this ancient Church has for a long series of years been exposed; and shall conclude with a brief remark upon the state of ruin in which the walls at present appear, owing chiefly, as I have already represented, to the unrestrained growth of the trees and ivy, which by slow degrees are effecting the destruction of the walls, by undermining the foundation, disjointing the masonry, excluding the air, and retaining the moisture. I need not again enumerate the other helpers of Time in the work of destruction. They have levelled some of the fairest structures of antiquity ere his touches have barely penetrated the external surface of the walls. This remark may be applied to Hadsor Church, which is upheld by the strength, or rather the residue of the strength, its builders gave to it in the 14th century; and if the architects of antiquity had not constructed their churches for unlimited duration, many that are now standing would long since have yielded to the combined effects of neglect and outrage.

It is a reproach to the county that a building of such elegant architecture as this of Hadsor should present a shabby and mutilated aspect, and disjointed masonry, over a great portion of its surface. The evil has been heedlessly suffered to increase: if it proceed much longer with its recent rapidity, the cost of the remedy will probably be nothing less than the best remaining portion of the design. I do not mean to deny that the operations of five centuries may not have contributed something to the decay of the building; but I maintain, that without protracted neglect, and its assistants, which have hurried on the movements of decay, the walls and windows would not have presented the blemishes which must excite the regret and indignation of all who can appreciate the remains of ancient architecture.

I have felt warmly upon this subject, and have written in a corresponding feeling. There is no tall tower or tapering spire to attract the traveller's attention, or to hold out a recompense for the trouble of an ascent to the top of a hill with a dubious and indirect pathway. Hadsor Church, therefore, is very little seen, and quite unknown to fame. historian of the County does not al

The

lude to its architecture, and his compilers were not likely to notice or to name what he inadvertently overlooked. The bewitching beauties of its architecture are perishing, unheeded and unregarded, under a sombre canopy of yew-trees and ivy; yet I own that the one visitation it acknowledges on every side, within and without, makes me tremble for the consequences of the second sentence of economical improvement and repair.

AN ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUARY.

ADVERSARIA, No. II.

THE term Martinet, which is used to denote a strict disciplinarian, appears to be of French origin. In fact, an officer of that name was employed by Louis XIV. in the campaign of Holland, to discipline the infantry, and the regulations which he established are still observed. The introduction of the bayonet is also owing to him, as is also the invention of pontoons. (See Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV. vol. I. p. 135.)

Charles III. of Spain, who was more favourable to the introduction of reforms than the people themselves, used to say, "My subjects are like babies, who cry when they are

washed."

The name of Ahrendt, the Danish antiquary, is but little known in England. He was a native of Holstein. He travelled through Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France, Spain, and Italy, always on foot, and braving the intemperance of climates; devoting himself to the study of Scandinavian antiquities and Runic monuments. The alphabets of the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries were his favourite objects of research. His continual peregrinations often led him into strange adventures, to which his originality of character and the singularity of his exterior contributed not a little. He died on his return from Italy, in February 1824. His collection of Icelandic MSS. Runic alphabets, remarks and observations on languages, &c. were sent home by the care of a Danish chargé d'affaires. (Dict. Historique of Gen. de Beauvais.)

The following paragraph is copied from Galignani's Messenger of July 10:

"The Dimanche, a journal published at Havre in Normandy, says,- Most of

the English who arrive by the steam packets are proceeding towards Britanny. This province is now the object of investigation for enlightened Englishmen. A short time ago, we saw a very rich member of Parliament set out from Havre for Lower Britanny, without attendants, on foot, but armed cap-à-pie. Such precautions prove that there exists in England a great prejudice against the inhabitants of that province: a due examination will, no doubt, soon remove it. It would be strange, indeed, if the English were to take upon them the task of cultivating the vast and sterile plains of Armorica, so often sprinkled with their blood at the time of the long feuds between France and Britanny, then independent, and always leagued with England against us. We shall behold, however, if not without shame, at least without jealousy, the English applying to the soil of that province their excellent methods of cultivation.""

Mr. Moore, in his Travels of an Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion, maintains that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true Christian one. Now it is fairly inferable, from this writer's Epicurean, that his sentiments lean to the Arian and Univer

salist systems. Query, will the Church of Rome acknowledge such tenets for her own? and does not Mr. Moore's Catholicism consist in an attachment to the form of worship of his ancestors, combined (somewhat discordantly) with the right of private opinion? Apropos of this subject, has Mr. Moore ever read the Correspondence of Father La Chaise with Jacob Spon the antiquary; and the simple but powerful Letter to my Children of Pierre Bayssière the French saddler?

The end of Hazlitt is melancholy indeed. I detest the school he represented, I sympathize with few of his sentiments, and I have no patience with his style; but it is impossible not to pity his case. He did much toward reviving a taste for our early writers, and this is a set-off against many blemishes. Besides, he was undoubtedly sincere, and his chief error lay in not perceiving the tendency of his opinions. Diruit, without ædificat, is the motto of the whole school. Their leading tenet is the very reverse of Optimism; for, in their eyes, whatever is instituted, or established, or in present use, must be wrong. They have no notion of re

pairing, except by first overturning. They would unrip a suit of clothes to mend a single rent; they would melt down a blade of steel to cleanse it from a little rust; they would unshoe a horse's four feet, when a single nail was wanted in one shoe. The

kindest wish I can express for them is, that they never may see the accomplishment of their theories. The great bulwark of our safety is, the spread of religion in the present day, which has taken place in so wonderful a degree. This will effectually restrain the flood that would otherwise deluge the whole country. The French Revolution found mankind differently situated, because differently inclined, and it turned to devastation accordingly. But if we escape a similar result, we owe no thanks to the aforesaid school, since the enemies of religion are usually found in their ranks, with theirs. and its principles have no affinity

M. Lemierre, the French poet, who is best known as a dramatist, has this fine thought in one of his pieces, which is strictly applicable to Great Britain,

"Le trident de Neptune est le sceptre du

monde."

Another of his lines, which occurs in the tragedy of Barnevelt, is equally fine, and possesses great moral beauty. Young Barnevelt, speaking of death,

says,

"Caton se la donna,-Socrate l'attendit." Which may be rendered, "Impatient Cato hurried Death, but calmly

Did Socrates await it."

Should this passage meet the eye of any one that meditates suicide, it may perhaps remind him, that "What Cato did, and Addison approved," is not courage, but actually cowardice, that shrinks from facing the difficulties, or enduring the troubles of life.

The author of the Bibliothèque d'un Homme de Goût, speaking of Madame Riccoboni's Tales, the scenes of which are mostly laid in England, observes,

This country furnishes characters more decided, more solid, and more firm, than those of France."-Ce pays fournit de caractères plus décidés, plus profonds, plus fermes que la France. Vol. II. p. 258. CYDWELI.

The

THESE picturesque remains stand -on a commanding situation, about five miles distant from Wotton Basset, and seven from Chippenham. foundation originated with the family of the early Earls of Salisbury; whose heiress became the foundress of the neighbouring nunnery of Lacock. The Rev. W. L. Bowles, whose residence and works have rendered classical the village of Bremhill in the same vicinity, is now employed in writing the History of Lacock Nunnery; and he has permitted us to extract, from his unpublished sheets, the following vivid description of the present appearance and situation of the Priory of Braden

stoke.

"The windows, buttresses, and lofty parapet, with one square turret on the north, appear through almost the whole extent of the vale of the Avon beneath. In front, and on either side, this extent spreads to the distant horizon, bounded by the hazy appear. ance at times of the Cambrian hills beyond the Severn. Parts of Somerset, Gloucestershire, and Berkshire, intersected by the winding Avon, with long green pastures, lie beneath as in a map. The picturesque village of Draycot is distinguished by a rising knoll of woods in front; and GENT. MAG. November, 1833.

immediately on the right, as a foreground, is another hilly eminence dark with oak, almost under our feet.

"The ancient arches of the principal building, now partly dilapidated and partly used as a farm-house, are entire; the buttresses are connected by semicircular arches, and between them appear three narrow pointed windows. On the square turret, on the north, grows one small solitary tree, which I find represented in the view engraved by Buck, a little more than a century ago. At a small distance on the level green, at the back of the house, are two large fish-ponds; one with the spring perpetually running, I have no doubt from the transparent clearness, and from its always flowing in the dryest season, gave an idea of sacredness to the spot. Near this is a large mound, but whether ancient or not, I have not ascertained. On entering, the cellars appear, with groined vaulting; and ascending a small stone staircase, we enter a room which probably was that of the prior; in this room there is a chimney-piece of stone, richly carved and ornamented, with five plain shields in the centre of quatrefoils. The lower part beautifully worked in lozenges, and the letters distinctly visible and legible,

"W. L." This carved and still entire chimney-piece is surmounted with a kind of bracket in the middle, probably for a crucifix.

"The Refectory seems nearly as it was left at the Dissolution: in the centre of the ceiling there is a wooden boss, with foliage, and the single letter in a shield, S.;" probably when the room was last decorated, immediately before the Dissolution, this letter was to commemorate the name of "Salisbury."

"In this room was preserved uninjured through many changes of owners, a painting on paper of the Virgin, now added to the collection of my friend Paul Methuen, esq. at Corsham House.

"On returning from these silent and ancient halls to the light, the scene I have described seems more beautiful, spreading far away, with masses of shade and sunshine, and the smoke and towers of distant villages. The most conspicuous object in sight, as far as human art is concerned, presents itself among the far-retiring trees, the grey walls and solitary arch of Malmesbury Abbey, the majestic but mournful mother of the religious houses, now desolate near the margin of the same stream.

"Nothing can be conceived more wretched in appearance than the present village, which, as if in ludicrous contrast with these beauties of scenery and those august remains, is called "Clack." It contains about forty straggling houses, and three miserable brick edifices, the Meeting-houses for some religious denomination or other, which have succeeded the princely monuments of elder piety.

"All the traces of a church or chapel have been long obliterated, but the site has been ascertained from Norman tiles, skeletons occasionally disinterred, and about eight or nine years ago, nearly twenty skeletons; two only were found in stone coffins, and one as if the corpse had been completely cased in leather. No remains have been discovered which might seem to indicate the sculpture of those who were first laid here, in the presumed sanctity of the consecrated earth and the awful inviolability of death.

The bones of Walter of Salis

The ancient name of the manor was "Clake."

bury and his beloved wife, and those of William Earl of Salisbury and his Countess Alianor, have been scattered to the winds, and no more has been found to distinguish them than of the heart of the youngest son of the Countess Ela, which was, probably from peculiar feelings of devotional respect, here also buried. This youngest son of Ela was Stephen, by marriage Earl of Ulster."

The date of the foundation of Bradenstoke Priory has been fixed to 1142; and its inhabitants were Canons Regular of the order of St. Augustine. The founder, Walter of Salisbury, was the son and heir of Edward of Salisbury, who was Sheriff of Wiltshire at the period of the Domesday Survey; and father of Patrick, the first who was invested with the Earldom of that county, or of Salisbury, by the Empress Maud. Walter's wife was Sibilla de Cadurcis, or Chaworth; after whose death he himself assumed the tonsure, and the habit of the Canons; and the bodies of himself and wife were finally deposited at Bradenstoke in one tomb, next the presbiterium, or chancel.

Patrick Earl of Salisbury, his son, being slain in Poictou, was buried at St. Hilarier in that country; but William Earl of Salisbury, the founder's grandson, who died in 1196, and his wife Alianor de Vitri, who deceased two years before, were both buried at Bradenstoke, under a marble stone near the porch; as was the body of Petronilla de Longespé, which was deposited at the right side of her grandmother the Countess Alianor; and the heart of Stephen Earl of Ulster, nephew to the lady last mentioned, his body being interred at Lacock. All this, and much other curious information, which there can be no doubt will be displayed to the best advantage by Mr. Bowles, is preserved in the Register of Lacock Nunnery.

There is not space on the present occasion to enter into any account of

"The vulgar anciently fixing that title on those places whereat Earls of certain counties did usually reside; as Strigul to the Earl of Pembroke, Tutbury to the Earl of Derby, Arundel to the Earl of Sussex." Dugdale, in the additions to his Baronage, recently published in the Collectanea Topographica Genealogica.

the territorial possessions of the house of Bradenstoke; but a cartulary which belonged to it, now in the British Museum, (Cotton MSS. Vitellius, A. xi.) presents ample materials for such an investigation. At the valuation of its estates in the 26th Hen. VIII. its gross income was estimated at 270l. 10s. 8d. It was surrendered by the Prior and thirteen monks, Jan. 8, 1539; and subsequently granted in exchange, in 38 Hen. VIII. to Richard Pexall. About a century ago the building was the property of Germanicus Sheppard, esq. and it now belongs to Paul Methuen, esq. M.P. of Corsham House.

The view engraved by S. and N. Buck in 1732, is dedicated to Mr. Sheppard. It represents considerably more of the building than is now standing, particularly a large square window, in the latest style of Pointed architecture, under which was a row of nine shields, which the Messrs. Buck have transferred to their copper with a minuteness so rare in modern artists, that it is an agreeable surprise to be enabled nearly to decipher their bearings. The following is the result of a careful examination :

1. A Calvary cross or staff within two wreaths, probably the arms of the Abbey, but of which no other memorial seems to be preserved.

2. On a cross, five annulets or wreaths.

3. France and England.

4. Checky (Warren).

whose name is Saxon, and who is admitted by the chronicler of Lacock to have been " natione Anglus," was not of Saxon lineage, and connected with the Norman house merely out of compliment by the same monkish chronicler. This question will be fully discussed by Mr. Bowles in his forthcoming volume.

We conclude with a list of the Priors of Bradenstoke, far more complete than that printed in the new Monasticon, and which has been gleaned from the cartulary before mentioned, by a gentleman who has spent considerable time upon the subject, principally with a view of investigating the history of Seagry, one of the estates of the Priory, and respecting which we hope he will take a future opportunity to make public the result of his labours. 1. William 2. Simon

3. Simeon 4. William

5. Galfridus, or Geoffrey

1204

1222

1236

1246

1262

of Wales.)

6. A cypher or monogram, apparently W. S. the initials of William now the last Prior, with whose era the architecture of this bay window corresponds. The letters in the interior, mentioned by Mr. Bowles, perhaps refer to the same person. 7. Three lions?

8. An orle?

9. Paly, Argent and Vaire, on a chief a lion. This is the coat attributed to "Devereux Earl of Salisbury," the family of the founder; but there is good reason to conclude that they were extinct before the use of any arms, and particularly of a coat so complicated.

It seems indeed, to be a question whether this race were really descended from the Norman house of Devereux, as they have generally been reputed; or whether Edward of Salisbury,

HAVING, in the course of a recent tour on the Continent, noted a few remarkable inscriptions, I send you copies of them, not being aware that they have already found their way into your useful Miscellany.

The newly-built church of St. Germain-en-laye forms a singularly beautiful Ionic temple. The north and south ailes contain six semi-circular domes, lighted by stained glass. Under that in the south-west angle, is a plain white marble monument, without ornament, erected, by command of our late King, in memory of James II. whose remains, exhumed on the occasion of the rebuilding of the church, were again deposited near