“And because that no man should doubt of them, I have set them down here as they were written by him that made them; whereby it may be produced that the Britaynes, the first inhabitants of this realme, did abhorre the Romish doctrine taught at that time.”[338] <g>Architecture.</g>--The Abbey of Llanthony was built, like those already described, in the cathedral form--with a nave, lateral aisles, transepts, and chancel. It measures in length, from the western door to the great eastern window, two hundred and twelve feet; and the breadth of the nave, including the side aisles, is fifty feet. The style is a compound of Norman and Early English, or Gothic, of which the lancet-pointed windows in the nave are illustrations; while the Norman character is preserved in the arch between the choir and south transept, and again in the outer wall of the same transept by a double window. Of the roof, which was was of stone, nothing remains except a fragment in the north aisle; the transepts have also crumbled down; but the central tower, which connected the whole fabric, still presents a massive, though mutilated, feature of the ancient pile. The <g>Nave</g>, with its six noble arches, which separates the body of the church from the north aisle, is the grand and imposing feature of the scene. To the spectator, who takes his stand at the west door, the objects present a picture of wild and melancholy grandeur. Before him rise the monuments of a religious Order, who exercised no small influence over the destinies of mankind; and, when their own were fulfilled, left behind them, in the ruins that still adorn the land, the strongest evidence--with the highest homage that art and science can offer to religion. We do not pretend to say that the remains of Llanthony are equal in architectural beauty to those of many other religious houses in the kingdom; but as every object of this description depends--for the _effect_ it may exert over the spectator’s mind--upon the character of the scenery, and the circumstances under which it is viewed, we may safely claim for these ruins an effect much beyond what others, though more lofty, elaborate, and extensive, could ever inspire. The monastic ruins that, in more favoured districts, attract and command attention, do not, and cannot, take such hold of the imagination as the contemplation of this temple of the Desert, where everything seems in harmony with the thoughts suggested; and where the combined features of Nature and Art invest the scene with peculiar solemnity.