would be the case were education conducted from the | teries of that period were deeply in debt. At the beginning with judgment! Were pains taken to im- dissolution of monastic establishments in the reign press truth and virtue on the mind in early infancy, of Henry the Eighth, the endowments of Kirkstall what aid would they not receive from the imagina-Abbey amounted to 3291. 2s. 11d. per annum, by tion and the heart, trained to conspire with them in Dugdale's computation, or 5127. 13s. 4d. according to the same direction! What advantages might not be Speed. It was surrendered by John Ripley, the last derived from a proper attention to early impressions abbot, November 22, 1540, the thirty-first of the and associations, in giving support to those principles reign of Henry VIII., by whom the site was which are connected with human happiness! Let me granted to Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Cantersuppose the happy period arrived when all the prepos- bury, and his heirs, in exchange for other land. In sessions of childhood and youth were directed to sup- the reign of Edward the Sixth, the royal licence was port the pure and sublime truths of religion and granted to the Archbishop, to alienate the said premorality: they would assist and fortify our reason mises to Peter Hammond and others, for the use of against the sceptical suggestions of irreligion, disapa Thomas, a younger son of the Archbishop, and his pointment, and melancholy. Our daily experience heirs. It subsequently passed through several hands, may convince us how susceptible the tender mind is of and is now the property of the Earl of Cardigan. deep impressions, and what important and permanent Not many years after the dissolution of the abbey, effects are produced on the characters and happiness various parts of the materials were carried away of individuals, by the casual associations formed in piecemeal. The lead from the roof, the bells, and childhood. It is the business of education, not to everything of value which could be removed, were counteract this constitution of nature, but to direct it. taken away for the king's use immediately after If it be possible for the influence of fashion to veil the dissolution; and subsequently the good people of the native deformity of vice, and to give to low and Leeds resorted to the deserted abbey as a quarry sordid, and criminal pursuits and indulgences the ap- whence they might procure stones for building; but pearance of spirit, of elegance, and of gaiety, can we its distance of three miles from the town, together doubt the possibility of connecting in the tender mind with the increased use of brick, happily prevented those pleasing associations with pursuits that are these depredations from effecting the entire destructruly honourable and noble ?--DUGALD STUART. tion of the building. But, as it has been observed, it is to the neglect of two centuries and a half, the unregarded growth of ivy, and the maturity of vast elms and other forest trees, which have been suffered to spring up among the walls, that Kirkstall has become, as a single object, one of the picturesque and beautiful ruins in the kingdom. KIRKSTALL ABBEY, YORKSHIRE. KIRKSTALL ABBEY is considered to be one of the most beautiful specimens of architectural ruins now to be found in England, and is one that has engaged the attention of numerous antiquaries, architects, and painters. It is situated in Yorkshire, in the lovely vale of the Aire, near the north bank of that river, and about three miles westward of the town of Leeds. The abbey dates its origin in the year 1152. Henry de Lacey, being in a bad state of health, made a vow, that if he should recover, he would build an abbey in honour of the Blessed Virgin, and of the Cistercian Order. Accordingly, upon the recovery of his health, he gave the town of Bernoldswick, with its appurtenances, for this purpose; and the name was then changed to St. Mary's Mount. In 1147, Alexander, prior of Fountains Abbey*, was made first abbot of the new abbey then to be built; and on the 18th of May, with twelve monks and ten converts, he left Fountains Abbey, and located himself on St. Mary's Mount, the place being confirmed to him by the Archbishop of York. Here they appear to have suffered many privations until the abbey was ready for their reception; but it was at length completed, Henry de Lacey, who made the first grant, being at the whole expense of the erection, himself laying the first stone. Hugh Bigot, earl of Norfolk, afterwards claimed the lordship of Bernoldswick; and the abbot thence held it of him for five marks per annum; but at the request of Henry the Second, the earl afterwards made a free gift of it to the monks. During the life of this abbot, the buildings were extended by the addition of a church, dormitories both for monks and lay-brothers, refectory, cloister and chapter-house. The revenues of the abbey were so well managed, that, at a visitation in the year 1301, the monks of this establishment were found to have 216 draught oxen, 160 cows, 152 yearlings and bullocks, 90 calves, 4000 sheep and lambs; while their debts amounted to only 1607. :—we say only, for many of the monas* See Saturday Magazine, Vol. X V., p. 223. The general architectural merit of this abbey has been stated by Dr. Whitaker, the learned historian of Leeds, in the following words: The great merit of this structure, as a study for those who are desirous of assigning by internal evidence a proper date to every ancient building, is its unity of design and execution. Kirkstall Abbey is a monument of the skill, the taste, and the perseverance of a single man. Accordingly, thought, no deviations from the first plan. Not only the there are in the original fabric no appearances of after arrangement, the proportions, and relations of the different apartments, are rigidly conformed to that peculiar principle which prevailed in the construction of religious houses, erected for, rather than at the expense of, the monks; but every moulding and ornament appears to have been wrought from models previously studied and adapted to the general plan. Deviating by one step from the pure Norman style, the columns of the church are massy as the cylinders of the former age, but channeled rather than clustered. The capitals are Norman, the intercolumniations, though narrow, yet nearly one-third wider than those of the most massy Saxon. The whole building appears to be of the early Norman style, with the exception of some ornaments in the turretted and pinnacled style, and the upper part of the tower, which are of the age of Henry the Seventh and the Eighth. The church is in the form of a cross, and had a lofty tower, which remained entire until about sixty years ago, when an accident occurred which appears to have thus originated. The great kitchen of Kirkstall, together with a suite of apartments extending eastward from the south-east corner of the quadrangle towards the foundations of the abbot's lodgings, is of much later date than the rest; and an imprudent superstructure on the original tower, which rose but little above the acute-angled roof of the church, overweighed one of the four great columns at the intersection, which, after giving warning of its approaching fall for several years, was suddenly crushed by the vast superincumbent pile, on Wednesday night, Jan. 27, 1779, and brought down in its Considered ruin more than two sides of the tower. merely as a ruin, the effect of the church was perhaps | round-headed lights, the first enlargement of the improved by the catastrophe; but the visible detachment of the end of the north transept, and above all of the great east window, from the adjoining walls, threatened to reduce the whole to ruin. The chapter-house, which still remains nearly entire, is partly a remnant of the original structure, and partly an enlargement shortly before the dissolution. The refectory was a vaulted room, supported by cylindrical columns, each consisting of a single stone. The dormitory is supposed by some to have been over the set of buildings that verge to the southward from the transepts, while others suppose that this part of the monastery was placed over the range which communicates with the south-west angle of the church. The cloister-court, or quadrangle, represented in our engraving, surrounds a range of buildings; and from this court, as Dr. Whitaker justly observes, the varied perspective, the broken masses of alternate light and shade diversifying the gloom, must have been admirably adapted to the solemnity of the monastic life. The cloister-court is now preserved from intrusion as an orchard, but it was formerly the cemetery not only of the monks, but also of the wealthy iaity in the neighbouring country. A few fragments of gravestones and crosses remain, but there is only one remnant of an inscription, on which little more is visible than the word RICARD, in old English characThe lavatory, near the south-east corner, has been richly adorned; westward from this was the refectory, a groined and not very spacious apartment. The original windows of the abbey have been single ters. genuine Saxon and early Norman loophole, which was never intended for glass. For though Benedict Biscop is known to have introduced this great improvement into his church at Jarrow, the use of it does not appear to have been general ainong the Saxons, and the narrow apertures in their massy walls evidently point at a struggle between the admission of light and the exclusion of cold. become general, than windows began to expand, first inte But no sooner (says Dr. Whitaker) did the use of glass broader single lights, and next into two, included in the aweep of one common arch, but I conceive the introduction of painted glass to have suggested the necessity of widelyramified windows, first, perhaps for the purpose of displaying an extended surface of vivid colouring, or a large group of historical figures, and, secondly, in order to compensate, by a wider surface, for the quantity of light excluded by their tints. This idea, which I have never met with before, is confirmed by chronology. The earliest stained glass which we read of, at least in the north of England, was in the possession of the monks of Rivaulx about the year 1140. At this precise period, the narrow single lights began to expand; and as the use of it grew more and more general, the surfaces of windows became wider and more diversified. It is a curious circumstance, that within a few days after the fall of the tower before alluded to, several fragments of little tobacco-pipes, or at least smoking pipes, were discovered imbedded in the mortar. This has been considered as a proof that long before the introduction of tobacco from America, the practice of inhaling the smoke of some indigenous vegetable prevailed in England. LONDON: Published by JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND, and sold by all Booksellers. THE convulsion of which we now give a brief description, occurred on the south coast of Devonshire, at the distance of two miles east of the mouth of the river Ax, and the town of Seaton, and about one and a half south-east from Axmouth village. We will not enlarge on the geological interest it has excited throughout the country, or the curiosity which has been evinced by the thousands of persons who have crowded to examine it, but enter at once on the subject. ance. It commenced at three o'clock in the morning of Tuesday, the 24th of December, 1839, when the family of Mr. Chapple, who occupies the farm of Dowlands about half a mile distant, was aroused by a crushing and low rumbling sound. Nothing, however, further occurred until four o'clock on the morning of Christmas Day, when some labourers of the farm, who tenanted two cottages built on the slope of the debris of the undercliff, were awakened by noises similar to that which had been heard the night before. On getting up and endeavouring to open the door, the man who dwelt in one of them, discovered that it was so wrenched and distorted, that he could not accomplish his purpose without violence and the assistance of a crow-bar. He then saw that the ground was sinking beneath him-that it was subsiding in terraces towards the sea-that it was gaping with fissures-and that the walls of his dwelling were cracking and tottering as if ready to fall. He then hastily got his family out, and proceeded to his landlord and gave the alarm, for no one knew how far it would go, or where end. During the whole of Christmas Day the disruption continued; making a roaring and grinding noise resembling some kinds of thunder, and causing the earth to tremble at a great distance from the actual disturbAn immense tract, extending east and west one mile in length, and many hundred feet in width, subsided or sank down so as to form a ravine or chasm more than two hundred feet in depth. Parts of several fields, included in this area, descended with great regularity and precision; so that their surfaces, still bearing their crops, are now at the bottom not much broken up, and only thrown into a slanting position, instead of being level, as they were before. The hedges which divided these fields can be traced on along the fallen portions, as well as across the high country which has remained unmoved. This regularity however, is not universal. Towards the eastern and western extremities of the chasmparticularly towards the former-the devastation has been extraordinary and complete. Columnar masses, resembling vast pinnacles or towers of chalk, are in some places left standing, whilst the more broken and crushed parts have sunk around them: immense banks of flint and broken rock rise in hillocks on every side, whilst the ground is rent and scored in seams many feet wide and deep. An entire orchard is to be seen in one part, which has descended to a level much lower than it before occupied: some of its trees are overthrown and uprooted, whilst many others are still standing, and will bear fruit next season. A wood of forest trees has also been broken up in the same way: the cottages before mentioned are in ruins, and their gardens destroyed: and the devastation around, although dreadful and terrific, is full of beautiful grandeur. This chasm, however, is but one moiety of the phenomenon. It ranges east and west, and parallel with the sea shore and in running through the district, cuts off from the main land a portion of the original country measuring one mile in length by half a mile in width. This huge mass, so cut off, has been forced on its foundation many yards in a southerly direction towards the sea, inclined somewhat from its former level, and rent and depressed into terraces. The bed of the sea also, the whole way along in front of it, has been lifted up to the height of forty feet above the surface, to a great distance out from the original line of coast, now forming reefs and islands, inside which are bays and small harbours, into which boats have been, and have found good soundings. These reefs of thrown-up rock are covered with marine productions, such as corallines, seaweeds, and shells. The western basin somewhat resembles the Cobb at Lyme; but it has the advantage over it in being larger in size: the eastern basin is entered through a long narrow channel, which then widens into a larger bay. We must now enter into an inquiry as to the causes of so vast and violent a revolution. It was at first supposed to have been an earthquake, according to the usual acceptation of the term, that is, a dislocation of the earth by the agency of subterranean fire. A closer examination, however, of the component materials of the district, and a mature consideration of other accessaries acting thereon, will incline to decide otherwise. It is most probable that water, and not fire, has been the cause; and, in order to make this apparent, it is requisite to mention the geological construction of these hills. The upper stratum, running through the cliffs, is chalk. This rests on the green-sand formation, much consolidated, and alternated with seams of chert, a species of opaque flint. Beneath this comes a deep bed of loose, sandy marl, or "fox mould," as it is locally termed, and it is this unstable and friable soil that contains the chief causes of the disturbances under consideration; and lastly this stratum is supported by the blue lias, a formation partly composed of beds of tough and impenetrable clay. These being the component strata, let it be borne in mind, in order to the understanding of this explanation, that all the soils above the lias are pervious to water, but the clay in the lowest bed resists it. The rain and other atmospheric moisture which falls on the upper surface, and the springs of water which may tend towards one point, will filter through the chalk and sandstone, and be mainly absorbed in the spongy fox mould. It cannot descend lower, because the clay of the lias resists it. Now, where the edges of these soils are exposed along the cliffs, so as to lay them bare and unsupported, this water will be seen oozing in springs out of the sandy mould immediately above the clay-which it carries away with it-slowly and almost imperceptibly perhaps, but surely and inevitably. Such a process, going on through the course of ages, must necessarily undermine the superincumbent strata; and when a season occurs more wet than ordinary, and such indeed as England has experienced during the past summer, the catastrophe is hastened on with a sudden crash, even such as we now describe. The precipitate and violent subsidence of such a great mass, had power, by its overwhelming weight, to act laterally, and it was this lateral force which served to thrust upwards the bed of the sea, previously seven fathoms beneath the surface, now into reefs forty feet above. Although the effect produced is as terrific and ruinous as if the fires of Vesuvius had been the agent, yet we have endeavoured to show that fire had indeed no part in it. Several other places on the south coast of England exhibit the remains of similar convulsions, wrought, without doubt, in a similar way, but in what age it is impossible to say, as no record of such an occurrence exists to inform us. The Undercliff in the Isle of Wight may be instanced as one; the Pinhay Cliffs, only three miles east of Culverhole Point (the subject of this paper) as another; and a third on the cliffs between Beer and Branscombe. It is not a little remarkable that Providence should not have suffered a single life to be lost during so great a revolution, although it commenced in the middle of a dark night, when the inhabitants of the two cottages which were shortly reduced to utter ruin, were in their beds. The concourse of persons which has flocked to the scene of devastation is incredible; many thousands have been there, congregated from almost every county in the kingdom, even the most distant. The crops of the two farms which have suffered (that is, Dowlands and Little Bendon,) were getting so spoilt and trodden down by these visitors, that the tenants, in order to save something from the wreck, and in some sort remunerate themselves, held it necessary to levy a toll of sixpence per head on all trespassers. In this way it is supposed that they are reaping a silver harvest, far richer even than if the catastrophe had never occurred. The crowds during the first week were too numerous to be counted.-PETER. A WARNING. VACCINATION was introduced into Ceylon, an island off the southern point of the Peninsula of India, in the month of August, 1802, for, "this devoted island had, in former years, been the scene of frightful devastation from the small-pox, which carried such terror into the minds of the natives, that, in several instances, upon the occurrence of this disease in a town or village, all the inhabitants fled, voluntarily incurring the miseries of hunger, and leaving their homes to be overrun by the wild beasts of the forest, rather than wait the attack of this still more fearful enemy." But, the plague was stayed; in January, 1806, being five years and a half from the introduction of vaccination, the small-pox was extinct throughout the whole of the British possessions in Ceylon. From 1806 till the year 1810 a few scattered cases of the disease occurred, but from this date till 1819, small-pox was quite unknown. ON THE IVORY STATUES OF THE ANCIENTS. THE fairness and beauty of ivory is such as to cause it to be sought after and valued by all the most civilized nations of the earth; by all people, in fact, who have a taste for ornament, and a capacity for producing it. The delicate texture of ivory, its pleasing colour, and its high polish, have furnished the poets and writers of imagination with beautiful tropes and similes, and the merchant with a source of traffic, from the remotest ages of antiquity. Homer speaks of the Trojans using ivory in the make of the bit of a horse's bridle, which must have been 1200 years B.C. After this, as the commerce of Phoenicia enlarged itself, ivory became one of the staple articles of commerce. "Horns" or tusks "of ivory," are thus referred to by the prophet Ezekiel, xxvii. 15. About two hundred years after the Trojan war, the trade in ivory received the attention of the Israelites, under King Solomon. Soon after the time of Solomon, we read of houses and palaces made of this costly and luxurious material; luxurious for its elegance and beauty, costly for its comparative scarcity, if then obtained only from the teeth and tusks of elephants captured in Central India. The ivory was sent, at a great labour and expense, overland, or by a tedious coasting voyage by sea. In addition to Solomon's throne, which was made of ivory, we read also of "beds of ivory," and "vessels of ivory," but they are referred to by the Sacred Writers, as characteristic of worldly greatness and luxury. When ivory was thus extensively employed in other nations, it is not to be wondered at that the manufacture of works of ivory should have been common among the Greeks. From some sources we learn that the father of Demosthenes, the celebrated orator, had a manufactory for making knife-handles of this material. His proper profession was that of a smith or cutler. In addition to this, his dealings in ivory were so large, that he supplied others as a wholesale merchant. But the employment of ivory in the domestic concerns of the Greeks does not demand our attention so much as its use in the construction of certain vast and colossal STATUES, such as that of which a view is given to the notice of the reader, on the following page. These statues were termed chryselephantine, that is, composed of gold and ivory. The great master of the art of working statues in This, however, was a fatal calm, for 'parents had ivory was PHIDIAS. The circumstance which led to neglected to use for their offspring that means of pro- the erection of the statue of the Olympian Jupiter tection which had secured themselves from the was as follows. Phidias had made a statue of ravages of this frightful disorder, and in July, 1819, Minerva, at the request of Pericles, which was placed the small-pox returned with redoubled violence. As in the Parthenon at Athens. It was of ivory and security had begotten apathy, so now, danger and gold, and measured thirty-nine feet in height. On death frightened the poor Ceylonese into using the the summit of the helmet of the goddess was a sphinx, easy alternative, vaccination. We give these simple and on each side of it were griffins. The figure was facts of history without one word of comment, believ-erect, with a robe reaching to the feet. On the breast ing that they must tend to allay the fears of those who have already sheltered their home, under this great discovery, and hoping that they will excite the fears of those who, from whatever cause, still neglect to use the proper means of safety to themselves and others; means which can do no harm, but which, even in the life-time of Dr. Jenner, saved more lives than Napoleon lavished, and of the importance of which Napoleon himself judged so highly, that the name of Jenner was a passport on the Continent, and prisoners were released at his intercession. THE highest learning is to be wise, and the greatest wisdom is to be good.-MARCUS ANTONINUS. was the head of Medusa, formed in ivory; in one hand a figure of Victory, four cubits in height, in the other hand a spear, with a shield at her feet. There was more gold than ivory in this statue; but the eyes, the face, the feet, and the hands were of ivory. The gold used in the statue was so disposed that it could be taken off and weighed at any time, if the honesty of any of the attendants of the temple were impli cated. The execution of this splendid work raised Phidias many enemies, and he was accused of having carved his own image and that of Pericles, his patron, on the shield of the statue of the goddess, in such a way that if any one were to remove his figure from the |