Such was the rage for relics in former times, that Mabillon, a Benedictine, complained that the altars were loaded with counterfeits; numerous spurious ones being every where offered to the piety and devotion of the faithful. He also observes, “that bones were often consecrated, which so far from belonging to the saints, probably never belonged to Christians!” To shew how far this fraud extended, the “girdle” of the Virgin Mary, said to have been possessed by the monastery of Broomholme, was shown to the visitors appointed by Henry the Eighth, in eleven different places. The following “Legendary Fragment,” written by an intimate friend of the Author’s, may not be deemed inappropriate:— Broomholme, thy ruined grandeur tells A saddening tale of man’s decay, It speaks how all his glories pass, How all his relics droop away; How all his efforts fall a prey To Desolation’s ruthless reign, How all the records he would trace The hand of Time outblots again. Thou hast looked forth for ages past, And seen the unwearying ebb and flow Of yonder calm and azure sea, Glittering in summer’s golden glow; And oh! how many a winter’s snow Hath wrapped thee in its spotless vest, How many a Spring with cheerful hand Thy fair domain in beauty drest. How oft within thy ruined fane Has many a haughty zealot knelt, And muttered o’er some holy prayer His thankless heart had never felt: Thou’st heard the groans of souls that melt With anguish and repentance cleft, Who, though engulphed in blood and crime, Had yet the hope of mercy left. Oh! could yon gloomy pile reveal The thousand tales its records bear, And rend the dark mysterious seal That Time has fixed for ever there, Perchance ’twould tell of pain and care, The same unvarying round of woe, The same dark chain of human ills That links us all to life below. ’Twould tell of horrors dark and dire, That well the sternest heart might thrill, How man with rapine, sword, and fire, Had wrought with zeal his brother’s ill. Strange that ungrateful man should fill The cup of woe, for pride or pelf, Yet madly, fondly, vainly hope, To taste the streams of bliss himself. ’Twould tell how bright, to Childhood’s eyes, The glory of existence seems, How swiftly life’s ensuing hours Lose one by one their golden gleams. How fondly Hope’s delusive dreams The hearts of men with smiles enslave, How those forlorn and weary here, May learn to look beyond the grave. And Fancy often wanders back, Through Time on her enchanted wings, To snatch one legend from the gloom That age about thy ruin flings. And thus Imagination sings In fond conceit and varied lay, With all a Poet’s trembling pride, “A tale of Broomholme’s Abbey grey.”