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quite a habitable condition. Since then the remains have gradually fallen into deeper and still deeper ruin, till the well nigh incredible outrage of a few years since, when not only the whole transept, but large portions of the adjacent offices were swept away and utterly annihilated.

CHAPTER III.

THE MONUMENTS.

OF the many monuments which many of our own day-more or less adorned, the Abbey church, but once occupied, and—unlike so few are now left, and fewer still of them, probably, in situ. By far the greater number would seem to have consisted of large slabs of the local grey Tees marble, some plain, some inscribed, some bearing symbols of office. Others evidently took the form of altar tombs, either plain, or, perhaps, bearing effigies in latten on their lid, as is seen on a still existing slab lying in the nave; while one at least, of vast dimensions, had richly sculptured and crocketted niches embellishing both sides and ends. freestone monument occurs in the effigy of an abbot (?), which, if The one solitary instance of a perfect, would have been of much interest. Unhappily it is not only a mere fragment, but very much weather-worn and mutilated. Nearly the whole of the face is gone, only a lock of curly hair above the right ear, with the corner of the mouth being left, while the trunk is destroyed from the waist downwards. forearms and hands are gone. And even of this, both the With respect to the vestments, moreover, there is nothing whatever indicative of the office of an abbot, or of the Order to which he belonged. priest, in chasuble and amice, and shown as having once held the He is simply habited as a chalice, now destroyed, with both hands, also destroyed, one at the rim, the other at the foot, upon his breast.' What remains of the folds of the ample chasuble shows sufficient vigour and freedom of handling to prove that the work, when perfect, must have possessed very considerable merit. It would seem part of the fourteenth century. Of the rest, which are for the most to belong to the earlier part, probably, of much later date, some fine large slabs are, or were a few years since, lying in the outskirts of the adjacent farmhouse, others within the church. One of the latter, possibly the only one

1 The fine incised grave-cover of a priest at Le Petit Andely, France, shows him holding the chalice in an almost identical manner, but with the right

hand applied to the upper part of the
long, slender stem, just below the bowl,
instead of on the edge of it.

But this is palpably false in several particulars, the word "passion's " being in the plural; while "on" is "of"; "my," "thy"; "sake," "ser"; and "heart," "her." The true reading and sense of the distich therefore is, I think, clearly this:

"Jesu, for thy passions sair, Have mercy of thy sinful heir."

And this pathetic appeal, which would seem in all likelihood to have been dictated by the deceased in his lifetime, would thus serve to show that, though his illegitimate birth prevented his succeeding to the inheritance of his earthly father; yet that there remained another, "incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away," to which, as an heir of God, and joint heir with Christ, he could look forward, and for which he offered this last, and still unceasing, prayer.1

Though now removed from the church, and set up in the grounds of Rokeby Park, near Mortham Tower, there remains yet to note another tomb of much interest and enormous size, which must have formed, probably, the largest and most conspicuous of them all." It is in excellent general preservation-thanks to the action of the weather only, apart from that of human hands-and is formed of Tees marble, richly sculptured with niches and shields, the latter, owing to the excessively hard and intractable nature of the material, plain, but originally in all likelihood emblazoned. "The vast slab which must have contained the inscription," says Dr. Whitaker, "is unfortunately gone, but the length of the sides is eleven feet, the width of the ends five feet eight inches, the depth two feet five inches, and the thickness one foot. The estimated weight is 15 tons."

CHAPTER IV.
HISTORY.

THE fortunes of this small Praemonstratensian house-as uneventful as its means were scant-are exceptionally obscure, and the record of its endowments are just as inconsiderable. As with so many other similar institutions, the Abbey of Eggleston is virtually without a history. Quiet, calm, and peaceful in their external, as well

1 Very solemn and impressive, if less strikingly so, perhaps, than the petition here offered up, is the "Fili Dei miserere mei," inscribed upon the breast and between the uplifted hands of Laurentius de Sancto Mauro (Lawrence Seymour), in his exceptionally beautiful brass at

Higham Ferrars Church, Northants., of which he had been rector, c. 1337.

2 "I saw in the Body of chirch of Egleston to very fair Tumbes of gray Marble. In the greatter was buried, as I lernid, one Syr Rafe Bowes, and yn the lesser one of the Rokesbys." (Leland.)