often with power toprotect the oppressed." "You plead their cause with feeling," said Egremont, notunmoved. "It is my own; they were the sons of the People, like myself.""I had thought rather these monasteries were the resort of theyounger branches of the aristocracy?" said Egremont. "Instead of the pension list;" replied his companion, smiling,but not with bitterness. "Well, if we must have an aristocracy, I wouldsooner that its younger branches should be monks and nuns, than colonelswithout regiments, or housekeepers of royal palaces that exist only in name.Besides see what advantage to a minister if the unendowed aristocracy were thusprovided for now. He need not, like a minister in these days, entrust theconduct of public affairs to individuals notoriously incompetent, appoint tothe command of expeditions generals who never saw a field, make governors ofcolonies out of men who never could govern themselves, or find an ambassador ina broken dandy or a blasted favourite. It is true that many of the monks andnuns were persons of noble birth. Why should they not have been? Thearistocracy had their share; no more. They, like all other classes, werebenefitted by the monasteries: but the list of the mitred abbots when they weresuppressed, shows that the great majority of the heads of houses were of thepeople." "Well, whatever difference of opinion may exist on thesepoints," said Egremont, "there is one on which there can be nocontroversy: the monks were great architects." "Ah! there it is," said the stranger, in a tone ofplaintiveness; "if the world but only knew what they had lost! I am surethat not the faintest idea is generally prevalent of the appearance of Englandbefore and since the dissolution. Why, sir, in England and Wales alone, therewere of these institutions of different sizes; I mean monasteries, andchantries and chapels, and great hospitals; considerably upwards of threethousand; all of them fair buildings, many of them of exquisite beauty. There wereon an average in every shire at least twenty structures such as this was; inthis great county double that number: establishments that were as vast and asmagnificent and as beautiful as your Belvoirs and your Chatsworths, yourWentworths and your Stowes. Try to imagine the effect of thirty or fortyChatsworths in this county the proprietors of which were never absent. Youcomplain enough now of absentees. The monks were never non-resident. Theyexpended their revenue among those whose labour had produced it. These holy mentoo built and planted as they did everything else for posterity: their churcheswere cathedrals; their schools colleges; their halls and libraries the munimentrooms of kingdoms; their woods and waters, their farms and gardens, were laidout and disposed on a scale and in a spirit that are now extinct: they made thecountry beautiful, and the people proud of their country." "Yet if the monks were such public benefactors, why did not thepeople rise in their favour?" "They did, but too late. They struggled for a century, but theystruggled against property and they were beat. As long as the monks existed,the people, when aggrieved, had property on their side. And now 'tis allover," said the stranger; "and travellers come