At Lenton, near Nottingham, there is a chapel and a range of cells excavated out of the face of a semicircular sweep of rock, which crops out on the bank of the river Leen. The river winds round the other semicircle, leaving a space of greensward between the rock and the river, upon which the cells open. Now, the whole place is enclosed, and used as a public garden and bowling-green, its original features being, however, preserved with a praiseworthy appreciation of their interest. In former days this hermitage was just within the verge of the park of the royal castle of Nottingham; it was doubtless screened by the trees of the park; and its inmates might pace to and fro on their secluded grass-plot, fenced in by the rock and the river from every intruding foot, and yet in full view of the walls and towers of the castle, with the royal banner waving from its keep, and catch a glimpse of the populous borough, and see the parties of knights and ladies prance over the level meadows which stretched out to the neighbouring Trent like a green carpet, embroidered in spring and autumn by the purple crocus, which grows wild there in myriads. Stukeley, in his "Itinerarium Curiosum," pl. 39, gives a view and ground-plan of these curious cells. Carter also figures them in his "Ancient Architecture," pl. 12, and gives details of a Norman shaft and arch in the chapel. But nearly all the hermitages which we read of in the romances, or see depicted in the illuminations and paintings, or find noticed in ancient historical documents, are substantial buildings of stone or timber. Here is one from folio 56 of the "History of Launcelot" (Add. 10,293): the hermit stands at the door of his house, giving his parting benediction to Sir Launcelot, who, with his attendant physician, is taking his leave after a night's sojourn at the hermitage. In the paintings of the Campo Santo, at Pisa (engraved in Mrs. Jameson's "Sacred and Legendary Art"), which represent the hermits of the Egyptian desert, some of the hermitages are caves, some are little houses of stone. In Caxton's "Vitas Patrum" the hermitages are little houses; one has a stepped gable; another is like a gateway, with a room over it.[114] They were founded and built, and often endowed, by the same men who founded chantries, and built churches, and endowed monasteries; and from the same motives of piety, charity, or superstition. And the founders seem often to have retained the patronage of the hermitages, as of valuable benefices, in their own hands.[115] A hermitage was, in fact, a miniature monastery, inhabited by one religious, who was abbot, and prior, and convent, all in one: sometimes also by a chaplain,[116] where the hermit was not a priest, and by several lay brethren, _i.e._ servants. It had a chapel of its own, in which divine service was performed daily. It had also the apartments necessary for the accommodation of the hermit, and his chaplain--when one lived in the