Horace Walpole was enraptured with what he terms, “not the ruins of Netley, but of Paradise. Oh, the purpled abbots; what a spot they had chosen to slumber in! The scene is so beautifully tranquil, yet so lively, that they seem only to have retired into the world.” When he visited Netley, there were standing “fragments of beautiful fretted roofs, pendent in the air, with all variety of Gothic patterns of windows topped round and round with ivy.” The last remains of the “fretted roof” have long fallen; and, as we have before observed, most of the windows have, since Walpole’s time, been stripped of their ivy. Among the poets who have here sought inspiration, we must not pass over the names of Gray and Bowles. The former has left us a glowing description of the thoughts which these ruins raised. “In the bosom of the woods,” he tells us in one of his letters, “concealed from profane eyes, lie hidden the ruins of Netley Abbey. There may be richer and greater houses of religion, but the abbot is content with his situation. See there, at the top of that hanging meadow, under the shade of those old trees that bend into a half-circle about it, he is walking slowly (good man!) and bidding his beads for the souls of his benefactors, interred in that venerable pile that lies beneath him. Beyond it (the meadow still descending) nods a thicket of oaks that mask the building, and have excluded a view too garish and luxuriant for a holy eye; only on either hand they leave an opening to the blue glittering sea. Did you not observe how, as that white sail shot by and was lost, he turned and crossed himself, to drive the tempter from him that had thrown that distraction in his way?” We must ourselves now take a parting glance of this venerable picture of the transitoriness of all earthly greatness. Bowles has given us a beautiful sonnet ON VISITING NETLEY ABBEY. [Illustration] “Fall’n pile! I ask not what has been thy fate,-- But when the weak winds, wafted from the main, Through each lone arch, like spirits that complain, Come hollow to my ear, I meditate On this world’s passing pageant, and the lot Of those who once might proudly in their prime Have stood, with giant port; till, bow’d by time Or injury, their ancient boast forgot, They might have sunk, like thee: though thus, forlorn, They lift their head, with venerable hairs Besprent, majestic yet, and as in scorn Of mortal vanities and short-lived cares: Even so dost thou, lifting thy forehead grey, Smile at the tempest and Time’s sweeping sway.”