Chapter II

St. Edmundsbury


The _Burg,_ Bury, or 'Berry' as they call it, of St. Edmund is
still a prosperous brisk Town; beautifully diversifying, with
its clear brick houses, ancient clean streets, and twenty or
fifteen thousand busy souls, the general grassy face of Suffolk;
looking out right pleasantly, from its hill-slope, towards the
rising Sun: and on the eastern edge of it, still runs, long,
black and massive, a range of monastic ruins; into the wide
internal spaces of which the stranger is admitted on payment of
one shilling. Internal spaces laid out, at present, as a botanic
garden. Here stranger or townsman, sauntering at his leisure
amid these vast grim venerable ruins, may persuade himself that
an Abbey of St. Edmundsbury did once exist; nay there is
no doubt of it: see here the ancient massive Gateway, of
architecture interesting to the eye of Dilettantism; and farther
on, that other ancient Gateway, now about to tumble, unless
Dilettantism, in these very months, can subscribe money to cramp
it and prop it!

Here, sure enough, is an Abbey; beautiful in the eye of
Dilettantism. Giant Pedantry also will step in, with its huge
_Dugdale_ and other enormous _Monasticons_ under its arm, and