man did eat angel's food," and both the soul and body of the receiver were blessed by the bounty. "On the subject of education, to which you have alluded," added he, "the extent to which intellectual culture may be given without usurping or impairing the moral principle of action, and the methods of doing this, appear to be very difficult and much controverted questions. That its ascendent tendency is so to usurp and impair it, the whole legislation and prevalent opinions in our age and country too sorrowfully testify, as they did in the days of our divine Saviour at Jerusalem. Indeed, if we look even at Socrates, we see that his unwearied teachings were directed to destroy the subtle and erroneous reasonings of the world, and to replace the power of religious and moral truth which had been supplanted and dethroned by them. These worldly enlightenments should, therefore, be administered with a cautious and holy hand. That, in a subordinate union with purer influences, they may be made to co-exist harmoniously and profitably, I believe to be possible and desirable; but I also believe it to be rare and difficult."

"So rare and difficult," I replied, "that I should hardly know where to find them united in a just and proper commixture; yet do I not deny that in some fine and felicitous natures they may be occasionally so combined; for I have pride and joy in knowing it to be a truth, and can call up the memory of many years of happy friendships to bear witness to powers and learning valued and used only as the humble instrument of living and divine wisdom, and absorbed and disappearing in the higher character-that is, feeling totally and transcendently that to know God is to have the only knowledge, and that when this universe shall have crumbled into dust, and all the knowledge of it shall be passed away and forgotten, He will shine forth to his own people in his own glory, and they shall see him as he is.'"

PARISH CHURCHES.-No. XX.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF ASHBY-DE-LA-ZOUCH, OF THE
CHAPEL AT BLACKFORDBY, AND OF THE CHAPEL IN THE
RUINS OF ASHBY CASTLE.

ASHBY-DE-LA-ZOUCH appears to have been a position of the Britons in primeval times, and afterwards a Roman station. In the Saxon times, the place was probably maintained as a residence of the Mercian thanes; and after the Norman conquest, the nobles of that martial race made the Tower of Ashby a strong hold. When, in after times, as government was strengthened

and civilization advanced, the castle, with its surrounding domains, was consigned to the generous rule of Hastings, it became an embattled mansion, where princes and kings promoted those inspiring displays of magnificence which diffused happiness around them, and encouraged those sentiments of reverence for national institutions which are a fruitful source of much that has ever been excellent or glorious in religion and science and government. Thus it continued till that sad period of our history in which fanaticism in some, and hypocrisy in others, were allowed to work their will on the country. Then the castle of Ashby, with its fair sanctuary-where the high-born had been humble worshippers-was doomed to undergo the spoiler's vengeance. The wrecks of its ruined grandeur remain a melancholy but instructive memorial of the usual proceedings of those who are for ever uttering the cry of liberty with their lips, while oppression of all who will not join them, or submit to them, is their regular and unhesitating rule of action.

After all these remarkable vicissitudes, Ashby has long been at rest. It now bears the humbler character-not as of old, of a seat of baronial sovereignty-but as one of the finest ancient market-towns in England, and as a pleasant and salubrious retreat for those invalids and convalescents who desire deliverance from suffering, or a renovation of constitutional vigour, in the healing efficacy of its medicinal waters.*

Tradition has not commemorated the exact date when the first castellated residence was erected at Ashby. History states, uncircumstantially, that Ivo,+ the Norman, held it in A. D. 1086; that, in 1259, it came to Alan-la-Zouch, whose descendants occupied the domain for several generations, and bequeathed to the town its distinctive name; and that, in 1460, Edward IV. conferred it on Sir William Hastings, his chamberlain and favourite counsellor, by the representative of whose illustrious race the ivied towers of Ashby and its lordship are now inherited.

They who are conversant with the various styles of architecture, find the vestiges of different fabrics-the structure of separate epochs in the remains of Ashby castle. These have suf

Ashby-de-la-Zouch is an agreeable watering place, where the benefits usually derived from the exhibition of mineral springs may be enjoyed with particular comfort. The position of this town is pleasant and convenient; its climate remarkably salubrious. At the Ivanhoe baths, the arrangements for bathing possess the highest advantages; and the adjoining grounds are well adapted for the purposes of recreation and exercise. Whether employed in external or internal applications, the Ashby medicinal waters are endowed with very powerful restorative and strengthening virtues. They combine, in extraordinary proportions, the chief chlorides and bromides, the qualities of which are exceedingly energetic; and the recoveries accomplished by their regular use have proved permanent in a multitude of instances.

These and other notices relating to the same subject are stated, with great perspicuity and conciseness, by Mr. Curtis, in his "Topographical History of Leicestershire." 8vo. Ashby-de-la-Zouch: 1831.

VOL. VII.-Jan. 1835.

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fered alike by the silent moulderings of decay, and by the hand of violence. Still, however, they retain abundant traces of the strength and beauty which characterized them at the time when the abettors of rebellion were permitted by a lethargic nation to indulge the vindictive feelings of a faction in the work of their destruction. By the hands of these evil doers, the task of time was anticipated; but the Marquis of Hastings has perfected the requisite repairs, by which the towers of his ancestors will be long secured from the farther encroachments of neglect and desolation.

Ashby castle comprised a chapel within its ample precincts in the days when its lords were prosperous. William, the first Baron Hastings, constructed this domestic temple in 1474, and finished it in the best style of decorations. It was "a fair chapel," said a nameless chronicler,* "scarcely to be equalled by any private one-those in the Universities excepted ;" and it would then, as now, form a prime feature in the group of majestic structures of which it constituted the most venerable appendage.

Apparently an officer in the Earl of Huntingdon's household. His details of the early transactions of the family of Hastings are contained in a curious MS. voJume, constituting a most valuable record, in the magnificent library of the Marquis of Hastings, at Donington Park.