one worse than his predecessor; and if this man should go, we shall have one who will reduce us to actual starvation.” Against the monkish vice of gluttony, we must however place in the scale the virtue of hospitality. The weary traveller was always welcome to the table of the monastery. We are tempted to quote another monkish story. It is said that a certain religious house, in which the virtue just alluded to had been neglected, was reduced to poverty, and a meeting was held in the chapter-house to deliberate on the means of regaining their former state. Then a monk stood up in the midst of the others, and said, “We have driven away two servants: as long as they were with us, all good things abounded in our house; since they went, our prosperity is defeated; but if we invite one [Illustration] back, they will both return.” “Who are they?” said the abbot; “let us call them back by all means.” The monk answered, “One is called <g>Date</g>, and the other <g>Dabitur-vobis</g>: since we drove away Date, Dabitur-vobis has left us; but let us immediately recall Date, and Dabitur-vobis and everything will be well.” The monks themselves had an easy method of atoning for the peccadilloes of the table; but a few paces from the refectory stood the <g>Confessional</g>, and there they received a ready <g>Absolution</g>. The ruins of Netley Abbey attract numerous visitors from the neighbouring town of Southampton; and there is scarcely a stone within the reach of ordinary mortals which is not disfigured by a crowd of initials rudely “incised” by their barbarian and sacrilegious hands. In more propitious times, pilgrims of a holier class have visited the hallowed spot, “Where Netley’s ruins, bordering on the flood, Forlorn in melancholy greatness stand.”