Page:The American fugitive in Europe.djvu/166

158 necessarily became the scenes of stirring and highly-important events. How altered is the scene! Where were formerly magnificence and splendor, the glittering array of priestly prowess, the crowded halls of haughty bigots, and the prison of religious offenders, there is now but a heap of mouldering ruins. The oppressed and the oppressor have long since lain down together in the peaceful grave. The ruin, generally speaking, is unusually perfect, and the sculpture still beautifully sharp. The outward walls are nearly entire, and are thickly clad with ivy. Many of the windows are also in a good state of preservation; but the roof has long since fallen in. The feathered songsters were fluttering about, and pouring forth their artless lays as a tribute of joy; while the lowing of the herds, the bleating of flocks, and the hum of bees upon the farm near by, all burst upon the ear, and gave the scene a picturesque sublimity that can be easier imagined than described. Most assuredly Shakspeare had such ruins in view when he exclaimed,

"The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yes, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,

Leave not a wreck behind."

In the afternoon we returned to Bristol, and I spent the greater part of the next day in examining the interior of Redcliffe Church. Few places in the west of England have greater claims upon the topographer and