It has lately, at various reviews been dignified by a display of that
admirable patriotism, which, while it reflects honor on the British name
in general, is found in particular to glow with equal zeal and firmness
in the breasts of the Volunteers of Leicester and its County.

The view to the North-ward is simply ornamented by the church and village
of Belgrave, whose inhabitants in 1357, in consequence of a dispute with
the Abbot concerning the boundaries of the Stocking Wood, blockaded the
North Bridge, and the Fosse, with a determination of depriving the Monks
of their usual supply of provision from their _Grange_, or Farm at
Stoughton. This view forms a pleasing contrast to the towering churches
and close grouped houses of Leicester. The eye of taste will however
soon turn from these objects and dwell with greater pleasure on the noble
ivied walls bounding the Abbey domains; it will proceed to contemplate
the mingling angles of its ruins, and in the back ground, the rich tops
of the woods in the neighbourhood of Beaumont Leys. This scene however,
will not serve merely to amuse the eye, but will naturally lead the well
informed visitor to interesting and affecting thoughts, while he
contemplates the spot in which, in former times, were acted all the
striking rites of the Romish Church, tho' he may lament the superstitious
errors into which a dark and ignorant age had plunged mankind, he need
not join with the destroyer of these venerable institutions in lording
then memory with odious crimes, nor deem them even wholly useless. Pity
and a regard to truth will lead him to acknowledge that, tho' their
worship was less pure than the reformed service now happily established
in this Island, yet it was calculated, by its address to the senses, to
keep alive the remembrance of the faith of the Gospel, and to prevent the
warring Baron and his rude vassals from relapsing into heathenism. Let
it also be remembered, that Monks, odious as we are wont to consider
them, were at one time, the only inhabitants of Christendom, who were at
all acquainted with such sciences as then peered above the mists of
overwhelming ignorance. Of history, they may be said to be the modern
fathers, and tho' perhaps, like the age in which they lived, in some
respects, blind themselves, they led, not indirectly to the enlightening
of the present age. But in their own times they were far from useless;
their monasteries were ever ready to receive t