a colloquy iminster abbey.
i know that all beh the moon decays,
and what by mortals in this world is brought,
in times great periods shall return to nought.
i know that all the muses heavenly rays,
with toil of sprite which are so dearly bought,
as idle sounds, of few or none are sought--
that there is nothing lighter than mere praise.
drummond of hawthornden.
there are certain half-dreaming moods of mind in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed. in such a mood i was l about the old gray cloisters of westminster abbey, enjoying that luxury of wandering thought whie is apt to dignify with the name of re?e, when suddenly an irruption of madcap boys from westminster school, playing at football, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, making the vaulted passages and mouldering tombs echo with their merriment. i sought to take refuge from their noise by peing still deeper into the solitudes of the pile, and applied to one of the vergers for admission to the library.
he ducted me through a portal rich with the crumbling sculpture of fes, which opened upon a gloomy passage leading to the chapter-house and the chamber in whisday book is deposited. just within the passage is a small door on the left. to this the verger applied a key; it was double locked, and opened with some dif?culty, as if seldom used. we now asded a dark narrow staircase, and, passing through a sed door, ehe library.
i found myself in a lofty antique hall, the roof supported by massive joists of old english oak. it was soberly lighted by a row of gothidows at a siderable height from the ?oor, and which apparently opened upon the roofs of the cloisters. an a picture of some reverend dignitary of the chur his robes hung over the ?replace. around the hall and in a small gallery were the books, arranged in carved oaken cases. they sisted principally of old polemical writers, and were much more worn by time than use. in the tre of the library was a solitary table with two or three books on it, an inkstand without ink, and a few pens parched by long disuse. the place seemed ?tted for quiet study and profouation. it was buried deep among the massive walls of the abbey and shut up from the tumult of the world. i could only hear now and then the shouts of the school-boys faintly swelling from the cloisters, and
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