But when account is taken of all the stately arches and columns, and the beautifully cut ornament thereon, now embodied in the brick rubble and plaster which we owe to Georgian and Early Victorian dulness and parsimony, no more of the old Priory survives for our refreshment than the south aisle of the choir. The stones of the structure that were hewn and raised by some "Master Henry" or "Master Hubert the Mason," the timbers that some "Master John the Carpenter" industriously wrought, even the marble and alabaster which crowned the work have long been torn away. They are come upon now, in fragments in the walls and floors and roofs of cottages and barns which adjoin the church. --------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: SCENE AT THE MODERN CEREMONY.] SCENE AT THE MODERN CEREMONY.--The Trial Proceeding. Judge in the Middle. Tow pairs of claimants on either side. Counsel for the claimants speaking; counsel for the Bacon seated. Jury of maidens and bachelors on extreme right. Highly entertained public in front at 1_s._ a head. --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: PROCESSION AFTER THE MODERN CEREMONY.] PROCESSION AFTER THE MODERN CEREMONY.--Two couples in chairs, recent imitations of the original in the Priory Church. The Bacon is swinging from poles behind the second couple. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Where the monastic building once extended nothing remains but the out of sight foundations which try the patience of the digger of land drains. Labourers' patches of potatoes and greens range over consecrated ground. The fishponds of the monks, to which they had recourse "on Fridays when they fasted," grow grass or bear the burden of a railway embankment. Tradition and propinquity, but these only, point to venerable cottages and a farmhouse as marking the position of the Priory's Manor house and Grange. Of memorials of the Flitch ceremony two are shown--the oaken seat, in which successful applicants for the Bacon were chaired, and the stones on which they knelt. The chair is kept within the altar rails. Two persons could no doubt be squeezed into it. There are holes in the chair through which the bearers' poles went. Whether the chair belonged originally to the Prior and was actually used when he gave away the Flitch, or was the property of one of the Lords of the Manor, who, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, continued the custom, has been disputed. But there is evidence pointing to the chair having been employed on the occasion of the Manorial awards only. Mr. F. Roe, in his _Old Oak Furniture_, though he attributes the chair to the thirteenth century, doubts very much whether it can have been used from the beginning for the ritual of the Flitch. For this reason--