once; and though the lover of scenery would lament the construction of a mole to contrast with and injure the outlines of the Brig, yet it would doubtless be a boon not only to the fishermen of Filey and the neighbourhood-and these are not few-but also to the shipping interest in general of the northern sea, for the harbour at Whitby is small and not easily made. Scarborough, again, though enough for the herring boats and local traffic, is inadequate, and the coast as a rule is a dangerous and inhospitable one. Local legend, by the way, does not attribute the Brig to natural agencies, but credits it to a certain personage to whom anything unusual is often imputed. He was bent-for what purpose I do not rememberon bridging the sea, and commenced here; but while thus engaged the magic hammer which he wielded escaped from his grasp, and whirling through the air sank in deep water. To recover it, apparently, was beyond his power, so the task was left incomplete. As it sank the hammer struck a haddock, and the mark near the head (sometimes supposed to be the impress of St. Peter's thumb) is the memorial of the incident, and of the curse uttered at the time by the baffled fiend.

We turn now to Whitby, which, for long an old-fashioned fishing port, has of late years become also a watering-place of repute. In many respects the situation is more picturesque than that of Scarborough. The cliffs along the neighbouring coast are more precipitous. The Esk has carved a steep glen in the moorland plateau; in this the town nestles, climbing the steep banks on either side of the river; and, as Scarborough has its castle, Whitby has its abbey-a ruin far more attractive to the artist and the lover of architecture. The visitors' quarter is on the opposite side of the ravine, so that to pass from the one to the other is a descent and an ascent of nearly 190 feet, through the narrow winding streets and stepped passages of the old town-a journey rather laborious to infirm visitors.

The abbey, notwithstanding the mischief which has been done by the hand of man, and by the storms of centuries, is still a noble ruin. Until 1830 the central tower was standing, as may be seen in one of the plates to Dugdale's "Monasticon."* It fell after a violent gale of wind; and a great part of the nave had perished from a similar cause in 1763. The choir and the northern transept are still standing, but only a few fragments of the southern remain, with a small portion of the north aisle of the nave. The greater part of the choir and north transept is extremely beautiful Early English work, the former being rather the older in date. Nearly the whole of the nave was in the Decorated style, and apparently was a very rich example.

The glory has, indeed, departed from this Israel, for in former days it was "the Westminster of Northumbria. Within its walls stood the tombs of Eadwine and of Oswi, with nobles and kings grouped around them. Hilda was herself a Northumbrian Deborah, whose counsel was sought even by bishops and kings; and the double monastery over which she ruled became a seminary of bishops and priests. The sainted John of Beverley was among her scholars."†

It is more than twelve centuries since a religious house was founded on this angle between the Esk and the sea. It is, indeed, supposed that there was a settlement of some

* Edition of 1846.

+ Green's "History of the English People," p. 26.

kind on the spot previously, for the first name of the place was Streoneshale, which is interpreted by Bede and others to mean Sinus Phari, or the "Bay of the Lighthouse;" but it is supposed that the town Whitby-the "White Homestead "-was an accretion to the abbey. This was founded in consequence of a vow made by Oswi, King of Northumbria, before hist battle with Penda, King of Mercia, in the year 665, near Leeds, that if victorious he would devote to a monastic life his infant daughter Elfleda. It was an Armageddon fight, the disciples of the new faith against the hitherto unconquered pagan king. His army was put to the worse, the river at their rear was swollen with rain and, like another Kishon, swept away the fragments of the pagan host, and the cause of the older gods was lost for ever." Oswi placed his daughter in charge of Hilda, who was also a member of his house,

WHITBY ABBEY.

and she ultimately decided to build an abbey on this site. In choosing this spot upon the lonely crags above the sea, it is conjectured that she may have been influenced by missionaries from Iona, who were the chief evangelists of Northumbria, and brought with them that love for the solitude of the sea rather than of the desert, which was conspicuous in the disciples of Columba. At first both monks and nuns were inmates of the abbey, although Hilda was its superior. The fame of Whitby as a place of learning soon became great, and among its earliest inmates was one whose reputation and works yet remain-Cadmon, the first English poet. He was an instance of the saying, Poeta nascitur non fit; for, like the prophet Amos, he was but

a herdsman before the spirit came upon him. So far from manifesting any poetic power in youth, he was so ignorant that, when present at feasts, when "all agreed for glee's sake to sing in turn, he no sooner saw the harp come towards him than he rose from the board, and turned homewards." But one night after doing this, as he lay among the cattle, a man appeared in a dream and said, "Cadmon, sing to me." He again pleaded his inability, but the command was repeated as a promise. He asked, "What shall I sing?" and was told "the beginning of created things." In the morning Cadmon told his vision to Hilda and the brethren. They recognised the command from the Lord, and gave him a translation of a passage of Scripture, which he paraphrased in verse, and thus the cowherd became a monk, and the silent man a poet. "In the song of the Whitby cowherd, the vagueness and daring of the Teutonic imagination float out beyond the limits of the Hebrew story to a 'swart hell without light and full of flame,' swept only at dawn by the icy east wind, on whose floor lie bound the apostate angels. The human energy of the German race, its sense of the might * Dugdale, Vol. I., p. 405. + Green's "History of the English People," p. 24.

of individual manhood, transferred in Cadmon's verse the Hebrew tempter into a rebel Satan, disdainful of vassalage to God. On the other hand, the enthusiasm for the Christian God, faith in whom had been bought so dearly by years of desperate struggle, breaks out in long rolls of sonorous epithets of praise and adoration."*

At Whitby, also in the days of Hilda, was assembled a council of some note, presided over by King Oswi, to settle the dispute about the date of celebrating the Easter festival : for the British Church, from which most of Northumbria had received Christianity, followed a reckoning different to that of the Romish, to which the conversion of the greater part of England was due. "The Scotch orators maintained that their manner of celebrating Easter was prescribed by St. John, the beloved disciple; and the Romanists affirmed, with equal confidence, that theirs was instituted by St. Peter, the prince of the Apostles, and the doorkeeper of heaven. Oswi was struck with this circumstance; and both parties acknowledging that Peter kept the keys of heaven, the king declared that he was determined not to disoblige this celestial porter upon any account, for fear he should turn his back upon him when he came to the gate of heaven."t This method of reasoning convinced the majority, and thus the Romish side triumphed in the quartodeciman controversy

in Deira.

Evil days were, however, in store for Whitby, for it was sacked and burnt by the Danes about 200 years after the death of Hilda, the abbot escaping with her relics to Glastonbury. After the Norman Conquest a new foundation was established by William de Perci, ancestor of the great Northumberland family; and then by degrees, notwithstanding being again harried by pirates from the North, the abbey grew to wealth and fame. It had, like others, its full crop of legends. Its patroness was supposed to linger about the spot, and at one of the windows might sometimes be seen

"The very form of Hilda fair
Hovering upon the sunny air;"

and in honour to her it was believed that

"sea-fowls' pinions fail,

As over Whitby's towers they sail;
And sinking down with flutterings faint,
They do their homage to the saint."

The fossil shells called ammonites, which are abundant in the dark shales forming the greater part of the cliffs beneath the abbey, were thus explained in the words of the nuns (created by the poet, for the second foundation was for monks only), who told

"How of a thousand snakes each one

Was changed into a coil of stone,
When holy Hilda prayed "—

a legend which until a comparatively late date was duly reverenced by the natives, who occasionally succeeded in finding one of these snakes with its head-i.e., in dexterously

carving the semblance of one on the stone-and then obtaining a good price for the rarity from a collector of curios more wealthy than wise.

Hardly less legendary is the story which

"Whitby's nuns exulting told,

How to their house three barons bold
Must menial service do."*

Three gentlemen, by name De Bruce, De Percy, and Allaston, were boar-hunting on the Abbot of Whitby's lands in Eskdale-side, in the year 1159, and roused a fine tusker, which their dogs pressed hard and chased to the hermitage of Eskdale, where it ran into the chapel and dropped down dead. The hermit closed the door against the hounds; the hunters came up presently, and were enraged to find their dogs baulked of their prey, so on his opening the door they attacked him with their boar-spears and wounded him mortally. It was not long before they found that a hermit was dangerous game, so they took sanctuary at Scarborough. The Church, however, did not protect those who had insulted it; the abbot gave them up into the power of his brother of Whitby, who was about to have them made an example to over-passionate sportsmen, when the dying hermit summoned his murderers and the abbot into his presence, and granted the former their life and lands upon the following tenure :—

"Then," said the hermit, "you and yours shall hold your lands of the Abbot of Whitby and his successors in this manner :-That upon Ascension Day you, or some of you, shall come to the wood of the Stray Heads, which is in Eskdale-side, the same day at sun-rising, and there shall the abbot's officer blow his horn, to the intent that you may know how to find him; and he shall deliver unto you, William de Bruce, ten stakes, eleven stout stowers, and eleven yethers, to be cut by you, or some of you, with a knife of one penny price." The others were to add their quota, and then, as the hermit continues, these were to be "taken on your backs and carried to the town of Whitby, and to be there before nine of the clock; if it be full sea, your labour and service shall cease; and if low water, each of you shall set your stakes to the brim, each stake one yard from the other, and so yether them on each side with your yethers, and so stake on each side with your stout stowers, that they may stand three tides without removing by the force. thereof. Each of you shall do, make, and execute the said service, and at that very hour, every year, except it be full sea at that hour; but when it shall so fall out, this service shall cease. You shall faithfully do this, in remembrance that you did most cruelly slay me, and that you may the better call to God for mercy, repent unfeignedly of your sins, and do good works. The officer of Eskdale-side shall blow, 'Out on you, out on you, out on you for this heinous crime.' If you or your successors shall refuse this service, so long as it shall not be full sea at the aforesaid hour, you or yours shall forfeit your lands to the Abbot of Whitby, or his successors."

Land was indeed held of the abbey upon the tenure of repairing the harbour fence at Whitby, and the holders were summoned by the blowing of a horn; but all the details of this very circumstantial story appear to be quite legendary.

*"Marmion," Canto ii.

Fragments of the monastery yet remain, and a house called Whitby Hall stands on the site of the abbot's lodgings. On the edge of the slope, a little lower down than the abbey, is the parish church, a building with a low tower, some parts of which are older than the abbey; but it is-or was not so long ago-crowded up with pews and galleries, so that, as it has been well said, the interior is more like the cabin of a ship. A long flight of steps leads from the harbour to the church, and the appearance, from the visitors' quarter, of the stream of people passing up or down on a Sunday, before or after service, is rather singular. When there is a funeral the coffin has to be slung in order to be carried up the steps, otherwise the procession must take a long circuit by the road.

The town itself, though like all old seaports it has a certain quaintness here and there, contains little of interest. There is a pier, over which sometimes the waves dash grandly in a storm; there are sands to the north of the harbour, and cliffs on both sides, especially grand beneath the abbey; and in the said cliffs are abundant fossils, which have long rendered Whitby noted among geologists.

One fossil produce, however, of the Yorkshire lias has proved of considerable commercial value-jet, which is obtained in several places near Whitby, and is worked into numerous ornaments. Beads of it have been found in British tumuli, so that its ornamental value has long been known. It is a variety of lignite, or fossil wood, which is capable of being cut, and takes a high polish. Alum, also, has long been a noted mineral product of the shales about Whitby. This mineral is a sulphate of alumina and potass in combination with water, and has been worked in Yorkshire since the sixteenth century.

Of yet more fame, during late years, has been the working of iron, which has disturbed the solitudes of the wild moors and sequestered dales of Cleveland. The ore is obtained from the middle lias or marlstone formation; the more productive district, according to the late Professor Phillips, lies to the north of a line drawn a little south of west from Robin Hood's Bay, and includes about 200 square miles of country, in which the ironstone "is mostly in a favourable condition for working, both as to thickness and quality; but it is nowhere so accessible or so productive as on the sea-coast west of Whitby, and on the fronts of the Cleveland hills."* The ore was worked by the Romans, and occasionally, for local purposes, all through the Middle Ages; but even "in the beginning of the present century a curious observer might pause in Bilsdale or Rosedale or Eskdale, to consider the heaps of scoria in places where once small 'bloomeries,' the primitive earthfurnaces, furnished a sparse population with the small quantity of iron required for a few ploughs and hoes, or a few spear-heads and billhooks, hammers and nails." The Cleveland trade at the present time has suffered with almost exceptional severity from the prevalent commercial depression, but should the recent discovery of a method of converting its iron into steel by a modification of the Bessemer process fulfil its promise, we may again say, in Professor Phillips' words, "Hardly more wonderful in that glorious Bay of Naples is the awakening fire of Vesuvius than the mighty blaze of many furnaces now planted along the banks of the Tees, where only a quarter of a century since not one was lighted, and where still, but for the railways, none would exist."

* "Geology of Yorkshire," p. 177 (Ed. 1875).