Three miles from Southampton, in the county of Hampshire--or, as official documents still have it, the county of Southampton--is Netley Abbey, one of the scattered Ingoldsby landmarks outside Kent. It is not evident from the context in the Legends when or on what occasion the author visited Netley, nor does it appear to be explained in the "Life" by his son. The ruined abbey stands almost on the shores of Southampton Water, divided from that beautiful land and seascape only by a road and the gardens of a narrow fringe of villas. The site is naturally lovely, but has been spoiled and vulgarised by the neighbourhood of the great military hospital and the draggle-tailed, unkempt, and sordid line of mean shops and public-houses which that institution has conjured up. So surely as Government buildings--be they hospitals, offices, barracks, or prisons--are erected on any spot, that spot is certain to be spoiled, and this is assuredly no exception. Stucco-fronted public-houses of the "Prince Albert" and "Hero of the Alma" type and period jostle the struggling, compendious greengrocer's shop that deals at one and the same time in greengrocery, half a hundred weight of coals, firewood, and linen drapery, and the picnicker comes in crowds to the spot on Southampton's early-closing days. How different this from Horace Walpole's description of the place in 1755: "How shall I describe Netley to you? I can only by telling you it is the spot in the world which I and Mr. Chute wish. The ruins are vast, and retain fragments of beautiful fretted roof pendent in the air, with all variety of Gothic patterns of windows wrapped round and round with ivy. Many trees are sprouted up among the walls, and only want to be increased with cypresses. A hill rises above the abbey, encircled with wood. The fort, in which we would build a tower for habitation, remains, with two small platforms. This little castle is buried from the abbey in a wood, in the very centre, on the edge of the hill. On each side breaks in the view of the Southampton sea, deep blue, glistening with silver and vessels; on one side terminated by Southampton, on the other by Calshot Castle, and the Isle of Wight rising above the opposite hills. In short, they are not the ruins of Netley, but of Paradise. Oh! the purple abbots! what a spot had they chosen to slumber in! The scene is so beautifully tranquil, yet so lively, that they seem only to have retired _into_ the world."