[316] The recent epic poem by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart., entitled “King Arthur,” is one of the few poems of our own times that promises to descend to posterity. What Milton admired, and Dryden projected, as the subject of a national poem, Sir Edward has accomplished with that felicitous taste and ability which have impressed his name on the popular and classic literature of the day. Pope himself had at one period of his life resolved to complete, what Milton and Dryden had only planned—a heroic poem on the same subject.
[317] Among the estates thus rejected was the ancient manor of Berkeley, in the Vale of Gloucester. “Nam cum eis aliquando tota provincia de Bergelay a Rege et Regina, gratis offeretur,” etc. etc.
[318] Regina verò Matildis sanctitatis ignara quanta videlicet mentis constantia insaturabilem divitiarum fugeret ingluviem; cum aliquando rogare cœpit ut modis omnibus sineret eam manum suam in sinum ejus mittere, etc.
[319] The precise year of its foundation has never been ascertained; but there is no doubt that it was commenced after 1108, and completed before 1136, when the greater part of the brotherhood were removed to Hereford, and subsequently to New Llanthony, near Gloucester. We have the testimony of Giraldus Cambrensis that, in 1186, the Mother-Abbey had been long completed. He describes it as covered with lead, and not inelegantly constructed with a roof of stone.
[320] Hist. Abbatiæ de Llanthony, in Bibl. Cotton, Sub. Effigie Julii DXI. fol. 30. B.; also, Monasticon Angl. vol. iii. p. 58. Ed. 1673. It is too long for our purpose; but the article will be interspersed with extracts from it.
[321] Translated by the late Sir R. Colt Hoare, Bart., 1806.
[322] The name of the place in Welsh, as he explains it, is Nanthodeni. Nant signifies a running stream, from whence this place is still called by the inhabitants, Llandevi Nantodeni, or, the Church of St. David upon the river Hodeni. By the English, therefore, it is corruptly called Llanthoni; whereas it should either be called Nanthodeni, that is, the brook of the Hodeni, or Lanthodeni, the church upon the Hodeni.
[323] This was before the New Abbey had been thought of; or, in the original words, “Before the Daughter had existence; and I sincerely wish,” adds the devout historian, “that she had never been produced.”
[324] Resembling in many respects—though in a less inhospitable region—the Augustine monks of “the Great St. Bernard,” and holding no intercourse with the world around them, unless by means of those pilgrims who resorted to their shrine, and spread abroad the fame of their sanctity.
[325] Seneca’s Morals.