Life is a frost of cold felicitie,
And death the thaw of all our vanitie.
CHRISTOLERO'S EPIGRAMS, BY T. B. 1598.
ON one of those sober and rather melancholy days in the latter
part of autumn when the shadows of morning and evening almost
mingle together, and throw a gloom over the decline of the year,
I passed several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey. There
was something congenial to the season in the mournful
magnificence of the old pile, and as I passed its threshold it
seemed like stepping back into the regions of antiquity and
losing myself among the shades of former ages.
I entered from the inner court of Westminster School, through a
long, low, vaulted passage that had an almost subterranean look,
being dimly lighted in one part by circular perforations in the
massive walls. Through this dark avenue I had a distant view of
the cloisters, with the figure of an old verger in his black gown
moving along their shadowy vaults, and seeming like a spectre
from one of the neighboring tombs. The approach to the abbey
through these gloomy monastic remains prepares the mind for its
solemn contemplation. The cloisters still retain something of the
quiet and seclusion of former days.
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