'Cross the dark hall and down the aisles is thrown!"

SIR EGERTON BAYDGES.


It is handed down by tradition that an abbey was founded at Melrose
about the end of the sixth century. The famous St. Cuthbert was one of
the abbots in 643; he, however, left, and went to Holy Island, in
Northumberland. Many wonderful stories are related of St. Cuthbert; that
eleven years after his death in Holy Island, (in 687,) his body, on
being taken up, exhibited no marks of corruption, seeming as if asleep,
&c. &c. Ethelwold succeeded St. Cuthbert, and sometime after the
monastery was ruined by the Danes. The place where this abbey is
supposed to have stood is called Old Melrose, and is a mile and a half
from the present abbey.

Melrose Abbey was founded by king David of Scotland in 1136. It is
supposed to have been built in ten years. The church of the convent was
dedicated to St. Mary on the 28th of July, 1146. It was the mother
church of the Cistertian order in Scotland. The monks were brought from
Rievaulx Abbey, in Yorkshire. Their habit was white; and they soon
superseded the order of the Benedictines.

The abbey is built in the form of St. John's cross, of the Gothic style
of architecture, and is 258 feet in length; the breadth 137-1/2 feet;
and 943 feet in circumference. A considerable part of the principal
tower is now in ruins; its present height is 84 feet. There are many
very superb windows; the principal one at the east end (which is the top
nave of the cross,) appears to have been more recently built than the
others, and is 57 feet in extreme height, and 28 feet wide. It has been