps along under pendent cliffs of oak; the meadows and orchards that cover and adorn its banks,-all continue as luxuriant, as copious and abundant, as verdant and blooming, as on that day when the first pilgrimfather planted his cross in the soil, and consecrated the spot to the service of God.

It has been often observed-and the observation is confirmed by fact-that those venerable ascetics, who acted as pioneers in the army of Christian pilgrims, were no mean judges of soil and climate, and generally chose some fertile spot upon which nature had bestowed her special favour. But many instances

The historian of the abbey here quoted has probably made some mistake in the name; as it was

to Neath Abbey, not Tinterne, that King Edward retreated. See Append.

ABBEY.]

CISTERCIANS-THEIR ORIGIN AND PROGRESS.

33

may be pointed out where they chose even the inhospitable desert for their habitation; and, by unremitting labour, transformed that desert into a garden. To the personal example of those ancient Cistercians, the country is indebted for many improvements in all branches of cultivation and embellishment. From the model-garden and orchard of the monastery, hints were communicated and lessons taught, which found their way into every part of the country, and carried with them the principal arts of civilization and improvement. Thus, what first gave a prosperous agriculture to our own shores, is still in operation upon the barbarous islands of the Pacific, where Christian missions, religious fraternities, are busily propagating, by their own example, those domestic and mechanical arts which are the safest and best introduction to religious knowledge. Of this happy influence on the minds and habits of the peasantry, none of the monastic orders was more fully sensible than the Cistercians, whose laborious but abstemious lives, sumptuous temples, and gorgeous ritual, threw an air of luxury upon every spot where the Order had once set its name.

From the shadowy woods which shelter and encompass it, Tinterne may be justly denominated the Vallis umbrosa of Monmouth; but the fertility of the soil, and solemn retirement of the scene, so desirable for a great sanctuary in the "Ages of Faith," had an immense advantage in the noble and navigable river which formed the channel of communication between the interior and the sea; and, like an artery supplying nutriment to the system, brought its supplies of provision or treasure to the very gate of the abbey. And many a goodly cargo of corn from Hereford, and wine from Normandy, has been disembarked at that old pier, where the abbot's galley has degenerated into a clumsy ferryboat, with old Richard Tamplin, the ferryman, for its commander.

From ancient historical sources, which treat of the origin, progress, and dissolution of this abbey, we select the following materials:-The founder was Walter de Clare, a name famous in the annals of chivalry and church-building. The first stone was laid in the thirty-first year of the twelfth century; but more than a century and a half elapsed before its completion. In those days churches were the work of generations; and it was rarely, indeed, that the founder lived to witness the fulfilment of his vow. "These all died in faith." In 1287, we are told the White Friars took possession of the edifice consecrated

* In 1210, when King John summoned all the ecclesiastics and religious orders to meet him at London, he levied fines, which were computed to amount to £100,000. The White or Cistercian Monks alone paid £40,000 of silver additional; and their order, for a time, became so much reduced, that it was dispersed

VOL. II.

throughout all the other monasteries of England. From this condition, however, they speedily recovered; and of the seventy-five religious houses of this order that flourished at the Dissolution, thirty-six were superior monasteries.-Ecclesiast. Hist.

F

to the Blessed Virgin, and commenced those hallowed services which the Eighth Henry, by his sic volo, was destined to silence. These services, however, had lasted for centuries; and who shall say, during the lapse of barbarous times, how much crime was prevented, how much good effected, by those holy men. Shut out from the haunts and habits of secular life, they exercised their spiritual functions, we may charitably believe, in a manner that drew many penitents to their altar; and, in the midst of wars and tumults, displayed the sacred banner of peace, and published the doctrine of salvation. Their record is on high. And, in justice to the Cistercians, it must be confessed, that if less learned, they were more exemplary, and not more worldly, than some other fraternities of higher pretensions. They exercised and patronised agriculture; and planting themselves, as the rule directed, in the depths of forests, or on desert heaths, they drew from the earth such sustenance as it would yield to the hand of labour; and trusted to those who sought their spiritual aid and counsel, for the means of building and embellishing their altars.

The order of Cistercians, as the reader is aware, made its appearance in England about the year 1128. In imitation of CHRIST and his twelve Apostles, the brotherhood was limited to twelve, with an abbot at their head, according to the rule of the Founder:"Et sicut ille monasteria constructa, per duodecim monachos adjuncto patre disponebat, sic se acturos confirmabant."-Mon. Ang. iv. 699. Their first establishment in England was at Waverley, in Surrey; and in the course of time, their numbers had so multiplied, that, shortly before the dissolution of religious houses, they had seventy-five monasteries, and twenty-six nunneries in this country. Their patriarch was St. Robert, Abbot of Molesme, a Benedictine monastery in the bishopric of Langres. This holy man becoming alarmed at the gradual decay of vital religion among the brotherhood, and their wilful neglect of the rules instituted by their founder, adopted measures for the immediate reformation of the order. Having obtained the Pope's sanction in

sequenti Conventus intravit in choro, et prima missa celebrata fuit ad magnum altare. Dedicacio Ecclesia Tynterniæ, 28 die Jullii. F. littera.-Will. de Worc.