ely followed the extinction of the Carlovingian
dynasty, when the feudal law absolutely triumphed over monarchy, the
people were wholly left to themselves, and must have sunk into an
absolute state of barbarism, if it had not been for the religious
establishments. Those, he said, softened the manners of the conquerors,
afforded refuge to the vanquished, preserved an intercourse between
nations: and, when the feudal chiefs rose to the rank of monarchs, stood
as a rampart between them and the people. He thought St. Thomas of
Canterbury a much injured character. He often pointed out that rich
tract of country, which extends from St. Omer's to Liege, as a standing
refutation of those who asserted that convents and monasteries were
inimical to the populousness of a country: he observed, that the whole
income of the smaller houses, and two-thirds of the revenues of the
greater houses, were constantly spent within twenty miles round their
precincts; that their lands were universally let at low rents; that
every abbey had a school for the instruction of its tenants, and that no
human institution was so well calculated to promote the arts of
painting, architecture, and sculpture, works in iron and bronze, and
every other species of workmanship, as abbeys or monasteries, and their
appendages. "Thus," he used to say, "though the country in view was
originally a marsh, and has for more than a century wholly survived its
commerce, it is the most populous country in Europe; and presents on the
face of it as great a display {043} of public and private strength,
wealth, and affluence, as can be found in any other part of the world."
Fortunately for him, he did not live to be witness to the domiciliary
visit which, in our times, it has received from France. What would he
have thought, if any person had told him, that, before the expiration of
the century in which he lived, the French themselves would, in perfect
hatred of Christ, destroy the finest churches of France? At their
profanation of his favorite church of St. Bertin, in the town of St.
Omer's, that is said to have happened which Victor Vitensis relates to
have happened in the persecution of the Vandals, (Hist. Pers. Van. 31:)
"Introeuntes maximo cum furore, corpus Christi et sanguinem pavimento
sparserunt, et illud pollutis pedibus calcaverunt."

XVII.

Our author enjoyed through life a good state of health, but somewhat
impaired it by intense application to study. Some years