es of Roman coinage, both in
brass and silver, from the emperor Nero, down to Valens. Leaving those
whose taste shall so direct them, to pursue the train of reflections to
which this most curious subject may lead, we return to our route. From
the North Budge two streets branch out, that on the left the

WOOD-GATE,

leading to the Ashby-de-la-Zouch road, and that on the right, the

ABBEY-GATE,

conducting us to the Abbey.

The name of _Abbey_, so dear to painting, poetry, and romance, naturally
raises in the mind an idea of the picturesque and the aweful; but we are
now approaching no gothic perspectives, no "long drawn aisles and fretted
vaults," and scarcely able to bring a single instance of assimilation, we
visit indeed an Abbey only in name; yet we visit a spot well adapted to
the purposes to which it was appropriated. Sequestered, surrounded by
pleasing objects, and dignified by the not uncertain evidences of
history, it offers to the thinking mind all those interesting sensations
which a review of past times, important events, and manners now no more,
can possibly produce.

An antient brick wall with a small niche of stone is the first indication
of its boundaries. This is said by Leland, to have been built by Bishop
Penny who was Abbot of this Monastery in 1496. This prelate continued in
his Abbacy till he was translated to the See of Carlisle, and even then,
when spared from his episcopal duty, he delighted to dwell among his
brethren in this religious retreat, and was interred in the neighbouring
church of St. Margaret. Tracing the wall, we enter the grounds by a
modern gateway, and perceive, among orchards, gardens, and potatoe
plantations (the land being occupied by a Gardener and Nursery-man) the
front wall, facing the north west, of the mansion, once belonging to the
Earls of Devonshire, which, as Mr. Grose has ascertained from a MS. in
the British Museum, was built out of the ruins of the Abbey, long after
its dissolution. The massy stone stanchions of the windows of this house
which still remain entire, and the firmness of the walls, shew the
durability of the materials. They still retain the traces of that fire
by which the forces of Charles the first on their retreat northward after
their defeat at Naseby, destroyed that mansion, a few days before, the
quarters of the king himself.

In these gardens, nearly thirty acres in extent, no traces now remain of
the refectory, the ce