felt in all the surrounding
neighbourhood--the daily services, the solemn and majestic chants, the
processions, must have created a deep impression on the minds of people.
Many of the great writers and thinkers of subsequent ages have
appreciated the wonderful labours of the monks. Dr. Johnson wrote:--

"I never read of a hermit, but in imagination I kiss his feet; never of
a monastery, but I fall on my knees and kiss the pavement."

And now these noble buildings, hallowed by a thousand memories, exist
only as dishonoured ruins. Some have been pulled down entirely, and the
site used for gaols or barracks. Convicts labour where once monks
prayed. The renowned abbey of Cluny is a racing stable, and Le Bec, the
home of Anselm, has suffered a like profanation. Factories have invaded
some of these consecrated sites. Many have been used as quarries for
generations. All the carved and wrought stone has been cut off, and used
for making bridges and roads and private houses. Nature has covered the
remains with clinging ivy, and creeping plants, and wild flowers, and
legends cluster round the old stones and tell the story of their
greatness and their ruin. The country folk of western Ireland show the
marks on the stones furrowed by the burning tears of the monks when they
were driven out of their holy home. I am describing the condition of the
monasteries in the days of their glory, when the spirit of the religious
orders was bright and pure and enthusiastic. It cannot be denied that
often the immense wealth which kings and nobles poured into the treasury
of the monks begat luxury and idleness. Boccaccio in Italy, and even
Dante, and our own Chaucer, write vigorously against the corruption of
the monks, their luxury, love of sport, and neglect of their duty. Thus
Chaucer wrote of a fourteenth-century prior:--

"Therefore he was a prickasoure a right:
Greihounds he hadde as swift as foul of flight:
Of pricking and of hunting for the hare
Was all his lust, for no cost wolde he spare.
I saw his sleves purfiled at the hond
With gris, and that the finest in the loud.
And for to fasten his hood under his chinne,
He hadde of gold ywrought a curious pinne:
A love-knotte in the greter end ther was.
His head was balled, and shone as any glas,
And eke his face, as it had been anoint.
He was a lord full fat and in good point
His eye stepe, and rolling in his bed,
That stemed as a forneis of led.
His botes