But the old Priory Church is the great attraction of Cartmel. It is a noble monument of architectural skill, and we may thank the guardians of the centuries that the hand of Time has been restrained from pressing heavily upon it. It overshadows every other building, and gives an air of dignity and importance to the humble erections that gather round. Let us take our stand by the low wall that forms the boundary of the quiet graveyard while we gaze upon the venerable fabric and drink in the genius of the place. It is an October evening, and the sun is sinking like a great red ball behind the darkening hills; the woods are touched with russet and gold, and though the air is breathlessly calm a few leaves flutter down from the trees that skirt the churchyard wall. The ancient fane is worth going far to see--a huge pile of masonry, grey with age, and picturesque by its very diversities of style. It is cruciform in plan, with a low square tower--low by comparison, for the apex of the nave roof is nearly as high--rising from the intersection of the cross to a height of 85ft., and surmounted by another tower of smaller dimensions, also square in plan, but placed diagonally to the base of the lower one, as if it were an afterthought of the builder's, an arrangement so unusual that your attention is arrested by its oddness. The western front is good, but the master work is the choir, with its majestic window of nine lofty mullioned lights, and richly traceried head, 40ft. in height, and occupying nearly the whole of the eastern gable. A cursory glance is sufficient to show that the building has been erected at different periods--Norman and Early English--Decorated and Perpendicular mingling in curious combination. How thoroughly the old monastic builders understood their work. Whatever may have been their faults and frailties, they were imbued with a noble enthusiasm which in its religious development found vent in the sublime conceptions embodied in the magnificent structures which adorn the land, and which illustrate the rise, the progress, and the decay of Gothic art. Unfettered by the rules which curb and restrain the hand of the architect of modern days, their genius imparted its own spirit to the hand of the mason, whose skill is manifested in the glorious creations which command our admiration by the vastness of their proportions, the simple grace and beauty of their design, and the elegance of their ornamentation; while their sculptures and carvings, in which burlesque and satire oftentimes ran riot, were marked by a quaintness of conceit, every touch of the chisel seeming to impart a life and character and spirit that you look for in vain in the productions of the craftsman of modern times. Look with loving eyes upon the grand old pile as it reposes in the evening sunshine; a saintly stillness prevails, and a soft, shadowy haze is gradually shrouding the distant landscape from view. The mellowing light, as