may be termed,
reflect the greatest honour on the ingenuity of man, exemplified in their
formation, and prove most strikingly to the thinking mind, how boundless
are the advantages of civilized life, and how inviolable the security
afforded to property by laws, wisely framed and judiciously enforced.

The view from this spot, across the Abbey Meadow, extending on the
opposite side of the canal, with the ruins of the Devonshire mansion,
commonly termed the _Abbey_, from its being the scite of _St. Mary de
Pratis_, will, by most visitors, be considered, at least, as very
pleasing; but as we mean to conduct our traveller to that place, we
shall, at present, forbear to particularize it.

We shall immediately, along a lane, called Arch-deacon's Lane, about the
middle of which is a Meeting house, with a small burial ground, belonging
to the General Baptists, guide our stranger to

ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH.

This structure is rendered venerable by its tower, whose pinnacles and
trefoil-work, with the niche, or tabernacle, on the corner of the south
wall of the church, would have even shown it, had not its date been
confirmed by Bishop Alnwicke's register, 1441, to have been the work of
the era of the regular gothic. From this tower, a ring of ten bells,
well known for their excellence, sound in frequent peals of harmony along
the meadow and river below.

This, when the other churches of Leicester were given to the abbey by
Robert Bossu, was annexed as a prebend to the cathedral of Lincoln, by
the bishops of that diocese to whom it then belonged. The right of
presentation is vested in the person holding the prebend, and the parish,
with the neighbouring dependent parish of Knighton, is exempted from the
jurisdiction of the Arch-deacon of Leicester. The inside of the church
is handsome; the nave and side aisles are supported by gothic arches,
whose beauty and symmetry are not concealed by aukward galleries. The
organ was erected by the parishioners in 1773.

Several elegant modern monuments adorn the walls, and in the north aisle
is the alabaster tomb of Bishop Penny, many years abbot of the
neighbouring monastery of St Mary de Pratis. In the church-yard the
military trophies of a black tomb commemorate Andrew Lord Rollo. This
nobleman was an instance of the attraction which a martial life affords
to an elevated mind, for he entered the service at the age of forty, when
generally the habits and inclinations of lif