WAS a place of considerable note in the ecclesiastical annals of Britain, long previous to its celebrity as a place of resort for fashionable society. The name is probably derived from the British word moel, signifying bald, and wern, alders; importing a bald hill with alders at the bottom; or rather from moel, which in British signifies a mountain also.

Before the Conquest it was a wilderness thickly set with trees, in the midst of which some Monks, who aspired to greater perfection, retired from the Priory of Worcester, and became hermits. The enthusiasm spread so fast, that their number soon increased to three hundred; when, forming themselves into a society, they agreed to live according to the order of St. Benedict, and elected Aldwin, one of their company, to be Superior. Shortly after, he set about procuring benefactions, for the building and maintaining a Priory, and Gislebert, Abbot of Westminster, having assigned several manors and estates to that purpose, the Monastery was considered as a cell of, or at least subordinate to, Westminster; but although this functionary always claimed the patronage and confirmation of the Prior, yet, in all other VOL. X. Second Series.

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respects, the Prior and Convent were quite independent. Thus was the Monastery founded about the year 1083, with the consent and approbation of St. Wolstan, Bishop of Worcester. It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

The greatest benefactor to the house was Henry I., who gave them Quat and Fuleford, in Staffordshire; Hathfield, in Herefordshire; and other lands. Among other donors, Leland mentions William the Conqueror. Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, Lord of the Forests, contributed largely to the revenues of this house. Osborn and Richard Fitzpontz, or de Pontibus, were, likewise, considerable benefactors. The contributors in later ages, especially to the building of the church of the Priory, may be known from the curious, painted windows, of which only broken remains are now to be seen.

Avecot, in Warwickshire, was a cell to Malvern, where were four Monks. Brockbury, likewise, in the parish of Colwall, in Herefordshire, was a cell, and contained two Monks. At the time of the dissolution of religious houses in the reign of Henry VIII., their revenue amounted to £308. 18. 54d.; but according to Speed, it was £375. Os. 6d.

In the "Annales Wigornienses," we are expressly told that Aldwin was the Founder of the Malvern Monastery. William of Malmesbury has furnished us with a somewhat detailed account of the circumstances which induced him to commence the undertaking. What person, at the present day, does not feel a peculiar pleasure, especially if he have an archaic tone of mind, when, satiated with our profitless philosophizing, he turns to the simple but graphic tales of the good old gossiping chroniclers? For, in that pictorial age of which we are discoursing, when the manners and opinions of contemporaries were so naturally represented, there was no wide gulf fixed between fancy's regions and those of sober reality; between the dim and tremulous twilight of uncertainty, and the steady effulgence of conviction; but annalists and their readers-"rari nantes in gurgite vasto "—were alike content to wander on in "the palpable obscure" of the time, yielding unhesitating confidence to its delusions and its dreams. Whenever the writer is firmly assured of what he relates,

his narrations generally bear an impress of truth to others. Indeed, he demands and expects their faith in all that he propounds, as if what he has ascertained to his own conviction was equally clear to them. Such a national chronicler was William, the Monk of Malmesbury; for, in his day, the literary man was only to be found in the Monastery. None then handled the pen, to any useful or edifying purpose, but the member of a Chapter or Convent. The following legend, connected with the history of the Priory, may aptly serve as an illustration of the foregoing remarks. Our translation, it will be seen by the learned reader, is almost a literal one.

The Prelate

There was one Aldwin, a Monk, who, with a single companion, named Guido, lived as a recluse in that very densely wooded chase, which is called Malvern. After long struggles of conscience, Guido considered it absolutely necessary, as the shortest path to glory, to visit Jerusalem, and see the Lord's sepulchre, or meet a blessed death by the hands of the Saracens. Aldwin was disposed to follow his example, but first consulted his spiritual adviser Wolstan. dissuaded him, and cooled his ardour by saying, "Do not, I beseech thee, Aldwin, go anywhere, but remain in your place. Believe me, you would wonder if you knew what I know: how much God is about to perform through you in that place." The Monk, having heard this, departed, and now remained firm in purpose, and soothed every sorrow by the hope of the prophecy. Nor was it long after that the prophecy hastened to its fulfilment. after the other successively came, to the number of thirty. Abundant were the stores of provision which flowed in upon them from the neighbouring inhabitants, who judged themselves happy in being permitted to minister aught to God's servants; or if there chanced to be need of anything, they supplied the want by faith, deeming it a little matter to be without carnal food, seeing that they grew fat upon spiritual joys.

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It would appear by the following story, that the same Bishop Wolstan did not want just vision to discern that the spirits of men must become pure from their errors and vices, by first suffering for them; and that without continual training and