Several crosses have been found in this part of Derbyshire, but only
a few have escaped the dilapidations of age; the others have been, we
had almost said sacrilegiously, destroyed as objects of no value. Mr.
Rhodes tells us that "in one place the shaft of a cross, originally of
no mean workmanship, has been converted into a gate-post; at another,
one has been scooped and hollowed out, and made into a blacksmith's
trough. I have seen one, which is richly sculptured on the three
remaining sides, with figures and a variety of ornaments, all well
executed, that was long applied to this humble purpose." The Cut shows
that a portion of the cross at Wheston has been broken off; Mr. Rhodes
saw the fragment as a common piece of stone, built and cemented into
an adjoining wall; and he judiciously adds, "where so little interest
has been felt in the preservation of these relics, it is only
surprising that so many of them yet remain in different parts of the
kingdom." Among all acts of wanton license, the destruction of a cross
is to us the most unaccountable. We can readily refer the defacement
of imperial insignia and the spoliation of royal houses to political
turbulence engendered by acts of tyrannical misrule; but the
mutilation of _the cross_--the _universal_ Christian emblem--remains
to be explained, unless we attribute it to the brutal ignorance of the
spoilers. Its religious universality ought consistently to protect it
from intolerance.

We must not bring this paper to a close without explaining that the
preceding Engravings have been copied from the first of Mr. Rhodes's
excursions of seventeen miles, viz. from Sheffield to Tideswell.
The Abbey and the two Crosses therefore occur in that district. The
original plates are effectively engraved by W. and W.B. Cook, from
drawings by Mr. Chantrey, R.A., who presented to Mr. Rhodes a series