he
was exhibited in Leeds, and realised about 200 pounds as a show.
Thus as a curiosity first, and as a small mountain of fat beef
afterward, he proved a generous gift to the suffering operatives in
the manufacturing districts.

Passing through the park gate, we entered upon a lawn esplanade
looking down upon the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey. This broad terrace
extended for apparently a half of a mile, and was as finely carpeted
piece of ground as you will find in England. No hair of horse or
dog groomed and brushed with the nicest care, and soft and shining
with the healthiest vitality, could surpass in delicacy and life of
surface the grass coverlet of this long terrace, from which you
looked down upon that grand monument of twelfth-century architecture
half veiled among the trees of the glen. This was one of the oldest
abbeys in the north of England, and the mother of several of them.
Some of its walls are still as entire and perfect as those of
Tintern, on the Wye. It was founded by the monks of the St. Bernard
order, in 1131, according to the historical record. Really those
black-cowled masons and carvers must have given the enthusiasm and
genius of the early painters of the Virgin to these magnificent
structures. I will not go into the subject at large here, leaving
it to form an entire chapter, when I have seen most of the old
abbeys of the country. In looking up at their walls, arches and
columns, one marvels to see the most delicate and elaborate vine and
flower-work of the carver's chisel apparently as perfect as when it
engraved the last line; and this, too, in face of the frosts and
beating storms of six hundred years. The largest ivy I ever saw
buttressed one of the windowed walls with ten thousand cross-folded
fingers and foliage of vivid green piled thick and high upon the
teeth-marks of time. The trunk was a full foot through at the butt.
A few years ago a large mound was uncovered near the ruin, and found
to be composed of cinders, showing incontestably that the monks had
worked iron ore very extensively, thus teaching the common people
that art as well as agriculture. These cinders have been used very
largely in repairing the roads for a considerable distance around.

On returning to Thirsk over the Hambleton range of hills, we crossed
thousands of acres of moor-land covered with heather in full bloom,
looking like a purple sea. It was a splendid sight. My friend, who
was an artist, stopped