“Imposing must have been the sight,
Ere desolation found thee.”—Bernard Barton.
There are scattered, throughout the country, the remains of several edifices, to whose history such peculiar interest attaches, that they would seem to have been left by Time, on his vast pilgrimage to Eternity, as memorials to revive the recollection of eventful periods in the annals of nations, and “this is of them.” For who can look upon the ancient gateway of Battle Abbey (which we here present to our readers) without realizing to his “mind’s eye ” the memorable battle of Hastings; and pondering on the consequences of that important conflict, which, on October 14, 1066, transferred the sceptre of England from the unfortunate Harold to the ambitious invader, William Duke of Normandy? Battle, a small market town in the rape of Hastings, in the county of Sussex, was anciently called Epiton, and was the scene of the celebrated encounter to which we have just referred. In commemoration of his momentous victory, the Conqueror erected a spacious and magnificent monastery, dedicated to St. Martin, and called De Bello or Battel, on the very spot where Harold, pierced with many arrows, breathed his last; the high altar, according to the most authentic reports, being reared on the place where the body of the vanquished monarch was discovered, its founder thus seeming to realize the notion, which an able dramatist puts into the mouth of one of his heroines—
