t, still runs, long, black and massive, a range of
monastic ruins; into the wide internal spaces of which the stranger is
admitted on payment of one shilling. Internal spaces laid out, at
present, as a botanic garden. Here stranger or townsman, sauntering at
his leisure amid these vast grim venerable ruins, may persuade himself
that an Abbey of St. Edmundsbury did once exist; nay there is no doubt
of it: see here the ancient massive Gateway, of architecture
interesting to the eye of Dilettantism; and farther on, that other
ancient Gateway, now about to tumble, unless Dilettantism, in these
very months, can subscribe money to cramp it and prop it!

Here, sure enough, is an Abbey; beautiful in the eye of Dilettantism.
Giant Pedantry also will step in, with its huge _Dugdale_ and other
enormous _Monasticons_ under its arm, and cheerfully apprise you, That
this was a very great Abbey, owner and indeed creator of St. Edmund's
Town itself, owner of wide lands and revenues; nay that its lands were
once a county of themselves; that indeed King Canute or Knut was very
kind to it, and gave St. Edmund his own gold crown off his head, on
one occasion: for the rest, that the Monks were of such and such a
genus, such and such a number; that they had so many carucates of land
in this hundred, and so many in that; and then farther that the large
Tower or Belfry was built by such a one, and the smaller Belfry was
built by &c. &c.--Till human nature can stand no more of it; till
human nature desperately take refuge in forgetfulness, almost in flat
disbelief of the whole business, Monks, Monastery, Belfries, Carucates
and all! Alas, what mountains of dead ashes, wreck and burnt bones,
does assiduous Pedantry dig up from the Past Time, and name it
History, and Philosophy of History; till, as we say, the human soul
sinks wearied and bewildered; till the Past Time seems all one
infinite incredible gray void, without sun, stars, hearth-fires, or
candle-light; dim offensive dust-whirlwinds filling universal Nature;
and over your Historical Library, it is as if all the Titans had
written for themselves: Dry Rubbish shot here!

And yet these grim old walls are not a dilettantism and dubiety; they
are an earnest fact. It was a most real and serious purpose they were
built for! Yes, another world it was, when these black ruins, white in
their new mortar and fresh chiselling, first saw the sun as walls,
long ago. Gauge not, with thy dilettante com