Thanks to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, who in 1827 bought the land in which the ruins of the Abbey stand, many precious fragments of the beautiful building have been unearthed and collected from all parts of York. Stones belonging to it have been found in every part of the city, and of greater interest to many than classical remains are the many valuable shards of the mediæval past preserved together with Roman tombs and heathen altars in the hospitium--a building of peculiar appearance supposed to have been occupied by casual visitors to the abbey. Among many statues is that most exquisite fragment of Our Lady and the Holy Child. There are also carved bosses, caps, Anglo-Norman doors and lintels belonging to the ancient chapter-house, and many other perfect specimens of a fully developed art. When we realise that in the undercroft of the hospitium, amongst coal dust from the adjacent railway, lie, piled up in hopeless chaos, types of the best English architectural work, we are reminded again of the irretrievable loss to the nation from the overwhelming destruction that came upon England, and York in particular, in the ruin of the most beautiful church in the county--one boasting the highest work accomplished by Christian workmen. It has been noticed that many of the pieces of exquisite sculpture were carefully laid by the spoilers’ hands in places where they would be least likely to suffer from exposure. For this we must indeed be grateful to those men who were compelled to obey the dread mandates of Henry VIII., and who deserve all honour for their evident heartfelt appreciation of the beauty that they were forced to destroy. From the times of the Normans until the Dissolution of the monasteries, York Abbey was held in high esteem both for its learning and its munificence. The revenues were great, and its abbot had a seat in Parliament. It is quite evident that whatever was planned and executed for the erection of the sacred building was accomplished in the best possible way. The Benedictine order was both the richest and the most learned in the country, and no trouble seems to have been spared to make the Abbey of Our Lady of York a monument of perfect beauty. The disaster that fell upon it was absolute--