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Embellished with a View of an ANCIENT MANSION, at Norton-Lees.

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VOL. II.

Astley Meanley, late Minister of
Stannington, with a descriptive
Sketch of that Hamlet...

.......

145.

ORIGINAL POETRY.

tinued...

93

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Noon at Sheffield..

Some Account of the Parish of Marske near Richmond.....

The Kiss of Beauty.

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148

150

150

Verses by Sir Walter Raughley... 152
Lines written on the Parting of Three
Friends in Scotland

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110

S.I. Law on imagined Prognostications of Death.

Foreign Events....

164

.114

Parliamentary Intelligence....

165

On the Influence of Novel reading

Domestic Occurrences, London.

167

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General.
Yorkshire..

188

168

concluded...

118

On the Authors of the Spectators..

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Sketch of the Story of Rob Roy.

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On the Culture of Turnips...

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HOURS AFTER TEA, No. 1...

137

The Cup of Tea.....

140

MONTHLY REPORTS.

Commercial...

BIOGRAPHY, &c.

List of Bankrupts..

Tribute to the Memory of the Rev.

Price Current, &c..

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SHEFFIELD:

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY BENTHAM AND RAY, HIGH-STREET,

(To whom Communications, post paid, may be addressed :)

SOLD, ALSO, BY

BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY, LONDON; and all other booksellers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
LEDG

༦༠་ལ་པ་>>*།༠་ལ་པ་

WE thank QUERCUS for his "Acorn:" it shall be planted next month.

We are greatly obliged to SCRUTATOR for his favour, and beg to assure him that our thanks will be cheerfully given for the articles he mentions. An early account of the lead-mines would be an additional obligation.

The" Hours after Tea" are very acceptable to us; and we promise our fair readers, in particular, much gratification from the perusal of Q.'s monthly lucubrations.

Our kind friend, Mr. Law, never forgets us; and we are glad that the duties in which he is engaged afford so favourable an opportunity of touching upon subjects, themselves interesting, in a manner that we know has given great satisfaction to our readers.

The further account of Kirkstall Abbey has been received. The author has our best thanks. We have not yet had time to give it that particular attention which is necessary to our final decision: but the injunction of the communicator shall be strictly at tended to.

We have received-Verses to Laura,- M. T.'s Geological paper, Elizabeth,-Anne Illustrated,-a Remedy for Insects in Corn,-and Rural Life, a poem,—of which the two first we hope to insert, and if the two next do not appear, we beg our fair correspondents to attribute it to our determination not to pursue the subject, rather than our unfavourable opinion of their talents; as a proof of which we assure them we shall be most happy to receive their future favours.

We are particularly obliged to EUGENIUS and FAUTOR: we promise ourselves much valuable assistance from our acquaintance with the latter, and is it too much to expect that the former will continue to give his support to the Yorkshire Magazine?

The paper on " Climbing Boys” shall have a place next month, and "speculations" from the gentleman who sent it will be always gladly received. He will see that we have anticipated his kind intention on another subject in the present number.

We are very sorry that a pacquet containing the first paper on the Age of Homer,— Petrarch's Sonnets,-the Account of Bakewell, and other articles, has by some accident escaped our search, and we fear that we have no hope of regaining them, except by the kindness of our friends who sent them.

Our readers will perceive that, in compliance with the urgent wishes of many judicious friends, we have opened a MATHEMATICAL REPOSITORY, and request communications for this department, which, we trust, will give satisfaction to our numerous readers.

THE NORTHERN STAR.

No. 9.-For FEBRUARY, 1818.

Picturesque Scenery, Antiquities, &c.

ANCIENT MANSION AT NORTON-LEES.

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WE were favoured with the drawing from which the plate which adorns our present number was engraved, by the kindness of E. Blore, Esq., who was pleased to express his good will towards our Miscellany, by sketching this ancient house, while on a visit in this neighbourhood. It was long the residence of a branch of a family who were in great note in the northern part of Derbyshire. Of this family were, John and Geoffrey Blythe, sons of William Blythe, of Norton, to whom a grant of arms was made in 1485. The former became bishop of Salisbury, and the latter bishop of Coventry and Litchfield. The tomb which the latter placed over the remains of his parents is still to be seen in Norton church. The received pedigrees bring the Blythes of Norton-Lees from Thomas Blythe, uncle to the two bishops, from whom, after several generations, sprung William Blythe, of Norton Lees, yeoman, perhaps the builder of this house. He married to his first wife Frances Vesey, of a very ancient family, in the wapentake of Strafforth and Tickhill, daughter to William Vesey, by whom he had William Blythe, of Norton-Lees, a commander in the Parliament army, who married a Bright, and died early in 1666. He had, for a short time, a command in Sheffield Castle. His family was brought up in principles of nonconformity, and his son William Blythe obtained a licence for having divine service in his house at Norton-Lees, in the time of Charles II. His son and successor was a dissenting minister, and, residing on the estate of his ancestors, officiated in 1716 to a small congregation at Attercliffe. In the next generation the estate was sold, and is at present in the possession of Samuel Shore, Esq. of Meersbrook.

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THIS noble and beautiful pile of building, which rivals in elegance and extent many of the productions of ancient Greece and Rome, was founded

for the accommodation of the monks of the Cistercian* order, by John de Ebor, at that time the abbot, about the year 1204; and completed under the superintendence of his immediate successors John Phud and John de Cancia, the latter of whom finished the structure, instituted nine altars therein, added a beautiful painted pavement, erected the new cloister, the infirmary, and the house for the entertainment of the poor. In its original and perfect state this extensive pile of building, with its appendages, occupied upwards of ten acres of ground, two only of which are taken up with the present ruins, which present a beautiful and interesting prospect from whatever point of view they are contemplated.

It is impossible, at this remote period, to form an adequate idea of the noble and sublime appearance which such extensive and beautiful erections must have presented to the eye of the spectator in their pristine splendour; but if the parts which have been dilapidated and destroyed by the hand of time bore any proportion to those which still remain to be explored by the antiquary or investigated by the curious, we may, indeed, form the most exalted opinion of its original grandeur and beauty.

There were formerly to be found many columns of black marble, with white spots, in the most eastern transversed part of the church; and many pillars of the same quality supported and adorned the chapter and refectory. The length of the church from east to west is 351 feet, and the width of the transept 186 feet. The ambulatory, which is situated behind the altar, is 132 feet long, and 36 feet broad.

year

HENRY, first Lord PERCY of Alnwick, was buried, in the 1315, before the high altar, on the left side of which, carved upon the wall, is the figure of an angel holding a scroll, on which is the date 1285. This figure must have been placed there forty-five or fifty years subsequent to the completion of the building; for John de Cancia, who was abbot at the time it was finished, died in or about the year 1245, being the twentyfifth year of the reign of Henry III.

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The whole of this fabric was begun and finished in the course of about forty years; a space of time which, allowing for the tardy proceeding of ancient architects, may be considered by no means too long for the completion of so immense an undertaking.

* The Cestercians derived their name from Cistertium, or Cisteaux, in the diocese of Chalons. It was instituted in 1098, by one Robert, who had been abbot of Molesme. This pious man is said to have withdrawn himself, with a select number of his monks, from the rest of the community, on account of their dissolute manners. St. Benedict, which the founder had adopted, some others were added by their third abbot, named Stephen Harding, who was an Englishman. Pope Urban 11. confirmed these (which were called Charitatis Charte) in the year 1107.

To the rules of

The Cistertians, who were also sometimes called Bernardines, were so particular as not to admit of another religious house, even of their own order, within a certain distance. They had the denomination of White Monks, from a white gown and cassock which they wore at church, though they had a black gown to put on when they went abroad. According to Emmilianne, they pretended to adopt the white habit, in obedience to the Virgin Mary, who, having appeared to St. Bernard (the founder of 150 of these houses), commanded that the dress should be adopted for her sake, to whom their monasteries were generally dedicated. Their first house in England was at Waverley, in Surrey; and they had 85 here. They came over in 1128, and generally fixed their abode in solitary places.- Boswell's Antiquities.

The Chapter-house is 84 feet by 42; and contains the tombs of eighteen of the abbots; the last of whom was interred A. D. 1345. In the years 1790 and 1791 the rubbish was taken out of this chapter-house when a painted pavement, broken and disfigured in many places, was discovered, and thirteen of the tomb-stones of the abbots, the inscriptions on two of which were alone legible.

First Inscription.

HIC REQUIESCIT DOMINUS JOANNES X.

ABBAS DE FONTIBUS, QUI OBIIT VIII. DIE DECEMBRIS.

Second Inscription.

IC REQUIESCIT DOMINUS JOHANNES XII. ABBAS DE FONTIBUS.

The latter of these was John de Cancia, who was created abbot in 1219. Their coffins were of stone, covered with two courses of slate well cemented together. The grave-stones are of gray marble mixed with spar, and are about six feet long, two feet broad at the head, and eighteen inches at the feet. The library and scriptorium were situated over the chapter-house. The Refectory, or dining-room, is 130 feet by 47.

The Cloisters are 300 feet long and thirty-six broad, having an arched roof supported by twenty-one pillars.

"Here let my due feet never fail

To walk the studious cloysters pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antic pillars massy proof,

Aud storied windows richly dight,

Casting a dim religious light."

MILTON.

The Dormitory, or sleeping-room, is situated above the cloisters, and is of the same dimensions.

The Cloister-garden is 126 feet square, enclosed by a high wall, and planted with evergreens.

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There are still growing, on the south side of the abbey, several yewtrees, the circumference of one of which is twenty-six feet six inches. It was under these trees, as is recorded, that the monks used to assemble previously to the erection of the monastery; and the consideration of the fact, that a yew-tree increases very little in the course of a year, and that these are grown to a most prodigious size, might seem to favour this traditionary tale.*

At York, the Cistertian abbey of Rievel, being much celebrated for the sanctity and strict discipline of the monks placed there, some of the religious of the Benedictine monastery of St. Mary's, together with Richard their prior, wished their house might adopt the like rules and discipline.

This being opposed by their abbot Girald, a visitation was sollicited; but when archbishop Thurston came to St. Mary's, attended by many clergymen, for that purpose, a tumult was the consequence; and the prelate laid the monastery under an interdict. But Richard, together with the sub-prior, and 12 of the brethren, withdrew to Thurstan's house, where they remained in a state of separation from the interdicted community, and, it is related, spent eleven weeks and five days mostly in fasting and prayer.

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