[33] Alas! one might almost say that of this sacred, and once splendid, edifice, _periêrunt etiam ruinæ_. An elderly gentleman, however, of ecclesiastical cut, who oscillates between the Garrick Club and the Falcon in Gravesend, and is said by the host to be a "foreigneering Bishop," does not scruple to identify the ruins still to be seen by the side of the high Dover road, about a mile and a half below the town, with those of the haunted _Sacellum_. The general features of the landscape certainly correspond, and tradition, as certainly, countenances his conjecture. * * * * * Alas, for Ingoldsby Abbey!--Alas that one _should_ have to say Periêrunt etiam Ruinæ! Its very Ruins now are tiny. There is a something in the very sight of an old Abbey--family associations apart--as Ossian says (or Macpherson for him), "pleasing yet mournful to the soul!" nor could I ever yet gaze on the roofless walls and ivy-clad towers of one of these venerable monuments of the piety of bygone days, without something very like an unbidden tear rising to dim the prospect. Something of this, I think, I have already hinted in recording our pic-nic with the Seaforths at Bolsover. Since then I have paid a visit to the beautiful remains of what once was Netley, and never experienced the sensation to which I have alluded in a stronger degree;--if its character was somewhat changed before we parted--it is not my fault. Still, be the drawbacks what they may, I shall ever mark with a white stone the day on which I for the first time beheld the time-worn cloisters of NETLEY ABBEY. A LEGEND OF HAMPSHIRE. I saw thee, Netley, as the sun Across the western wave Was sinking slow, And a golden glow To thy roofless towers he gave; And the ivy sheen, With its mantle of green, That wrapt thy walls around, Shone lovelily bright In that glorious light, And I felt 'twas holy ground. Then I thought of the ancient time-- The days of thy Monks of old,-- When to Matin, and Vesper, and Compline chime, The loud Hosanna roll'd, And, thy courts and "long-drawn aisles" among, Swell'd the full tide of sacred song; And then a Vision pass'd Across my mental eye;[34] And silver shrines, and shaven crowns, And delicate Ladies, in bombazeen gowns, And long white veils, went by, Stiff, and staid, and solemn, and sad,-- --But one, methought, wink'd at the Gardener-Lad!