(H. levipes); they are more like our own well-beloved rock cistus than the shrubby plants bearing the name, but they exceed our native species in the size of their blooms and the length of their stems. The pink one is an old friend, it grew in our childhood's garden; and when a holiday afternoon used to bring the little gardeners to the cultivation of their small estates, cuttings of the pink cistus were often the objects of our miniature merchandise. These old-world flowers have gone out of fashion of late years, and gay annuals, half-hardies, and beautiful-foliaged plants have taken their place, while the neatly kept perennial-stocked beds have given way to ribbon borders and Mosaic patterns. But the return tide has now set in in favour of the dear old plants; rockeries have stood them in good stead, and many nurserymen cultivate them diligently as rock plants. How many of the dear old playfellows of the Yorkshire garden do we now recognise anew in the fields and groves of France and Italy!

The oranges are in bloom again, and the air is redolent of the scent of their blossoms ere the long lines of peel are dry in the sheds of Nizards who powder them as an article of commerce. The sea invites bathers, the dust forbids road travelling, and the shopkeepers of Nice will stand it no longer, the heat makes them so lazy. These might have been taken as three warnings to strike our tent, but we loved Nice, and its rocks and woods and flowers, and were loth to go. But a concert set in, the last and loudest warning; the barking of dogs was nothing to it. English readers may smile when they hear that the frogs croaked us out of Nice, but their smiles would fade into one of sickly weariness if night after night an ornamental creeper trained under their window became peopled with green frogs, every one of which lifted his head upwards, and opening wide his ample jaws, croaked as loud as hen rooks caw over their nests, and never left off till morning dawn. Our landlady assured us that the proprietor of the adjoining villa would give ten thousand francs to have frogs croaking on his property, because they never take up their abode except where there is abundance of good water. We could only reply that tastes differed, and mentally record a resolution that if at any time compelled to share the fountains with green frogs we would do our best to conquer prejudice and eat them extensively, in the hope that by so doing we might keep the brutes at bay.

SHELBRED PRIORY.

BY THOMAS SHAIRP.

SOME three or four miles from the point where a junction is formed between the three counties of Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire, stand the remains of an ancient monastic building, once known to fame as Shelbred Priory. It has, however, long since served the purpose of ministering, in its peculiar manner, to the spiritual wants of a certain select few, and now, its operations being more extended, and itself converted to the very material uses of a farmhouse, it contributes to the bodily comforts of a portion of the inhabitants of the surrounding neighbourhood. Viewed from one of the slight eminences by which it is almost entirely encompassed, it presents no more remarkable architectural characteristics than a thousand other edifices employed for similar purposes: it is simply a rural farmhouse, and as such, no doubt, has been passed cursorily by as uninteresting, and, consequently, unworthy of notice, by hundreds of persons who, had they but been aware of the few antiquities retained in it, would have accorded the building a moment's examination. There are some points of considerable interest attaching to the ruin.

In giving the precise locale of these monastic remains, we must necessarily be vague, for we took no especial care to note their exact situation; and we find that historians differ. While they mostly say of the priory, it is "about three and a half," or "about four miles" from Midhurst, one only is positive (and he certainly has fixed its position too far to the north),-" Shelbred, in the hundred of Easebourne, Rape of Chichester, county of Sussex. It is about five and a half miles N.N.W. from Midhurst." This, however, is a point we will not discuss: the building stands to this day, and in an age of ordnance survey no doubt need remain in the minds of the curious as to its situation.

That Shelbred was considered a ruin worthy of notice, even more than half a century ago, may be gathered from the fact 1 Carlisle's "Topographical Dictionary of England."

that a description of it found its way into the Gentleman's Magazine (for 1799), in the shape of a letter accompanied by a sketch, both of which seem to have been executed by an individual who, judging from his signature, may once have been an inhabitant of its dreary cloisters. The letter runs as follows (of the sketch it is only charitable to say nothing!) :—

"July 10. “MR. URBAN,—Wolinchmere, Silbred,1 or Shulbred, a priory of five black canons of the order of St. Austin, situated in Linch parish, on the borders of Hampshire and Sussex.

"This religious house owes its origin to Sir Ralph de Ardern,3 an English baron, in the early ages of superstition, who endowed it with ample provision, and dedicated it to the Virgin Mary. In 1240 the patronage of the priory, with the third part of a knight's fee, was sold to William de Percy by Robert de Ardern, one of the founder's descendants. This family afterwards proved benefactors to the canons; for Henry de Percy gave them a mill to grind their corn, and enriched them with the patronage of many livings in Sussex.

"It stands in the midst of a fruitful valley, nearly encompassed with lofty woods; and, viewed from the rising grounds, has a romantic appearance. As it was chosen for religious retirement, the site was well calculated for its institution; for in this secluded spot the canons had but little intercourse with mankind, and their dreadful oath might be observed in the days of

1 There is considerable variation in the orthography of the name, which, however, is matter of little surprise, since it is handed down to us from a generation when only a very small per-centage of the population who were able to write took the trouble to spell even their own names twice in the same manner. In addition to the two modes above, we find it written Shelbred, Shelbrede, Shulbrede, Shuldebrede, &c.; and occasionally the "h" is omitted. Touching the name Wallinchmere (or Wolinchmere, as Dugdale gives it in his "Monasticon "), that seems to be simply another form of Linchmere, the parish in which the ruin stands.

2 Or Augustine.

3 In Tanner's "Notitia Monastica" there is the following note to this name:"Leland, Collect.,' vol. i. p. 86, calls him Ralph Ardent; and Dugdale, Baron.,' vol. i. p. 271, saith that William de Percy purchased the patronage of this priory— 24 Hen. III.—of this Sir Ralph Ardern or his heirs, though the name be wrote Hardnes in Dodsworth."

4 "The tenant-in-chief was bound to knight service, or the obligation to maintain forty days in the field a certain number of cavaliers, completely equipped, raised from his under-tenants. Even religious foundations and monasteries were liable to this service, the only exception being the tenure of frankalmoign, or free alms. Every estate of twenty pounds yearly value was considered as a knight's fee, and was bound to furnish a soldier."-Hume. This relic of feudalism was not repealed till the 12th Charles II.

its prosperity. A delightful stream1 flowed through the valley, and watered the gardens of the priory.

"Upon its suppression in 1535, its endowments were valued at £79 15s. 6d., as Speed; but according to Dugdale, £72 15s. 10d. only; it is therefore probable that the difference of these sums, amounting to £6 19s. 8d., was paid away as pensions to the canons upon leaving their priory. In 1538 the site was granted to Sir William Fitz-William, and in 1545 to Sir Anthony Brown, in whose descendants it now remains.

"Soon after its dissolution it appears to have been converted into a farmhouse, and thereby escaped the fate of many of our monastic ruins. The entrance is through a large doorway, which opens into a passage leading to the common hall. On each side of the passage are several gloomy cells, the ceiling arched with intersecting angles of ancient workmanship. Thence a flight of several massive stone steps, worn through age, leads the inquirer through a dark vaulted passage to the rooms above, one of which (tradition says the prior's) claims our notice. The walls of this room were ornamented by some humorous monk with paintings in fresco, but executed in a very homely style.

"The priory is now dwindling to decay, and a few years more will level it with the ground. No remains of this venerable structure will then exist to show the antiquary where it stood.

'Yet time has seen, that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow,-
Has seen this broken pile complete.'

"Yours, &c.,

"FATHER PAUL.”

The room which Father Paul (and several other writers, who have, however, obviously gathered their information from his letter) alludes to as the prior's is called the "Court Room" in Rouse's "Beauties and Antiquities of the County of Sussex.” The latter is at vast pains to describe the whole interior of the apartment, which is, perhaps, well, for the view given by him to illustrate conveys but a very vague impression of the grotesque artistic attempt of the "humorous monk."

1 Most probably a small tributary of the Wey, which flows into the Thames at Weybridge.

2 Is Father Paul quite correct? Dugdale says, " Its value in the 26th Hen. VIII. amounted in the gross to £79 15s. 6d. ; the clear value was rated at £72 15s. 10d.” Speed says nothing of rating; but Dallaway, who enters into minutiæ, informs us that "Speed included the reprisals" in this sum of £79 15s. 6d.

"The walls of this room were nearly covered with rude paintings and monkish devices, appertaining to the birth of Christ; but many of them are nearly obliterated by time, accident, or whitewashing. On a small panel at the right of the door are two birds with a sword in their claws, and bucklers on their legs. On the first large panel at the left of the door are three females in the costume of Queen Elizabeth's reign; on the centre panel are the arms of England, and in the next adjoining panel two cocks; under these three panels may be faintly traced, in old English characters, the following words:

"Gloria sit tibi Domine, qui natus est de Virgine, cum Patre et Sancto Spiritu, in sempiterna sæcula. Amen.

"Omnis spi', laudet Deum.'

(Glory be to Thee, O Lord, who wast born of the Virgin, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever. Amen. "Let every creature praise the Lord.)

"The following are pretty nearly the various figures and devices of this Court Room, and the accompanying words, which still remain in tolerable preservation :—

"On the left panel are represented a cock, from whose beak is suspended a label with these words,-Christus natus est;' and a duck, who silently vociferates, Quando? quando?' A magpie ejaculates, 'In hac nocte!' A bull bellows forth, Ubi? ubi?' and finally a lamb, the symbol of innocence, closes the train of all the pastoral images, which evidently have relation to the birth of our Saviour in the manger; and although the pious monk has represented this living scene in simple and homely drawings, we are forcibly reminded of the affecting language of Milton,

'It was the winter wild,

When the heaven-born Child,

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to Him

Had doffed her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathise.'

The lamb utters the following words, 'In Bethlem.'

Each short

'Having so many authorities agreeing, of course there can be no doubt that these frescoes were executed by some monk in the days when Shelbred was a priory, and not a farmhouse; yet it seems strange that these should be the arms and the motto of James I., who did not begin to reign till sixty-six years after the dissolution. 2 Mr. Rouse appends a translation, which we will not omit: