First Sentence

"TEN centuries ago, and Westminster - now ennobled with many a stirring memory of an eventful past, with royal parks and palaces, and the sessions of powerful parliaments,-and more by association with the names, that can never die, of worthies whom all England venerates,-might we but recal it in some magic glass, would again appear a dangerous waste, extending round a small convent newly built upon its highest elevation, a sandy gravelly soil overrun with briars and thorns, at the eastern extremity of a low marshy tract frequently inundated by the swollen Thames."