posemiooss = zen år pla de ter vols 28 de were maintinel the pros for the day Evize services, and the gereed ombra de amer Some of the procjå gern in the regla Aal & MA“ as the abbess can kinsmen, are a'lo nemal as Nolt » bunnable offices in the service of the al Lacock has preserved, from the Pisselerion to this day, its most perfect form : the cloisters and cells of the mens its ancient walls and vied chimneys almost entire. But the church was wholly destroyed, and not a vestige can be traced of its ancient altars. The bones of the honoured foundress and her family were alike disregarded. One single mark of respectful remembrance has been paid to the Countess Ela: her epitaph is still preserved on a stone within those cloisters which echoed once to her footsteps, and resounded the Ave Marias of the nuns, After the Dissolution we find that Lacock was sold to Si William Sherington in 1544 for £783, 128. 1d. Thirty years subsequently Lacock was visited by Queen Elizabeth, who was also this year at Longleat and Wilton; and, most probably, the queen then knighted her host, Sir Henry Sherington. In the Civil War, 1645, the house was garrisoned for the king, and taken by the opposite party shortly after Cromwell had won Devizes, the Lord of Lacock having previously been sent prisoner to London. Aubrey relates this romantic story, which has the appearance of authenticity: Dame Olave, a daughter and co-heir of Sir [Henry] Sherington of Lacock, being in love with [John] Talbot, a younger brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and her father not consenting that she should marry him, discoursing with him one night from the battlements of the abbey church, said she, "I will leap down to you." Her sweetheart replied he would catch her then, but he did not believe she would have done it. She leapt downe; and the wind, which was then high, came under her coates, and did something break the fall. Mr. Talbot caught her in his arms, but she struck him dead. She cried out for help, and he was with great difficulty brought to life again. Her father told her that, since she had made such a leap, she should e'en marrie him. She was my honoured friend Colonel Sharington Talbot's grandmother, and died at her house at Lacock about 1651, being about an hundred years old. Quære, Sir Jo. Talbot?' The above anecdote was missed by the venerable historian of Lacock, the Rev. Canon Bowles, to which work we are largely indebted for the materials of this sketch. John Carter, the antiquary, when he visited Lacock in. 1801, was told a tradition, that 'one of the nuns jumped be le Reisers s sume gule gets a te der de vai d zzes & Cares ze Foss the smur ve her Soun Led span Autres sur bag de diões dad had ten been destroyed there sa glered to we a` ker de From the Sterz goes the progery descended as Anthony Müdmap of Apchor, NakmanskaNN mamag må Gace, Lighter of Sa Hoy SECON bet had no issue; so that the whole inbertine of Laud come to her sister Clae, the wife of John Talbot, Ag of Salwary, county Worcester, found in devent from John the second Earl of Shrewsbury, from whom it has descended to Henry Fox Talbet. Esq., who in this delightill retreat, in chemical researches for his own recreation, here worked out the secret of Photography, He took up the ground to which Davy and Wedgwood had made their way, Paper was the medium, which he made sensitive to light by nitrate of silver, and then fixed the image by common salt. He first called his process Photogenic Drawing, then Calotype, which his friends changed to Talbotype, in imitation of Daguerre's example. Mr. Fox Talbot is stated, in the Quarterly Review, No. ceii., to have sent his method to the Royal Society in the same month that Daguerre's discovery was made known, January 1839; but Sir David Brewster dates Mr. Talbot's communication six months earlier. 1 As a new art, which gave employment to thousands, Mr. Fox Talbot brought photography to a high degree of perfection. He Lacock Abbey, as it now exists, consists of the octangular turret, with a gallery, already referred to; and the cloisters, of the time of Henry IV. There are several sepulchral relics, as grave-stones, coffin-lids, etc. The site of the church is now a terrace-walk. The residential portion of the building has handsome bayed windows, pierced parapet, and twisted chimney-shafts. The middle chamber of the tower is reserved as a depository for writings; here is the Magna Charta of King Henry III., of inestimable value, being the only one perfect in the kingdom. It is 12 inches broad; and in length, including the fold, 20 inches: the seal is of green wax, pendent by a skein of green silk. This charter seems to have been designed for the use of the knights and military tenants in Wiltshire, and to have been deposited here by the Countess Ela, who succeeded her husband in the office of Sheriff of Wiltshire. expended large sums of money in obtaining for the public the full benefit of his invention; and towards the termination of his patent he liberally surrendered to photographic amateurs and others all the rights which he possessed. As Mr. Talbot had derived no pecuniary benefit from his patent, he had intended to apply to the Privy Council for an extension of it; but in this he was thwarted by interested parties.' 'Although,' says Sir David Brewster, we are confident that a jury of philosophers would have given a verdict in favour of Mr. Talbot's patent, taken as a whole, and so long unchallenged, yet we regret to say that an English judge and jury were found to deprive him of his right, and transfer it to the public. The patrons of science and art stood aloof in the contest; and none of our scientific institutions, and no intelligent member of the Government, came forward to claim from the State a national reward to Mr. Talbot. How different in France was the treatment of Niepce and Daguerre !' Kis Cavira z 1 sked of the oil pac There a something hay pinapeandro je to jeeling in the appearance of this due adder, stovy a fertile vale, with its old avenge, broad terror walls and extensive cloisters, breathing, as it were, the Aures') # xx of those holy spirits that once animated the vestal forms of beauty now mouldered into dust, and of which the protine foot that treads ever it takes no account. The entrance-hall is a magnificent apartment, with a double row of niches round its sides, filled with statues one of a bishop, with a book in hand, is instinct with he Over the high mantel are the effigies of the Countess of Shrewsbury and her two beautiful nieces, habited as nuns, From a door on one side of the hall you enter the inner cloisters, which still bear the name of "the nuns burying ground." The great dining room has full length portraits painted on panel. There is a gallery hung with pictures among which is the legendary leap of the nun, who "exaped with her lover, having leaped from the high tower, in which |