which, it is supposed, the monks of old
represented their miracle plays on the subject of the
Crucifixion and less tremendous religious events.
Several of the conventual buildings, however,
were not destroyed at the time of the Reformation,
but were turned into private dwellings for noblemen.
One of Lord Cromwell's sons (married to
a sister of Lady Jane Seymour) lived there; and
later in the century the Priory became the
property of Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset, one
of the best of our early poets, and a writer
who, to some extent, anticipated the style of
Spenser. All these buildings have now perished
with the lapse of ages; though as late as the
present century the vast pigeon-house of the ancient
monastery maintained its ground—a pigeon-house
as big as a church, built in the form of a cross,
and capable of accommodating three thousand
two hundred and twenty-eight cooing lodgers!

The railway now runs through the Priory
grounds, intersecting the ruins, which border
closely on the iron road; and in making the
excavations in 1845 some very interesting remains
were discovered. Portions of the chapter-
house, the refectory, and other edifices,
were brought to light; together with numerous
skeletons and relics, a jar containing human
viscera preserved in brine, and two coffers
enclosing the bones of William de Warenne and
Gundrada. These coffers were less than three
feet in length; but Mr. Mark Antony Lower,
acting on behalf of the British Archæological
Association, had the bones examined by
competent medical gentlemen, who infer from them
that the earl must have been upwards of six
feet high, and the countess from five feet seven
to five feet eight: a goodly couple. The
explanation of the discrepancy given by Mr.
Lower is, that, on the rebuilding of the abbey,
nearly two centuries after the death of the
warrior and his lady, the skeletons were
removed, and the bones placed in two leaden
chests, for reinterment in the chapter-house.
The tomb of Gundrada—apparently made at
the time the skeletons were transferred, in the
thirteenth century—may be seen in the church
of Southover, a suburb of Lewes. It was
preserved at the Reformation by a gentleman who
thought it would do for his own tomb; and it
served that office until the year 1775, when it
was placed in Southover church. And now,
after a long divorce, the remains of the daughter
of William the Conqueror repose once more in
the costly sepulchre wrought for them by the
monks of Lewes Priory.

The castle has fared better than the Priory.
We turn off from the High-street, northward,
and, passing under a battlemented gatehouse
(referred by antiquarians to the fourteenth
century, though somewhat modernised at a later
period), and through the original Norman gateway
shortly find ourselves at the foot of the
steep mound on which the ancient Keep is
erected. The main building originally consisted
of four towers, of which only two are preserved;
and the Keep is one of these. We ascend the
rough wooden stairs that have been erected
against the side of the elevation, moving under
the boughs of trees that grow freshly out of
the craggy mound. It is rather a long way up,
but the wind comes pleasantly in our faces from
the out-lying Downs and woodlands, and the
vital birds are gay and loud in the dry ancient
places. And now we are stopped by a low
wicket, at the side of which is an announcement
to the effect that, if we desire to pursue our
researches, we must summon the warder by
ringing a bell, when, for the trifle of sixpence
each, we may enter the tower, and examine it
from basement to leads. All is so old and
chivalrous that we feel as if the bell ought to be a
clarion, which we, like so many giant-killing
Jacks, would valorously sound, and as if the
warder, instead of being a pleasant-mannered
civilian of the nineteenth century, should
present himself in breastplate and morion, grim
and defiant. However, we pay the fee, step
through the wicket, and, turning once again,
see the grey towers rising serene and still from
the circular lawn of bright green turf which
lies at their base. Trees are there, and flowers,
contrasting in their youth and florid beauty
with the mouldering antiquity that overshadows
them; and silence is there, broken only by the
rustle of fallen or of falling leaves, and the
movements and voices of the birds which haunt
the ivy on the old rough walls; and the winds
are there, and the broad autumn sunlight; and
below us, spreading far into the distance, lies
the fair English prospect, still golden-brown
in parts with the ungathered harvest. "When
you have reached the leads of the Keep," says
the warder, "you will acknowledge that you
are in a little Paradise."

We enter the tower; pass up the narrow
winding stairs from one tiny round room to
another, glancing by the way at the collection
of British, Roman, and mediæval relics made
by the Sussex Archaeological Society, in whose
custody the ruins are placed; and at length
emerge on the flat roof, from the battlements of
which we may look over the town, and across
the neighbouring lands. Immediately below,
the eye runs along the ruined walls and the
mound on which they stand; sees the jagged
stonework, and the mufflling ivy, and the nestling
trees, and the sudden flights of the birds from
out their leafy coverts—the kindly mingling of
human art in its decay with the enduring life of
nature. To the north, extends the rich inland
country—hill and dale, woodland and meadow-
land—the famous Weald of Sussex, uniting
with that of Surrey. To the south, are the
suburb of Southover, the ruins of the Priory,
fields and trees, green ridges of the Downs,
and, in the distance, the sea and the port of
Newhaven. To the east, the larger part of the
town stretches in a labyrinth of red roofs
towards the Ouse, which winds and glides and
glitters through the whole panorama; and
beyond the river rise Cliffe Hill, Mount Caburn,
and Firle Beacon—the last named attaining an
elevation of eight hundred and twenty feet.
Finally, to the west, towers Mount Harry, of