before him: they know that such a tenure is a benefit. The
abbot was ever the same. The monks were in short in every district a
point of refuge for all who needed succour, counsel, and protection; a
body of individuals having no cares of their own, with wisdom to guide
the inexperienced, with wealth to relieve the suffering, and often with
power to protect the oppressed."

"You plead their cause with feeling," said Egremont, not unmoved.

"It is my own; they were the sons of the People, like myself."

"I had thought rather these monasteries were the resort of the younger
branches of the aristocracy?" said Egremont.

"Instead of the pension list;" replied his companion, smiling, but not
with bitterness. "Well, if we must have an aristocracy, I would sooner
that its younger branches should be monks and nuns, than colonels
without regiments, or housekeepers of royal palaces that exist only
in name. Besides see what advantage to a minister if the unendowed
aristocracy were thus provided for now. He need not, like a minister
in these days, entrust the conduct of public affairs to individuals
notoriously incompetent, appoint to the command of expeditions generals
who never saw a field, make governors of colonies out of men who never
could govern themselves, or find an ambassador in a broken dandy or
a blasted favourite. It is true that many of the monks and nuns were
persons of noble birth. Why should they not have been? The aristocracy
had their share; no more. They, like all other classes, were benefitted
by the monasteries: but the list of the mitred abbots when they were
suppressed, shows that the great majority of the heads of houses were of
the people."

"Well, whatever difference of opinion may exist on these points," said
Egremont, "there is one on which there can be no controversy: the monks
were great architects."

"Ah! there it is," said the stranger, in a tone of plaintiveness; "if
the world but only knew what they had lost! I am sure that not the
faintest idea is generally prevalent of the appearance of England before
and since the dissolution. Why, sir, in England and Wales alone, there
were of these institutions of different sizes; I mean monasteries, and
chantries and chapels, and great hospitals; considerably upwards of
three thousand; all of them fair buildings, many of them of exquisite
beauty. There were on an average in every shire at least twenty
structures such as this was; in this great county d