o it was; after a hasty
trial, if trial it can be called, he was dragged on a hurdle to a common
gallows erected on Torr Hill, and there, in the face of a brutal mob,
with two of his companion monks, was he hung! Protestant zeal stopped not
here, for when life had fled they cut his body down, and dividing it into
quarters, sent one to each of the four principal towns; and as a last
indignity to that mutilated clay, stuck his head on the gate of the old
abbey, over which he had presided with judicious care in the last days
of his troubled life. It was Whiting's wish to bid adieu in person to his
monastery, in which in more prosperous times he had spent many a quiet
hour; it is said that even this, the dying prayer of that poor old man,
they refused to grant.[320]

On viewing the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, so mournful to look upon, yet
so splendid in its decay, we cannot help exclaiming with Michael
Dayton,--

"On whom for this sad waste, should justice lay the crime."

Whilst in the west we cannot pass unnoticed the monastery of Malmsbury,
one of the largest in England, and which possessed at one time an
extensive and valuable library; but it was sadly ransacked at the
Reformation, and its vellum treasures sold to the bakers to heat their
stoves, or applied to the vilest use; not even a catalogue was preserved
to tell the curious of a more enlightened age, what books the old monks
read there; but perhaps, and the blood runs cold as the thought arises in
the mind, a perfect Livy was among them, for a rare _amator librorum_
belonging to this monastery, quotes one of the lost Decades.[321] I
allude to William of Malmsbury, one of the most enthusiastic
bibliomaniacs of his age. From his youth he dwelt within the abbey walls,
and received his education there. His constant study and indefatigable
industry in collecting and perusing books, was only equalled by his
prudence and by his talents; he soon rose in the estimation of his fellow
monks, who appointed him their librarian, and ultimately offered him the
abbacy, which he refused with Christian humility, fearing too, lest its
contingent duties would debar him from a full enjoyment of his favorite
avocation; but of his book passion let William of Malmsbury speak for
himself: "A long period has elapsed since, as well through the care of my
parents as my own industry, I became familiar with books. This pleasure
possessed me from my childhood; this source of delight has