kind that I have ever seen, and it seems correctly given, from one part of it resting on the figure, No. 3, to support it. Twiss mentions one that he saw sculptured on the cathedral, at Toro, five feet long. The proper name of it is the rote, so called from the internal wheel or cylinder, turned by a winch, which caused the bourdon, whilst the performer stopped the notes on the strings with his fingers. This instrument has been very ignorantly termed a vielle, and yet continues to be so called in France. It is the modern Savoyard hurdy-gurdy, as we still more improperly term it; for the hurdy-gurdy is quite a different instrument. In later times, the rote appears to have lost its rank in concert, and was called the beggar's lyre.—No. 4 is evidently the syrinx, or Pan's pipe, which has been revived with so much success in the streets of London.—Twiss shewed me one forty years ago, that he got in the south of France, where they were then very common.—No. 5 is an instrument for which I can find no name, nor can I immediately call to memory any other representation of it. It has some resemblance to the old Welsh fiddle or crowth; but, as a bow is wanting, it must have been played with the fingers; and I think the performer's left hand in the sculpture does seem to be stopping the strings on the upper part, or neck, a portion of which has been probably broken off.—I suspect it to be the old mandore, whence the more modern mandolin. The rotundity of the sounding-board may warrant this conjecture.—No. 6 was called the psalterion, and is of very great antiquity, (I mean as to the middle ages).—Its form was very diversified, and frequently triangular. It was played with a plectrum, which the performer holds in his right hand.—No. 7 is the dulcimer, which is very common in sculpture. This instrument appears, as in the present case, to have been sometimes played with the fingers only, and sometimes with a plectrum.—No. 8 is the real vielle, or violin, of very common occurrence, and very ancient.—No. 9 is a female tumbler, or tomllesterre, as Chaucer calls them. This profession, so far as we can depend on ancient representation, appears to have exclusively belonged to women.—No. 10. A harp played with a plectrum, and, perhaps, also with the left hand occasionally.—No. 11. The figure before the suspended bells has had a hammer in each hand with which to strike them, and the opposite, and last, person, who plays in concert with him, has probably had a harp, as is the case in an ancient manuscript psalter illumination that I have, prefixed to the psalm Exaltate Deo.—I have seen these bells suspended (in illumination to the above psalm) to a very elegant Gothic frame, ascending like the upper part of a modern harp."

LETTER XV.

ABBEY OF JUMIEGES—ITS HISTORY—ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS—TOMBS OF AGNES SOREL AND OF THE ENERVEZ.

(Ducler, July, 1818)

The country between Ducler and Jumieges is of much the same character with that through which we had already travelled from Rouen; the road sometimes coasting the Seine, and sometimes passing through a well-wooded country, pleasantly intermingled with corn-fields. In its general appearance, this district bears a near resemblance to an English landscape; more so, indeed, than in any other part of Normandy, where the features of the scenery are upon a larger scale.

The lofty towers of the abbey of Jumieges are conspicuous from afar: the stone of which they are built is peculiarly white; and at a distance scarcely any signs of decay or dilapidation are visible. On a nearer approach, however, the Vandalism of the modern French appears in full activity. For the pitiful value of the materials, this noble edifice is doomed to destruction. The arched roof is beaten in; and the choir is nearly levelled with the ground. Two cart-loads of wrought stones were carried away, while we were there; and the workmen were busily employed in its demolition. The greater part, too, of the mischief, appears recent: the fractures of the walls are fresh and sharp; and the fresco-paintings are unchanged.—Had the proud, abbatial structure but been allowed to have existed as the parochial church of the village, the edifice might have stood for ages; but the French are miserably deficient in proper feeling; and neither the historical recollections connected with Jumieges, nor its importance as a monument of architectural antiquity, could redeem it from their tasteless selfishness. In a few years, its very ruins will have perished; and not a wreck will remain of this ancient sanctuary of religion and of learning.

It was in the year 654 or 655, that St. Philibert, second abbot of Rebais, in the diocese of Meaux, founded this monastery. He selected the site upon which the present building stands, a delightful situation, in a peninsula on the right bank of the Seine. This peninsula, and the territory extending from Ducler to Caudebec, had been granted to him for this purpose by Clovis IInd, or, more properly speaking, by Bathilda, his queen; for the whole administration of affairs was in reality under her guidance, though the reins of state were nominally held by her feeble husband. The territory^[10] had previously borne the name of Jumieges, or, in Latin, Gemeticum, a term whose origin has puzzled etymologists. Those who hold it disgraceful to be ever at a loss on points of this nature, and who prefer displaying a learned to an unlearned ignorance, derive Gemeticum, either from gemitus, because, "pro suis offensis illìc gemunt, qui in flammis ultricibus non erunt gemituri;" or from gemma, conformably to the following distich,—