Note (return) — MEMORABLE DAYS.

The principal window is particularly admired as a rich specimen of Gothic beauty, and a tourist, in 1818, says, "bids defiance to time and tempest;" but in our engraving, which is of very recent date, the details of the window will be sought for in vain. "Shrubs and trees," observes the same writer, "have found a footing in the crevices, and branches from the walls shook in undulating monotony, and with a gloomy and spiritual murmur, that spoke to the ear of time and events gone by, and lost in oblivion and dilapidation. At the end, immediately beneath the colossal window, grows an alder of considerable luxuriance, which, added to the situation of every other object, brought Mr. Southey's pathetic ballad of 'Mary the Maid of the Inn,' so forcibly before my imagination,5 that I involuntarily turned my eye to search for the grave, where the murderers concealed their victim." He likewise tells us of "the former garden of the monastery, still cultivated, and exhibiting a fruitful appearance;" cells and cavities covered with underwood; and his ascent to a gallery by a winding turret stair, whence, says he, "the monks of Kirkstall feasted their eyes with all that was charming in nature. It is said," adds he, "that a subterraneous passage existed from hence to Eshelt Hall, a distance of some miles, and that the entrance is yet traced."