rking at
the rude defence which can still be traced beneath the blue waters of the
Thames. What hosts of pale and ghastly spectres would have risen from
those tranquil banks, and from the deepest hollows of the rushing current,
and--like the Huns, who almost live on the inspired canvas of
Kaulbach,--fought their last earthly battle, again and again, in the spirit
world, amid the stars! But ours is no region of romance; even remnants of
history, which go beyond the commonest capacity, are rejected as dreams,
or put aside as legends. But history has enough to tell to interest us
all; and we may be satisfied with the abundant enjoyment we have in
delicious rambles through the lanes and up the hills, along the fair
river's banks, and among the many traditional ruins of ancient and
beautiful Surrey.

Never was desolation more complete than in the ruin of the Mitred Abbey of
Chertsey; hardly one stone remains above another to tell where this
stately edifice--since the far-away year 664--grew and flourished, lording
it with imperial sway over, not only the surrounding villages, but
extending its paternal wings into Middlesex and even as far as London. The
abbey was of the Benedictine order, and founded, almost as soon as the
Saxons were converted from Paganism; but it was finished and chiefly
endowed by Frithwald, Earl of Surrey. The endowment prospered rarely; the
establishment increased in the reputation of wealth and sanctity; that it
was "thickly populated" is certain, for when the abbey was sacked and
burnt by the Danes, in the ninth century, the abbot, and ninety monks,
were barbarously murdered by the invaders.

Standing upon the site of their now obliterated cloisters and towers,
their aisles and dormitories, cells and confessionals, seeing nothing but
the dank, damp grass, and the tracings of the fish-ponds--stagnant pools in
our day--it is almost impossible to realize the onslaught of these wild
barbarians panting for plunder, the earnest defence of men who fought (the
monks of old could wield either sword or crosier) for life or death, the
terrible destruction, the treasures and relics, and painted glass, and
monuments, the plunder of the secret almerys, the intoxicated triumph of
those rude northern hordes let loose in our fair and lovely island; what
scenes of savagery, where now the jackdaw builds, and the blackbird
whistles, and the wild water-rat plays with her brood amongst the tangled
weeds!

The fierce se