The earlier architecture of Wells Cathedral presents so many puzzles, that the most skilled experts have differed widely both from each other, and, as we know now, from the truth. There are four distinct varieties of Early English work, covering a period of about a century from the time of Bishop Reginald, whose episcopate began in 1174; and yet, until Mr Bennett deciphered the old charters, which have at length settled the problem, all the work was attributed to Jocelin, for nothing was known of Reginald's building, and some of the best judges were even convinced that the west front was built before the nave. The difficulty was mainly caused by the unusual character of the architecture of the nave; "unlike that of any ordinary English building, and belonging to a style on the whole fifty years earlier" than the west front, as Professor Willis said, who gave it a name of its own, and called it the Somerset style. Thus the theory came to be that two bodies of masons had been employed—an ordinary English company for the front, and a local Somerset company for the nave, transepts and choir, who worked in a local variation of the prevalent Early English style. In this way, an attempt was made to overcome the difficulty of attributing to Jocelin work which Mr Willis had himself pronounced to be "only a little removed from the early Norman style." Mr Freeman, too, had allowed that the north porch might be earlier than Jocelin; and, long before, Britton had said that there would be little hesitation in ascribing the church to the transitional period of Henry II. (1154-89) on architectural evidence, were it not for Godwin's assertion, that Jocelin had entirely pulled down the old church and built a fresh one.

But now we have got behind Godwin, and have found from contemporary evidence that Bishop Reginald commenced the present church. Thus we are able to divide the Early English work into no less than four periods, (1) The three western arches of the choir, with the four western bays of its aisles, the transepts, and the four eastern bays of the nave, which are Reginald's work (1174-1191), and so early as to be still in a state of transition from the Norman. It is a unique example of transitional building, and Willis calls it "an improved Norman, worked with considerable lightness and richness, but distinguished from the Early English by greater massiveness and severity." The characteristics of this late twelfth-century work are bold round mouldings, square abaci, capitals, some with traces of the classical volute, others interwoven with fanciful imagery that reminds us of the Norman work of Glastonbury; while in the north porch, which must be the earliest of all, we even find the zig-zag Norman moulding. (2) The rest of the nave, which was finished in Jocelin's time—that is to say, in the first half of the thirteenth century—preserves the main characteristics of the earlier work, though the flowing sculptured foliage becomes more naturalistic, and lacks the quaint intermingling of figure subjects. (3) The west front, which is Jocelin's work, and alone can claim to be of pure Early English style. (4) The chapter-house crypt, which is so late as to be almost Transitional, though, curiously enough, it contains the characteristic Early English dog-tooth moulding which is found nowhere else except in the west window. From this, we reach the Early Decorated of the staircase, the full Decorated of the chapter-house itself, the later Decorated of the Lady Chapel, the transitional Decorated of the presbytery, and the full Perpendicular of the western towers.

Much of the masonry in the transepts, choir, choir aisles, and even in the eastern transepts, bears the peculiar diagonal lines which are the marks of Norman tooling. This does not, of course, prove that any part of Bishop Robert's church is standing, for medieval builders were notoriously economical in using up old masonry, but it does show that there are more remains of his work in the building than was generally supposed. A characteristic feature in this Norman tooling is that if a rule be laid along its lines, they will be found to be very slightly curved, a feature which is due to the fact that Norman masons dressed their stones with the broad curved blade of an axe.

The plan of the church is remarkably complete, symmetrical, and well-proportioned. Nave, transepts, choir, each flanked with its aisles, combine to form with the Lady Chapel and chapter-house a cathedral church which, though not of the first magnitude, is the most complete and typical in England. The ground plan itself, as set out in all technical severity on page 160, possesses an unusual attraction for the eye. It is free both from mutilation and excrescences; and yet all the picturesque external grouping, and internal mystery, which the afterthoughts of Gothic architects so often lend to a building, are secured, in the case of Wells, by the carefully-placed chapter-house and the beautiful arrangement of the Lady Chapel. The transepts of the choir are very happily carried far enough east to be internally subordinate to this chapel, which arrangement, with the apsidal form of the chapel itself, adds much to the beautiful proportions of the church. A third transept is given to the west end of the nave by the two towers.

The length of Wells Cathedral from east to west is 383 feet within the walls, and 415 without. The length of the nave is 161 feet, its breadth 82 feet, and its height 67 feet. The length of the choir is 117 feet, and its height 73 feet. The transepts are 135 feet within and 150 feet without.The Nave.—The general effect of the nave is that of length rather than height, and this is mainly due to the continuous arcade of the triforium which leads the eye from end to end of the building instead of from floor to roof. If this be compared with the older work in the transepts, it will be seen at once by how simple a device this radical change in the effect has been produced. Instead of being carried down right across the triforium, as in the transepts, the triple vaulting shafts are cut off above the arcade so as to be little more than corbels, and the space thus gained is used to give one additional opening to each bay of the triforium. In the transepts the triforium is composed of pairs of lancet arches separated by vaulting shafts, the triforium of each bay being a distinct composition over its pier arch; but by the time the architect had come to the nave, a new idea had occurred to him, and he made the triforium in one continuous arcade, unbroken from east to west, evidently with the deliberate intention of producing a horizontal rather than a vertical effect. The arrangement has undoubtedly a character of its own, and "there is no nave in which the eye is so irresistibly carried eastward as in that of Wells."

In spite of this method of securing an effect of length, the builders managed to make the most of the small height of their church. The manner in which this was done forms an interesting example of the subtle feeling of proportion which early architects possessed. The clerestory was made unusually lofty, and the comparative lowness of the triforium both adds to the soaring effect and prevents the horizontal appearance being overmastering. This is increased by the bold vaulting of the ceiling, and the way in which the lantern arches fit into the vault.

But, homogeneous as the nave appears, a little examination will clearly reveal the break which marks the separation between the late twelfth-century work of Reginald de Bohun and the thirteenth-century continuation of Jocelin. The earlier work, as we have seen, consisted of the four eastern bays, which, with the present ritual choir and transepts, formed Reginald's church; and, as a matter of fact, at the fifth bay (the next bay westward of the north porch) the marks of change are so evident that all writers upon the cathedral have based their theories upon it. The earlier masonry in the spandrels on the east of this point consists of small stones indifferently set: the later masonry is made up of larger blocks more carefully laid together; in the earlier part there are small heads at the angles of the pier arches, in the later there are none, while the small heads in the angles of the earlier triforium arcade give place to larger heads in the later; the tympana, which fill the heads of the lancets in this arcade, also are mainly ornamented in the earlier part with grotesque beasts, while in the later they contain foliage, with two exceptions. Again, the medallions which decorate the spaces above the triforium are sunk in the earlier masonry, but, in the later, they are flush with the surface and not so deeply carved. Even more noticeable is the difference in the capitals, those of the western bays being lighter, freer, and more undercut, though less interesting and hardly as beautiful as those of the earlier part. With the exception of these differences, however, which are doubtless due to the freedom enjoyed by medieval workmen, the original design of the nave was faithfully adhered to, the square abaci, even, being retained, though the circular abacus had become a leading characteristic of the true Early English of Jocelin's period. Certainly it is an unusual instance of an architect deliberately setting himself to complete the works of an earlier period in faithful accordance with the original plan; and we may well be grateful to him for his modesty.

All the carving is most interesting and beautiful: the caps and corbels of the vaulting-shafts; the little heads at the angles of the arches, which are vivid sketches of every type of contemporary character; and the carvings in the tympana, above referred to, which are best in the seventh, eighth, and ninth bays (counting from the west end), those on the north excelling in design and execution, while those on the south are more grotesque. But the capitals of the piers are the best of all, and the most hurried visitor should spare some time for the study of these remarkable specimens of sculpture, vigorous and life-like, yet always subordinated to their architectural purpose. Those in the transepts are perhaps the best (p. 89), but the following in the nave should not be missed:— North Side, sixth Pier.—(By north porch) Birds pluming their wings: Beast licking himself: Ram: Bird with human head, holding knife (?).

Eighth Pier.—Fox stealing goose, peasant following with stick: Birds pruning their feathers: (Within Bubwith's chapel) Human monster with fish's tail, holding a fish: Bird holding frog in his beak, which is extremely long and delicate.

Ninth Pier.—Pedlar carrying his pack on his shoulders, a string of large beads in one hand.

Toothless monster, with hands on knees.

South side, seventh Pier.—Birds with human heads, one wearing a mitre.

Eighth Pier.—Peasant, with club, seized by a lion: Bird with curious foliated tail: (Within St. Edmund's chapel) Owl: Peasant with mallet (?).

The lofty clerestory windows are divided into two lights by Perpendicular tracery of late fourteenth or early fifteenth century date, which extends to the level of the passage, the lower part being filled with masonry. The windows were not, however, altered in shape when the tracery was inserted. In the tracery are very slight traces of the old glass.

The triforium passage is capacious enough to form a large tunnel, which gives a good effect to its lancet openings. The small iron rings, which are prominent enough to be rather tiresome to the eye, were recently inserted for the use of those engaged in cleaning the walls. Within the passage additional arches may be seen, inserted to strengthen the arcade at the commencement of the later work and in other places.

The groined ceiling has carved bosses at the intersection of its ribs. The red pattern is a restoration of the old design which was found on the removal of the whitewash, but the restorer seems to have missed the right tints.

There is a music-gallery in the clerestory of the sixth bay on the south side; it is composed of three panels with quatrefoils containing plain shields, and is finished with an embattled cornice. Another gallery, perhaps for an organ, must have been supported by the two noticeable brackets on the spandrels of the fourth bay of the same side. One may conjecture that it was of wood, and was reached from the triforium. The brackets are carved in the shape of very large heads of a bishop and a king, both supported by smaller heads, and of an extremely benevolent expression. The hair of the king has that curious formal twist with which we are familiar on playing-cards. As some of the small heads in the chapter-house have the same style of hair, these two brackets probably belong to the end of the thirteenth century.

Sir John Harrington in the Nugae Antiquae (ii. 148) says of these two heads that "the old men of Wells had a tradition, that, when there should be such a king and such a bishop, then the church should be in danger of ruin." At the time of the Reformation it was noticed that the head of the king bore a certain resemblance to Henry VIII., and that the king held in his hands a child falling, who, it was said, could be none other than Edward VI. The peculiarity of the bishop's figure is that he has women and children about him. "This fruitful bishop, they affirmed, was Dr Barlow (p. 156), the first married bishop of Wells, and perhaps of England. This talk being rife in Wells in Queen Mary's time, made him rather affect Chichester at his return than Wells, where not only the things that were ruined but those that remained, served for records and remembrances of his sacrilege."

The west end of the nave is covered in its lower portion by an arcade of five arches with Purbeck shafts, the middle one being wider than the rest, to contain the two smaller arches of the doorway. The three lancet windows were re-modelled in Perpendicular times by the insertion of the triple shafts, which have the casement mouldings and angular caps of the period; but the dog-tooth moulding of the arches, the medallions in the spandrels, and the little corbel heads of the Early English work remain. A Perpendicular parapet along the sill of the window marks the gallery which, pierced through the splays, carries the triforium passage round the end of the nave. A string course runs along the bottom of this gallery and forms the bases of the triple shafts; the bases are supported on corbels which die off upon the sloping wall below. This wall conceals a curious gallery, the purpose of which is not known; it is entered by steps from the triforium, and lighted by round openings which can be seen in the central quatrefoils of the west front; when these quatrefoils were filled with sculpture it would have been difficult to detect the existence of the dark gallery.

Two small transepts at the west end of the nave are formed by the western towers, which project in this church beyond the aisles. These transepts are connected with the aisles by an arch, the lower part of which is closed by wooden doors. That on the north was used as a chapel of the Holy Cross, and of late years as the consistory court: it is now the choir-boys' vestry; that on the south served as a porch in the days when the usual entrance to the church was by the Early English doorway which leads into it from the cloister; it is now appropriated to the bell-ringers. They are both of strikingly different style to the rest of the interior, as they were built in pure Early English style, at the same time as the west front, of which the towers form, of course, an integral part. Their shafts are of blue lias, the capitals richly carved; their groined vaults have a circular opening to admit to the upper storey of the tower, which has its corbels ornamented with foliage, although they cannot be seen. Over the doorway in the south chapel an arcade is curiously fitted into the available space beneath the vault.

The Aisles of the Nave (see p. 19) are of the same character as the nave itself, the later part having been resumed at about the same time, and at the same place. Among the capitals the following in the north aisle may be specially mentioned:—

Fifth Shaft.—Peasants carrying sheep, etc., a dog in the midst.

Ninth Shaft.—Man in rough coat, which falls before and behind rather like a chasuble, carrying foliage on his back. A very good figure.Tenth Shaft.—(By arch of vestry) Man carrying what seems to be a hod of mortar and a mason's mallet.

Opposite side of arch, at end of the string course: Peasant in hood carrying a staff. On the caps opposite are two heads with tongues on their teeth (see p. 92).

The windows, both of these aisles and those of the transepts, were filled with Perpendicular tracery at about the same time as the clerestory windows. The date of this addition must have been before Bishop's Bubwith's time, for the library which that prelate built over the cloister blocks the south window of the west aisle of the south transept. A stone bench runs along all the aisles.

Glass of the Nave, Transepts, and Aisles.—Most of the glass of the west window was collected abroad, during his exile, by Bishop Creyghton, while he was yet dean (1660-70). The main part of it is devoted to the life and death of St. John Baptist, and is of excellent early sixteenth-century work, for under the fantastic figure of the executioner is the inscription Sancti Johannis Decollatio 1507. The two other lights containing the large figures of King Ina and Bishop Ralph are, however, of later date, and to judge by their costume they should belong to Creyghton's own time; moreover, on the southern one are Creyghton's arms. Apparently the compositions at the extreme top and bottom of the middle light are much later; a little handbook on the cathedral by Mr John Davies, the verger in 1814, states that the then dean and chapter re-arranged and restored the window in 1813; these additions must belong to that time, and according to him they were brought from Rouen. Their ugly reds and blues certainly do not blend with the earlier glass, as do the figures of Ina and Ralph, but considerably mar the mellow and delicate effect of the whole. There are only a few slight fragments of old glass in the other windows. There are also two modern windows at the west end of the aisles.

Bishop Bubwith's Chantry Chapel.—Two chantry chapels stand opposite each other under the ninth pier-arches of the nave. They are alike in general characteristics, though there is an interval of sixty years between them. The chantry of Bishop Bubwith (ob. 1424), who built the north-west tower, is formed by a hexagonal screen between the piers, the three eastern sides being filled with a reredos that gives the chapel a square appearance within. The screen is composed of the most light and elaborate tracery, its corners surmounted by a crest; it is open above, but has a rather coarsely-carved canopy over where the altar stood. Doorways, whose jambs are too delicately carved to have ever carried doors, give free access and a clear view of the interior from either side. Altogether it was an ideal place for votive Celebrations, when but few worshippers were present. The niches over the altar have been hacked level with the wall, and the little pillar piscina is also defaced. The triple shafts of the pier at the western end are corbelled off, the corbel being carved with Bubwith's arms (argent, a fess engrailed sable between twelve holly leaves vert, 4, 4, 4, and 4, arranged in quadrangles) impaled with those of the see. The altar here was formerly dedicated to St. Saviour.Sugar's Chantry.—In the ninth bay of the nave, on the south side, is the chantry of Treasurer Hugh Sugar. Before its erection, the altar of St. Edmund of Canterbury, who was canonised in 1246, stood here; and perhaps, when it comes to be used again, it will be maintained in honour of that most attractive scholar saint. Speaking of these chantries, which were endowed in such profusion in the later Middle Ages, Canon Church (Somerset Proceedings, 1888, ii. 103) says: "The belief in the communion of saints, living and dead, and the desire for continued remembrance after death, and for the intercessions of the living, led practically to the endowment of chantries and obits, whereby not only was the church enriched, and the services of many priests provided for, but also attachment to the church of their fathers was greatly strengthened, as being the common home of the dead and the living." That attachment, one would think, is hardly likely to be revived by this beautiful chapel and its fellow being put to base uses. At present it serves as a kind of booking-office, where visitors deposit their sixpences and sign their names, while the other is stored with hassocks, and becomes the resting-place of any brooms, pails, and dustpans that are in use.

St. Edmund's (or Sugar's) chapel is hexagonal, like that of Bishop Bubwith, but its tracery, frieze, and reredos are more elaborate. The canopy over the altar is vaulted with lace-like fan-tracery. Five niches, now empty of their figures, form the reredos; their sumptuous pedestals and canopies are in excellent condition. Attached to the frieze without, on either side, are six demi-angels, with delicate wings and extremely curly hair, bearing shields, with representations of the Five Wounds, the Lily of the Annunciation, between angels' wings; the arms of the see (a plain saltire surmounting a pastoral staff in pale between two keys addorsed, the bows interlaced on the dexter, and a sword erect on the sinister); the arms of Glastonbury Abbey (a cross flory, in dexter chief a demi-virgin with child proper), the arms of the vicars (a saltire), the initials H.S., and Sugar's arms, originally a "canting coat," three sugar-loaves, and in chief a doctor's cap. Sugar's initials and arms also occur under the canopy. It is the fashion to consider this chapel inferior to its fellow, merely because it is later in date, but a little impartial study will show that it is much the better of the two. The tracery, though less uncommon, is more graceful, that over the doorway especially being far better contrived; the cornice is better proportioned, and is not spoilt by the untidy trail of foliage which runs round that of Bubwith's chapel; the canopy, too, fits in with the curve of the tracery, while that of the others projects clumsily across it.The Pulpit.—From the west end of this chapel steps lead into the stone pulpit which adjoins it. This pulpit was built in Henry VIII.'s reign, by Bishop Knight, who died in 1547. It is a low, but well-proportioned, structure, resting on a basement, and fronted with panelled pilasters; it is surmounted by an entablature. In front are the bishop's curious arms, which occur more distinctly in the glass of the north choir aisle—Per fess, in chief a demi-eagle with two heads and sans wings issuing from a demi-rose conjoined to a demi-sun in splendour in base. On the frieze is the inscription—preache. thov. the. worde. be. fervent. in. season. and. ovt. of. season. reprove. rebvke. exhorte. w^t. all. longe. svfferyng. &. doctryne. 2. Timo. A board along the top, covered with red baize, impairs its beauty at present.

The Lectern, which stands near, is composed of a massive double desk, surmounted by ornamental work, containing the arms of the see. It rests upon a ball and turned stem and base, and is entirely of brass. Bishop Creyghton, who had it made when he was yet dean, inscribed it on both desks with his arms and this legend:—Dr. Rob^t.^ Creyghton upon his returne from fifteen years Exile, w^th^ o^r Soveraigne Lord Kinge Charles y^e 2^d.^ made Deane of wells, in y^e yeare 1660, gave this Brazen Deske, w^th^ God's holy worde thereon to the saide Cathedrall Church. The Bible referred to still rests upon it, bearing the same date; it is bound up with the Prayer Book, and contains initial letters and a frontispiece, but it stops at the book of Job.

Opposite the lectern are two sixteenth-century panelled wooden stalls, with round finials, all bearing the same device on both sides—a Tudor rose with I.H.S. in the centre, and the letters m.d.l.i.i. (1552) on the five petals. These excellent examples of simple and effective woodwork were found amongst some lumber in 1846, and now form part of the temporary choir stalls that are used for the nave services.

On the south side of Bubwith's chapel, and partly covered by it, is a slab, 10 ft. long, covering the grave of Bishop Haselshaw, with the inscription, Walterus de Haselshaw Ep. 1308. On the west of Sugar's chapel, another slab bears the inscription, Radulphus Erghum Ep. 1401. In a slab near the entrance to the choir there is the matrix for a brass of a lady, with mitred head-dress of the period, c. 1460, beneath a canopy. The style suggests that it may belong to Lady Lisle, whose tomb possibly stood here.The Transepts are both of the same architectural character, and were evidently built before the nave. They have less ornament, the medallions and the carved tympana of the nave being alike absent, although there are the same small heads at the angles of the pier arches. The triforium, too, is different; each bay consists of two large openings, devoid of ornament, instead of three narrower ones, and is separated from the next bay by the vaulting-shaft which reaches down to the string-course of the pier arch (see p. 77). Some of the carved work, however, of the capitals and corbels is of a later date than that of the nave, which may be due to the capitals having been left uncut till after the nave was finished, or to damage done by the fall of the tholus in 1248. Apparently the corbels of the vaulting shafts are later than those of the nave, they are certainly more elaborate. Of the capitals those on the west side of both transepts are of one style and abound in representations of the toothache. The capitals on the east side are different from those on the west of the third pier on this side of the south transept, and that is of a style that suggests the Decorated period. Those on the west are certainly the best, and some of the following are the finest in the church, and perhaps in England:—

North Transept, first Pier.—(Inside the Priest Vicars' vestry) A prophet (?) with scroll on which there is no name: Man carrying goose. (Outside) Head with tongue on teeth.

Second Pier.—Aaron, writing his name on a scroll: Moses with the tables of stone.

Third Pier.—Woman with a bandage across her face.Above this cap the corbel consists of a seated figure, naked, with distorted mouth and an agonised expression.

South Transept, second Pier (from the south end).— Two men are stealing grapes, one holds the basket full, the other plucks grapes, holding a knife in his other hand: The farmers in pursuit, one carries a spade and the other a pitchfork: The man with the fork, a vigorous figure, catches one thief: The man with the spade hits the other (whose face is most woe-begone) on the head (illust. p. 79).

Third Pier.—Woman pulling thorn out of her foot: Man with one eye, finger in his mouth: Baboon head: Cobbler; this figure shows very plainly the method of shoemaking at this time; the cobbler, in his apron, sits with the shoe on one knee, his strap passes over the knee and round the other foot, his foot is turned over so as to present the side and not the sole to the strap: Woman's head with long hair.

Fourth Pier.—Head perfectly hairless: "Elias P." (the prophet) with hand on cheek as if he too has the toothache: Head in hood, with tongue on the one remaining tooth.

It may be well here to say a word about the general classification of these earlier capitals, since their date is a matter of great architectural interest. I would venture to divide them into five groups—

1. Those of the three western bays of the choir: simple carved foliage of distinctly Norman character, as in the north porch: these belong to the time of Reginald (1174-1191).

2. The four eastern bays of the nave and its aisles. Some of these may belong to the first period, though later than the choir: they are more advanced in the foliage, and teem with grotesque birds and beasts. Some, however, of the caps in these bays are of quite different character (p. 80); they contain genre subjects of perfectly naturalistic treatment, very different to the St. Edmund of the north porch capital, but exactly similar to the figure caps of the transepts. They must therefore have been carved later than the death of Saint William Bytton.

3. The western bays of the nave. These, which are of much less interest, belong to the period of Jocelin's reconstruction (1220-1242). They are characteristic examples of rich stiff-leaf foliage, freer than that of the earlier work, but much less varied and without either human figures or grotesques.

4. On the eastern range of transept piers. These would seem also to come within Jocelin's period, with the exception of the third pier of the south transept.

5. On the western range of transept piers (p. 89), with which must be classed those later caps already referred to in the nave under group 2. Their date is settled by the fact that they abound in unmistakable representations of the toothache. Now Saint William Bytton died in 1274, and his tomb became immediately famous for cures of this malady. In 1286 the chapter decided to repair the old work, no doubt because the offerings at his tomb had brought money to the church; this part of the church had been damaged ever since the fall of the tholus in 1248. The caps must therefore have been carved during the episcopate of Burnell (1275-1292). Mr Irvine, indeed, suggests that the figure of the woman taking a thorn ("bur") from her foot may contain a reference to Bishop Burnell. The undercroft passage, with its curious corbels and bosses, was probably also a part of the old work then completed, as it contains one "toothache" head. Although the introduction of such finished figure-subjects into the capitals suggests this lateness of date, they are still completely Early English in style, and a great gulf is fixed between them and the Decorated caps of the chapter-house begun by Burnell's successor, William de Marchia (1293-1302).

The Font is of peculiar interest as the one surviving relic of Bishop Robert's Norman church. Whether it also stood in the still earlier Saxon church is still an open question: it is as likely to be of pre-Norman as of Norman date, and the fact that whatever ornament there may have been in the spandrels of its shallow arcades has been hacked off, makes conjecture unsafe. Its unusual position in the south transept may be due to the Bishop Giso's quasi-conventual buildings on the south of the church, which would have made this transept the most common entrance to the cathedral at the time of the Conquest. A Jacobean cover rests upon the font, and with it forms a charming combination of pre-Gothic and post-Gothic Romanesque design.

At the south end of the south transept is the tomb of Bishop de Marchia (ob. 1302). The effigy lies in a recess, and is covered with a canopy of three bays, the ogival arches, finished in sumptuous crockets and finials, painted red and gold, the spandrels being alternately green and red, powdered with a little pattern, the cusps and mouldings scarlet and crimson and green and gold, with a dark colour in the shadows. The effigy of the bishop is one of the best in the cathedral, but even more lovely are the three little figures so charmingly supported on foliage at the back of the tomb—two angels and a bishop between them. The heads of these three figures have been wickedly destroyed, but parts of the chains of the angels' censers remain. Of the two beautiful angels which hold the cushion the heads fortunately remain. Along the plinth of the tomb are six heads which are quite unique in their treatment; three are bearded (one of these is bald); one is shaven, tonsured, and turned half round in a strangely naturalistic manner; another is also shaven, and the remaining head is that of a woman in a veil. Two large faces are carved on the east and west ends of the tomb, both with long wavy hair—one of a woman, the other with a wavy beard. The central boss of the vaulting is carved with five roses, which are coloured green, their foliage, like all the foliage in this tomb, being gilt on a red ground with the red edges showing. The little angels at the back had gilded robes with red lining, and blue wings; the little bishop wore a red chasuble with green (or blue) dalmatic, and red tunicle over his white alb; the lappets of his mitre, which have survived, were red, and traces of dark blue are on his shoes: there seem to have been patterns on the various vestments, and the colours can still be seen where their sleeves overlapped. Modern lettering has been cut across the back of the tomb and coloured, by way of contrast to the ancient work.

Under the battlemented cornice of the curtain-wall to the west a row of heads is painted in fresco on a red ground, which seems to be part of the same scheme with the curious heads on the plinth of de Marchia's tomb: one of these, a woman in a dark-coloured hood, is especially distinct. No doubt, the whole wall was originally painted. The sill of the window over the tomb seems to have been used for some special purpose: there is a passage cut through the splay of the window, through which the sill may be reached, which is not the case with the corresponding window of the north transept. The passage is reached from a staircase concealed behind the curtain-wall, which is reached by an ogee-headed doorway (with cusps in the head, finial, and two small heads to its very beautiful mouldings). This staircase also leads to a chamber on the level of the passage, but on the west side: the interior of the chamber can be seen from the ground, as its old wooden door is kept open. It is supposed by some to have been a watching chamber in connection with the tomb. There can, indeed, be little doubt that these arrangements had something to do with de Marchia's tomb, or that the ornamented doorway in the curtain wall of the same date as the tomb, together with the frescoes on the wall, were connected with the strong efforts that were made at this time for his canonisation. Perhaps the sill was used for the display of his relics, and the chamber was the ordinary resting-place of the reliquary, for which purpose the door and the absence of windows would have fitted it.

Next to de Marchia's tomb on the other side, the monument of Joan Viscountess Lisle (ob. 1463) gives a good illustration of the change of architecture in a hundred and fifty years. The crockets are less free, and straight lines and square members abound; the fine ogee curve of its single arch is weakened by the rather weedy cusps, its shafts have become tiny mouldings, and their capitals mere knops. It is coloured, too, all over, in green and red and yellow, but heavily in comparison with its neighbour. The colour has been unusually well preserved, owing to the fact that the tomb was plastered over, and not discovered till 1809. There is no effigy, but a brass of apparently recent date bears this inscription:—Hic jacet Joanna Vicecomitilla de Lisle una filiarum et haeredum Thomae Chedder, armiger quae fuit uxor Joannis Vicecomitis de Lisle, filii et haeredis Joannis Comitis SalopiÆ et MargaretÆ u[=x] ejus unius filiarum et haeredum Ricardi comitis Warwici et Elizabethae uxoris ejus filiÆ et haeredis ThomÆ de Berkley militis, domini de Berkeley, quÆ obiit xv^mo^ die mensis Julii A[=n][=n] D^i MCCCCLXIII. Lady Lisle's husband was killed at the battle of Chastillon (1453), when he was serving under his father, the famous Earl of Shrewsbury. The painted designs above the three niches should be noticed, and also those of the moulding and fleurs-de-lys at the side. The monument was evidently used as a chantry chapel; but it did not originally stand here. The brass by the north side of the screen (p. 89) may mark the site.The eastern aisles of the transepts are divided off into chapels by two Perpendicular stone screens, that of the south transept having a doorway in it for each chapel. These chapels are thus dedicated, beginning from the south—St. Martin, St. Calixtus, St. David, Holy Cross. From the last-named chapel the chapter-house is reached through an Early English doorway, and a similar doorway (now partly blocked by Biconyll's tomb) led from St. Martin's to a small building, supposed to have been a vestry, which once stood outside. In the south transept there are also—a small door to the tower, a small door with ogee head (p. 96), a rather larger doorway with modern lintel leading to the library (two shafts just above this door have been cut off, and faces very roughly cut on their extremities by way of corbel), and the large doorway leading to the cloister. The principal windows belong to the original work, having been merely filled with Perpendicular tracery. The windows of the south-east aisle contain Decorated tracery, but the tracery of the north-east aisle is not good.

The western aisle of the south transept is open; that of the north transept is cut off by a Perpendicular stone screen, which is solid in the southern bay, and through carved in the northern. The latter is, however, boarded up, and used as the vestry of the priest-vicars, the other being the vestry of the vicars-choral. From the priest-vicars' vestry a door leads into a small chamber now used for the water supply, and over the doorway there is a small and pretty figure of a woman under a little niche.

There are a very few fragments of Early Perpendicular glass in some of the upper lights of the nave and transept windows. There are also two modern windows at the west end of the nave, and one in the south transept, of which I have been unable to discover the actual designers' names.Transept Chapels.—St. Martin's, where the obits of Savaric and Jocelin were celebrated, is separated by a solid Perpendicular screen from the adjoining chapel of St. Calixtus. It is now used as the canons' vestry. Partly blocking the old Early English doorway is the tomb of Biconyll, who was chancellor in 1454. His will, with a good deal of information about him, is given in the Somerset Proceedings for 1894, by Mr A.S. Bicknell, a descendant. The name was originally Bykenhulle (A.S. for Beacon Hill), and has been spelt in forty-seven different ways. His effigy lies on the tomb, dressed in cassock, long surplice, and cappa nigra or choral cope. The ends of the almuce can be seen in the opening of the cope, and its hood hangs over the shoulders.

St. Calixtus' chapel is enclosed on the side of the choir aisle by part of the beautiful ironwork from Beckington's tomb. The doors of this and St. Martin's chapel are also made from the same iron screen. Within the chapel, and near the screen, in strange contrast to it, stands one of those indescribable stoves which disfigure the church, its chimney, as usual, driven through the vault. The east end of the chapel is occupied by the canopy which formed part of Bishop Beckington's tomb till the restoration of 1850, when it was, by an inexcusable act of vandalism, taken down and fixed up in this place (p. 125). This canopy did not cover the tomb, but stood at its foot so as to form the eastern part of a chantry chapel, the tomb being on its south side and the iron screen enclosing it where it jutted into the choir on the north side. It will be noticed that its northern angle was sloped off so as not to present an awkward corner on the side of the choir. The reredos, for such it really is, is a most elaborate and charming piece of work; "pretty" is perhaps the word that describes it best, if "pretty" be taken in its very best sense. Here there is nothing of the suave grace of de Marchia's tomb, nothing of the vigour and truth of the transept capitals, nothing of the noble delicacy of the north porch, which was a delicacy of intellect, while this is a delicacy of execution. It is certainly decadent; even by the side of Sugar's chapel it is over-refined and a thought effeminate, but, with the colour that still covers it fresh and bright, it must have had all the fascination of a splendid piece of jewellery, where profusion of ornament is more desired than structural grace. The cornice is particularly rich with a finely-carved vine ornament, and with two angels, their long outstretched wings minutely feathered, who bear shields having representations of the sacred wounds. The tabernacle work behind the altar is gone, like the altar itself, with the exception of the small niches which formed the sides of the central composition, but the little canopy of the central niche remains to give us a slight idea of its workmanship. The short wings of the reredos have panels and traceried openings, and, on the south, a piscina which looks almost too tiny to be real. The top has a toy-like vault of fan-tracery with little pendants.

On the south side of St. Calixtus' chapel is Dean Husse's alabaster tomb (ob. 1305), which bears some of the best carved work in the cathedral. The effigy itself is good: it represents the Dean clad in the same choir vestments as the figures on the panels below. These panels should on no account be missed. The first on the left represents the Annunciation with a grace that is not less delightful for the strain of exaggeration which pervades it. The Blessed Virgin (see illustration on p. 101), a lovely figure in long, close-fitting kirtle and mantle thrown gracefully over her shoulders, turns round from the desk at which she is kneeling, and throws out her arms with a quaint gesture of surprise; her crown and nimbus are both of enormous size. A very small Gabriel dashes down from the top corner, bearing a scroll which takes up the whole of the panel; he is preceded by a Dove with very long rays. The next three panels (passing over these with shields) contain three figures of clergy, two of which hold books, and all their short staves. They wear the cassock, long surplice, and a long, graceful choral cope, somewhat like the modern academic gown in shape, the rounded ends of the hooded almuce reach to the knee and are held at the chest by a cord with tassels. There is no better representation of medieval choir vestments in existence than these three figures. The last panel is a curious representation of the Eternal Father holding the crucifix; this remarkable figure has a very long face, great masses of curly hair, a huge crown, and very long hands.

The two chapels of the north transept can only be reached through the choir aisle, no doubt because the way to the chapter-house was through them. The first was probably St David's chapel. Here should be noticed the capital of the easternmost shaft of the second transept pier—a head with curly hair and handsome smiling face. This shaft is corbelled off, and the corbel through carved in the shape of a lizard eating the leaves of a plant with berries thereon; it is a charming study. The tomb of Bishop Still (1543-1607) in this chapel is under a handsome canopy of warm-coloured marbles, with black columns and red, blue, and gold decoration. The effigy is dressed in rochet and chimere, over which is a red robe lined with white fur; a ruff is round the neck, a close-fitting black cap covers the head and part of the ears, and the rochet is finished at the wrists with a plain black band.

In the chapel of the Holy Cross the monument of the intruding Bishop Kidder, Ken's successor (p. 158, ob. 1703), stands on the site of the altar, whither it has been removed from its original position on the south side of the choir. Standing in all its chilly pretentiousness so near to Still's tomb, it well illustrates the immense decline in monumental art which took place during the seventeenth century. The bishop's daughter, who erected the monument, is represented reclining, as, with one arm outstretched, she looks at two urns which are supposed to contain the ashes of her father and mother; underneath is a very long Latin inscription.

Against the north wall and close to the entrance to the chapter-house stands the tomb of Bishop Cornish (ob. 1513). He was chancellor and precentor of Wells, and suffragan bishop under Bishop Fox of Bath and Wells and Bishop Oldham of Exeter, his title being Bishop of Tenos. Part of the inscription remains:—Obiit supradictus dus Thomas Tinensis Epus tercio die mensis Julii anno ... MCCCCCXIII Cujus Anime p[ropitietur Deus A]men. The three panels on the front bear shields—T with a sheaf of corn, Cornish's arms (on a chevron between three birds' heads erased a mitre) and C with a sheaf of corn; on the side panel are the arms of the chapter, the arms, that is, of the see without the pastoral staff. Against the wall within the canopy are some matrices of small brasses, in which the kneeling figure of a bishop, a scroll, and two plates for inscriptions can be traced.

From several peculiarities in Cornish's tomb, I am convinced that it was also used as the Easter Sepulchre, where the Host was laid during the concluding days of Holy Week. These sepulchres were often made in connection with a tomb, and the usual place for them was somewhere on the north side of the choir. The position here in the chapel of the Holy Cross (which is an appropriate dedication) would be particularly convenient for the purpose. The chapel was easily reached by the clergy without their having to go into the public part of the church; it was thus as safe a place as the choir itself, and at the same time was much more open to the people, who could pay their devotions from the transept, and through the open stone screen could see the candles burning round the sepulchre.

Just where it could be best seen from the transept, on the eastern end of the upper storey of the tomb under the canopy, is a carving of the Resurrection. A wide arch is cut in the stone; within this is carved a square opening, not through-cut, but farther recessed, to represent the mouth of the sepulchre; in front of the square recess is the figure of Christ, issuing from the tomb, clad only in a long mantle, which He holds across His body; the hair is long, the face mutilated, and the hands gone. At the left is the kneeling figure of a bishop, the head gone, but part of the staff remaining in the hands. There is a great crack (now filled with mortar) round these two figures, as if the attack of the iconoclasts had been made with heavy tools. A pedestal at the right-hand corner of the square recess seems a later insertion, as it is loose and does not exactly fit; probably it was added soon after the tomb was made, to hold a small silver figure of an angel, or of a soldier, as there is a little hole (now filled with mortar) at a height above it convenient for rivetting a metal figure.

The Sepulchre proper would have consisted of a small coped chest, in shape like a reliquary, round which would be painted the incidents of the Passion. The slab of the tomb, being without the usual recumbent effigy, would have formed the place on which this "coffer" rested, this being the usual method when a tomb was used for the purpose. On Good Friday, the Host, often in a specially-made pyx, was with much ceremony laid in the coffer, together with the altar-cross, and there was kept, surrounded by candles and guarded by watchers, till Easter Day. We know that there was a special provision at Wells for one candle to burn continuously within the Sepulchre "I cereus in sepulchro cum corpori Dominico qui continue ardebit donec Matutinae cantentur in die Paschae" (MS. Harl. 1682, fo. 5). There is a small hole in the east wall of this chapel, close to the tomb and a little below the level of of the slab whereon the coffer would have rested; this may have held a sconce or some ornament. But the cereus in sepulchro was probably a large candle within the chapel, and in accordance with general usage, there would have been other candles burning upon cressets. There are two other holes in the north wall, a few inches to the east of the top of the tomb, which may have held rods for the curtains that were used in much profusion for the adornment of Easter sepulchres. While the coffer stood on the slab it would have hidden the carving of the Resurrection; but on its removal on Easter Day, the carving would have stood in full view of the people, bright, no doubt, with colour and surrounded by lights. It will further be noticed that the tomb stands eighteen inches away from the east wall, the space being now filled with modern masonry; this was probably in order to leave ample room for the sacred ministers in their vestments; had it stood close against the wall the ceremonial could not have been conveniently carried out.

Near the tomb is the doorway, with a fine old oak door, which leads into the chapter-house; and above the tomb is a window which was blocked up when the vestibule was built, and a bracket set in the masonry.The Clock is a great favourite with visitors, who generally congregate in the north transept at the striking of the hour and laugh gently to one another when the quaint performance is over. "Jack Blandiver" (this is the name given him by the country people for some undiscovered reason) kicks his bell at each quarter in the most life-like manner, his feet trembling afterwards with the exertion; but at the hour, after Jack has sounded his four quarters, as the big bell begins to toll, the four "knights" above the clock rush round in contrary directions, and charge each other with so much ferocity that one unfortunate is felled at each encounter, and has barely time to recover his upright position before he is again and again knocked down with resounding clatter upon his horse's back. The other three fight twenty-four times a day unscathed.

The clock was thus described by Mr Octavius Morgan, F.R.S., in the ArchÆological Journal for 1883:

"In the Cathedral of Wells is what remains of the ancient clock which once belonged to Glastonbury Abbey. This very curious timepiece is said to have been originally executed by Peter Lightfoot, a monk of the abbey, but at the cost of Adam de Sodbury, who was promoted to the abbacy in 1322. It appears to have been originally placed in the south transept of Glastonbury Abbey Church, where it continued till the Dissolution, when, tradition says, it was carried to Wells and placed in the north transept of the cathedral with all its belongings—viz. the figure which strikes the quarters with his heels on two little bells within the church, and the two "knights" which perform the same service with their battle axes on the outside. The inside figure strikes the hour on a bell before him with a battle-axe in his hands. The face of the dial is 6 feet in diameter, contained in a square frame, the spandrels of which are filled with angels holding in their hands the head of a man; the outer circle is painted blue, with gilt stars scattered over it, and is divided into twenty-four parts, corresponding with the twenty-four hours; the horary numbers are in black-letter characters on circular tablets, and mark the hours from twelve at noon to midnight, and from thence to midnight again (noon and midnight being marked by a cross instead of a numeral). The hour index, a large gilt star or sun, is attached to the machinery behind a second circle which conceals all except the index. On the second circle are marked the minutes, indicated by a smaller star; a third and lesser circle contains the numbers of the days of the month, which is marked by a point attached to a small circular opening in the plate, through which the phases of the moon are shown. On the opposite side is a female figure, with the motto Semper peragrat Phoebe.

"An arched pediment surmounts the whole, with an octagonal projection from its base like a gallery, capped with a row of battlements, forming a cornice to the face of the clock. A panelled and battlemented turret is fixed in the centre, round which four figures mounted on horses revolve in opposite directions, as if charging at a tournament, when set in motion by a communication with the clockwork, to be made at pleasure; these are commonly called knights, but their costume is only that of ordinary persons. The movement is at a distance from the dial, and connected with it by a long horizontal rod; the dial work was close at the back of the dial. The revolving figures on horseback are moved by a separate weight, and are set in motion by the freeing of a detent. The old boarding at the back [in the vestry of the vicars-choral] is painted black, with a diaper scroll of foliage with red and white roses. The female figure on the dial, representing the moon, is always kept upright by a balance weight; the quarter-boys inside, who strike the quarters, are much later, having knee-breeches.

"The outside dial has now two hands; it was once like a star with only one hand. The bells outside are struck by two figures in armour, temp. Henry VIII., probably put up when it was removed from Glastonbury.

"The clock seems to have remained without alteration after it was then put up, till the present modern movement, made by Thwaites & Reed of Clerkenwell, was, in the time of Dean Goodenough, substituted for it, and the old original movement was taken and deposited in the crypt under the chapter-house, where it remained uncared for, for many years, during which time, 1853, I visited and examined it, made notes of it, and took drawings of it. The great wheel has ninety teeth, and the pinion, a lantern-pinion, had nine leaves, or rather bars; the second wheel had sixty teeth; the remainder of the works were all disjointed and bent, and remained unheeded." The whole is now fitted together, and in a going condition, in the mechanical museum at South Kensington.

The Antiquary for August 1897 ("Some Mediaeval Mechanicians") reminds us that, as the clock was in constant use at Glastonbury for about 250 years, and then at Wells for another 250 years, and as the old movement is now still working at the South Kensington, "as though its life were interminable"—it is probably the oldest piece of working mechanism extant.

The same article says of these old works: "It will give an idea of the labour involved, when it is stated the mechanism of the clock occupies a space of about 5 feet cube (125 cubic feet), that the structure is wholly of forged iron; that the numerous wrought-iron wheels, some of which are nearly 2 feet in diameter and about ½ inch thick, besides having to be made truly circular and concentric, had all their teeth cut out and trimmed to workable shape by hand; and that the heavy wrought-iron frames, etc., are fastened entirely by means of mortise, tenon, and colter, no screws being used in the whole structure. The pinions are of the lantern form, with octagonal cheek-plates on square spindles, and the pendulum of modern form beats seconds."The Inverted Arches.—Undoubtedly the first thing that the stranger notices in Wells Cathedral, and the last that he is likely to forget, is the curious contrivance by which the central tower is supported. Of the three pairs of arches (the upper arch resting inverted upon the lower) which stretch across the nave and each of the transepts, that in the nave is seen at once, and lends a unique character to the whole church. At first these arches give one something of a shock, so unnecessarily frank are they, so excessively sturdy, so very English, we may think. They carry their burden as a great-limbed labourer will carry a child in a crowd, to the great advantage of the burden, and the natural dissatisfaction of the crowd. In fact, they seem to block up the view, and to deform what they do not hide.

That is the first impression, but it does not last for long. Familiarity breeds respect for this simple, strong device, which arrested the fall of the tower in the fourteenth century, and has kept its walls ever since in perfect security, so that the great structure has stood like a rock upon the watery soil of Wells for nearly seven centuries, with its rents and breaks just as they were when the damage was first repaired. The ingenuity, too, of these strange flying buttresses becomes more and more evident; the "ungainly props" are seen to be so worked into the tower they support, that they almost seem like part of the original design of the first builders. One discovers that it is the organ, and not the arches, that really blocks the view, and one marvels that so huge a mass of masonry can look so light as to present, with the great circles in the spandrels where the arches meet, "a kind of pattern of gigantic geometrical tracery." Indeed, I think no one who has been in Wells a week could wish to see the inverted arches removed.

Professor Willis, who had made a most careful investigation of the masonry, thus describes the cause and the construction of the inverted arches (Somerset Proceedings, 1863, i. 21):

"It is evident that the weight of the upper storey of the tower completed in 1321 had produced fearful settlements, the effects of which may still be seen in the triforium arches of the nave, and transepts next to the tower, which are dragged downwards and deformed, partly rebuilt, filled up, and otherwise exhibiting the signs so often seen under central towers, of a thorough repair. The great piers of the tower are cased and connected by a stone framework, which is placed under the north, south, and west tower-arches, but not under the east. This framework consists of a low pointed arch, upon which rests an inverted arch of the same form, so as to produce a figure somewhat resembling a St. Andrew's cross, to use the happy phrase applied by Leland to a similar contrivance introduced for a similar reason [but at a later date] into the central tower arches of Glastonbury." To this description there only needs to be added a mention of the circles which occupy the spandrels, and help to prevent the whole structure from seeming a mere inert mass of masonry. To appreciate the work fully, it should be looked at from some spot, such as the north-east corner of the north transept, whence the three great pairs of arches can be seen together. The effect from here is very fine, especially when the nave is lighted up, and strong shadows are cast. The extreme boldness of the mouldings, the absence of shafts and capitals and of all ornament, give them a primitive vigour, and their great intermingling curves, which contrast so magnificently with the little shafts of the piers beyond, seem more like a part of some great mountain cavern than a mere device of architectural utility.

At the same time as the arches were built, flying buttresses were inserted further to secure the tower, and they can be seen blocking up the triforium and clerestory of those bays, in nave, choir, and transepts, which adjoin it. Other repairs were necessary, for the pier-arches of the same bays in nave and transepts were completely shattered, and had to be replaced by the present ones, the queer-looking capitals of which contrast so oddly with the earlier work. It is instructive, also, to compare the lightness of these fourteenth-century mouldings with the boldness of those, wrought at exactly the same time, of the great inverted arches.The Tower.—Besides its inverted arches and other signs of repair, the tower is mainly noticeable for its Perpendicular fan-tracery vault of fifteenth-century date. This vault hides the lantern with its arcades, and thus destroys one of the elements of distance and mystery which, before the advent of the more prosaic Perpendicular period, had been a characteristic of Gothic architecture. Nothing else but the desire for uniformity can account for this unjustifiable addition; for there can have been no intention of hanging bells in the lantern when there were already two western bell-towers. The lantern, with its cracked masonry, can be seen during the ascent of the tower (p. 47).

The shafts of the eastern tower arches were corbelled off at some height from the ground, in order to allow the stalls of the first ritual choir to be set flat against the wall. This shows that Bishop Reginald, when he rebuilt the church, kept to the old Romanesque arrangement and made his choir under the tower, reserving his three bays of what is now the choir for the presbytery—a very dignified arrangement. The square holes for fixing the wooden screen of this earlier choir can still be traced on the aisle walls in a line with the ninth piers of the nave.

The Screen was built in the fourteenth century; but Salvin altered and spoilt it by bringing forward the middle portion to carry the unsightly organ. Mr Freeman objected very strongly to the choir being shut off from the nave by this screen, and urged the authorities to pull it down and throw the whole church open from end to end. The remedy suggested by Mr St. John Hope, on the other hand, is that a second screen should be erected under the western arch of the tower, against which the nave or rood altar should stand, with seats for the choir on either side. Such a screen as this was certainly used in conventual churches, and would be more in accord with the spirit of medieval architecture, which was content to sacrifice the grandeur of great space in order to gain the qualities of seclusion and mystery, and inexhaustible variety.

Two things, at least, are certain. The long-established custom of crowding the Sunday congregation into the choir should be abolished, and the organ should be modified or removed. Magnificent Sunday services could be held in the nave, either with a second screen and altar or without a screen at all; but, as the former plan could be tried without any destruction of old work, it should be tried first.

As for the organ, the cathedral will always be defaced while it remains as a whole in the midst of the screen. Musical experts could no doubt distribute it so that it would no longer be an offence to the eye, and yet would sound more effectively than at present. Perhaps galleries for the swell, pedal, and great organs might be built above the pier-arches in the western bay of the choir on either side, and the consol, with the choir organ, might remain on the screen. Some fragments of tabernacle work on the triforium level would thus be hidden, but it is unremarkable work, exactly similar to that of the adjoining bays, and, moreover, it was so blocked and patched when the tower was strengthened that it would not be a disadvantage to hide it. As it is, the organ, unsightly in shape, and garishly painted, blocks up the view of the splendid east window, and makes the nave a mere vestibule to the choir. The inverted arches are generally thought to block up the church, but were the organ removed it would be found that they do not.

The Organ is a modern instrument by Willis. Dean Creyghton, a musician whose services are still sung in the cathedral, built the old organ in 1664, and S. Green of London repaired it in 1786, but only one diapason remains of the old stops. The case also disappeared, the present one being among the ugliest in England. There are three manuals; thirteen speaking stops on the great organ, ten on the swell, nine on the choir, and eight on the pedal organ. The swell organ is rather small, but has been recently improved; the pedal organ is the best feature of the instrument. The wind is supplied by hydraulic machinery. There are four pneumatic pistons, six couplers, and seven composition pedals. The organist now sits on the south side, so that he can see his choristers, whether they sing in the choir or the nave.The Choir.—The western part of the choir should be particularly noticed. For, while the three eastern bays which form the presbytery are Late Decorated, the three western bays of the choir are twelfth-century work of Bishop Reginald's time, being, in fact, the oldest part of the interior. That they were finished before Reginald's other work in the transepts and nave is not only likely from the general custom of medieval architects, but is made probable by the carving of the capitals, which is less advanced than that in any other part of the church.

It will be noticed, however, that, though the three arches remain of the earlier bays, the two easternmost piers of the old part are Decorated, like those in the three later bays; and some of their arch mouldings have been cut away in order to fit the new capitals. The reason for this peculiar combination of a new pier with an old arch is an interesting one. The original pier marked the east end of Reginald's church, and it was taken from under its arch because, being at the junction of the east wall with the side walls, it was a large compound pier quite unfitted to stand as one of an arcade. The three bays then formed the presbytery of the church, and the choir was placed, Norman fashion, under the tower. A further evidence of this being the original east end of the church is presented by the two early buttresses outside at this point, which are much wider than any of the others. But there must have been an ambulatory beyond the east end of the old church, since Reginald's work is carried a bay farther east in the choir aisles. There may, too, have been a small chapel beyond.

Speaking of the contrast between the three early bays and the later work, Freeman says: "The new work, though exceedingly graceful, is perhaps too graceful; it has a refinement and minuteness of detail which is thoroughly in place in a small building like the Lady Chapel, but which gives a sort of feeling of weakness when it is transferred to a principal part of the church of the full height of the building. The three elder arches are all masculine vigour; the three newer arches are all feminine elegance; but it strikes me that feminine elegance, thoroughly in its place in the small chapels, is hardly in its place in the presbytery."

Certainly, the mouldings of the later arches will not bear comparison with those of the earlier. The suave strength of the transitional mouldings forms a most instructive contrast to the less effective minuteness of the decadent work. The same is true of the capitals: those of the later period have little architectural significance, and many of them are further weakened by the fact that not the capital only, but the adjoining part of the shaft as well, is cut out of white stone.

With the exception, however, of the three pier-arches themselves, there are few signs of the twelfth-century work. For, when the new presbytery was finished, the clerestory over the old arches was altered, and the triforium cased with tabernacle work (though not in quite so rich a style), so as to bring them into harmony with the fourteenth-century work, and to fit them to carry the new vault. The tabernacle work of the presbytery must have been completed first; for no attempt was made to keep it at the same level with the old part, which, when the builders determined to adapt it to the new, caused a very marked break at the juncture.

There is, strictly speaking, no triforium, the space being occupied by the rather florid tabernacle work, the effect of which is, of course, considerably impaired by the absence of statuary. The niches in the presbytery are deeper than those in the choir; they spring direct from the pier-arches, having no spandrel, and they contain richly-foliated brackets, which rest on triple shafts. This part is also marked by triple vaulting shafts of Purbeck, which are carried down to the floor.

The clerestory windows contain flowing tracery of an advanced and not very good type. In some the plain mullions are carried on through the head of the window and intersect each other.

Above the tabernacle work of the east end is the east window of seven lights, the last bit of the fourteenth-century reconstruction, the last flicker of Decorated freedom. Its curious tracery is still beautiful, doubly so for the glass it enshrines, but the rule and square of Perpendicular domination have already set their mark upon it; the two principal mullions run straight up to the window-head, and part of the tracery between them is rectangular.

The inhabitants of Wells are, or were, exceedingly proud of the "vista" into the procession-path and Lady Chapel, which is afforded by the three dainty pointed arches of the east end. So proud were they that they would suffer nothing to stand behind the high altar but a low stone wall, barely higher than the altar itself, an arrangement which, it is hardly necessary to point out, defeated its own end by reducing the whole effect to absolute baldness. Mr Freeman wisely pointed out the need of a respectable reredos, remarking that the original founders never dreamed of the Lady Chapel acting as a "peep-show to the choir." A Lady Chapel, he added, was built specially not to be peeped into, but to be a thing apart from the great whole of the church, from the high altar westward. After a while, a reredos was offered to the church, and approved by Mr J.D. Sedding, who was then the cathedral architect; but there was much opposition, and the scheme was dropped. Dean Plumptre, with characteristic temerity, went so far as to appeal to the witness of the vox populi that the open view was the best. Since then, wiser counsels have prevailed, and a curtain (small and dingy, it is true, but still a curtain) now hangs behind the altar. While giving a measure of dignity to the east end, it, of course, emphasises, as every architect must have known that it would, the charm of the "peep" into the chapels beyond.

A larger reredos would further enhance the peculiar charm of the east end. There can, indeed, be little doubt that the ancient reredos was of tabernacle work, so as to carry on the effect of niches of the triforium storey. Their present disconnectedness can be no part of the original plan, and a reredos full of statues, which was high enough to group adequately with the rich canopies above could have been the only way to secure dignity and unity of effect. Till an architect is found capable of mastering so delicate a problem of proportion as such a reredos must present, we may well be content with a larger and brighter curtain. The low east wall, with its ugly cresting, warns us not to embark too rashly upon modern stonework.

The lierned stone vault, with its heavy, angular ribs, is of a very unusual kind. Mr Freeman described it as "a coved roof, such as we are used to in woodwork in this part of England, only with cells cut in it for the clerestory windows." The restorers have gilded the bosses, but the space between the ribs is smoothed in a way that gives the appearance of there being no masonry in the construction. One can hardly judge the ceiling, therefore, by its present appearance, which is not further improved by the green wash with which some of the clerestory windows are covered.

The general appearance of the choir suffers pitiably from the ill-advised restoration of 1848 and the following years. Before that time its aspect must have been curious and encumbered; but the judicious removal of the pews and galleries, and the restoration of the truncated oak canopies of the stalls, would have made matters right at a small cost, and without the destruction of any old woodwork. As it was, everything was ruthlessly swept away. The tabernacled stalls, which eighteenth-century vandalism had respected, vanished utterly before the restoring mania of the Gothic revivalist, even their traditional position and order being changed.

The result is just what might have been expected. The place has been completely modernised. Chilly stone canopies cover the stalls; they are of the kind of workmanship which forty years ago was considered excellent. That is to say, they are covered with frigid, ungainly, and pompous ornament, cut with mechanical regularity, and without one trace of feeling or one line of beauty from beginning to end. Below, and between them, the choir is encumbered, much as it was before 1848, with rows of stalls, which are continued in the presbytery almost up to the tawdry brass altar-rails. Two more pale ghosts of medieval art front each other in complacent parody of the work their makers could not even copy—the pulpit and the bishop's throne. The former is Early Victorian; the latter is worse, it is a restoration of Perpendicular work so relentless that not a sign of the original conception remains. Plate-glass fills the tracery at the sides, and the door is a piece of solid swinging stone. On the completion of this terrible work, the restorers seem to have felt dimly the want of colour, which previously had been so abundant. They therefore proceeded to furnish with that peculiar musty red which used to cast a gloom over our childhood—red cushions on the seats, red cushions on the desks, red hassocks on the floor, red edges to the books, hot red in the bishop's throne, dull red on the altar, before the altar, and behind the altar, it is all red but the chilly white stone, and the all-pervading woodwork of the seats, which adds the muddy gloom of oak that has been stained and varnished to the miserable poverty of the whole.

The cause of all this desolation was just the ignorance of its promoters as to the functions of a cathedral. The choir was looked upon as a select church for the leading families of the town, and the seats in it were appropriated; the nave was a vast empty space that was never used for worship at all. Hence the organ on the screen, hence the setting back of the stalls, so that the choir might be widened, and more seats "rammed, jammed, crammed," to use Freeman's indignant words, into the space. Instead of the long continuous range of stalls which formerly existed, there are now groups of five under each arch, with the result that ten of the prebendaries are without accommodation. Such is the heavy legacy of blunders with which the dean and chapter are burdened. It will take many a year before the choir can be redeemed from its unfortunate state; but the present arrangement of the altar is a great improvement on its position only a few years ago, and no doubt similar measures will in time completely efface the traces of 1850.

Of the old woodwork the Misericords have alone escaped destruction. Sixty-four of these remain, fifty of which belonged to the prebendal stalls of the upper row, though they were removed from their proper position at the restoration. Sixty of the seats are now in the lower rows of the stalls, the other four are preserved in the library. It is enough to say of them that no finer examples of wood-carving can be seen in England. The following description of the wonderfully fresh and varied subjects was supplied by Mr St. John Hope for a paper read by Canon Church before the Society of Antiquaries in March 1896:—

South side, first row.—1, a goat (broken); 2, a griffin fighting with a lion(?); 3, a man in hood and drawers riding with his face to the tail of a barebacked horse; 4, a hawk preying on a rabbit; 5, a mermaid (unfinished); 6, two popinjays in a fruit tree; 7, an ape carrying a basket of fruit on his back (broken); 8, a double-bodied monster; 9, a dog-headed griffin; 10, two goats butting (unfinished); 11, a monkey holding an owl (unfinished); 12, two dragons interlocked and biting each other's tails; 13, an ewe suckling a lamb (unfinished); 14, a wyvern and a horse fighting. South side, second row.—15, a mermaid suckling a lion; 16, a man holding a cup? (broken), sitting on the ground, and disputing with another man holding a pouch; 17, a cat preying on a mouse (unfinished); 18, a monster with bat's wings; 19, a griffin devouring a lamb; 20, a puppy biting a cat; 21, a man in a contorted position upholding the seat; 22, a serious-looking dog; 23, a cat playing a fiddle; 24, a man seated on the ground and thrusting a dagger through the head of a dragon with feathered wings; 25, bust of a bishop, in amice, chasuble, and mitre (unfinished); 26, a peacock in his pride; 27, a fox preaching to four geese, one of which has fallen asleep (broken); 28, a cock crowing. North side, first row.—29, a lion dormant; 30, a dragon with expanded wings, asleep; 31, a man with his left eye closed, wearing a cloak and squatting on the ground with his hands on his knees; 32, a fox running off with a goose in his mouth; 33, head of a man with donkey's ears; 34, two monsters with male and female human heads, caressing (unfinished); 35, a man on his back upholding the seat with his right hand and right foot; 36, a lion with the ears of an ass; 37, a hawk scratching its head; 38, a sleeping cat (unfinished); 39, a woman with dishevelled hair and agonised expression, crouching on the ground with the right hand on her shoulder, the other extended; 40, a dragon with hairy belly biting his back; 41, two ducks addorsed, one with his beak open; 42, two dragons fighting (unfinished); 43, a bat's head (unfinished). North side, second row.—44, head of a man with bushy hair and beard, with a lion's leg growing out of each side; 45, a man in tunic and hood, lying on his side and clasping his hands; 46, a man in girded tunic, with his head downwards, upholding the seat with his back and left hand; 47, head of a lady with hair in a caul on each side, covered with a veil confined by an ornate fillet; 48, a gentle-looking lion; 49, a bat displayed; 50, head of an angel, with amice round neck and expanded wings; 51, a lion; 52, two doves about to drink from a ewer standing in a basin (unfinished); 53, a squirrel with a collar round his neck, trying to escape from a monkey who holds him by a cord; 54, a wood-pigeon feeding; 55, a man riding on a lion, to whose buttocks he is applying a whip; 56, a boar and a cat with cloven feet, walking in opposite directions; 57, an eagle displayed (unfinished); 58, head and shoulders of a man who upholds the seat with his hands; 59, a rabbit regardant; 60, a two-legged beast regarding its tail, which is formed of three oak-leaves on one stem. In the Library.—61, a man in hood and loose tunic, kneeling on the ground and thrusting a spear down the throat of a dragon; 62, a boy in gown, with long, wavy hair, lying on his side and drawing a thorn out of his left foot (of coarse late seventeenth-century work); 63, a dove or pigeon feeding her young; 64, a sorrowful-looking king sitting cross-legged on a cushion between two rampant griffins, who are secured by straps buckled round their necks.

Glass in the Choir.—Over the high altar is a superb specimen of the Jesse window. It is so intricate, that at first nothing can be distinguished in the glow of jewelled colour but the twining branches of the vine, and a little time is needed to enter into the spirit of a window that is all the more enduring for not being very obvious. The following excellent description by Canon Church (in a sermon preached in the cathedral on May Day 1890) will make the legend easy to decipher:—

"In the central light are the foremost figures of the Bible story. At the base is the recumbent figure of Jesse with name inscribed, with head resting on hand as in meditation. From that figure, as from the vine stem, issues upward the leading shoot, bearing upon it the figures of the Virgin Mother crowned with ruby nimbus, and the Holy Child with gold nimbus, both under a golden canopy. Above, in line, is the Crucifixion. On either side, the waving tendrils of the vine shoots intertwine themselves in rings of light round figures of those who prepared the way for the advent of the Word Incarnate. On the lower tier, in line with Jesse, are, we may believe, the ancestors of Jesse. Amminadab and Obed are inscribed on two of the pedestals—others are nameless. Stately figures they are in face and form, in flowing mantles of green, and ruby and gold, like Arab chiefs, some with the Arab head-covering such as is worn to-day—figures such as some artist in the last crusading host might have seen and designed, so different from the conventional portraiture of Bible characters.

"In the second tier are the Kings and Prophets chosen to represent the heralds of the Babe of Bethlehem, the Word Incarnate. Three kings—David with his 'immortal harp of golden wires'; Solomon, with Temple model in his hand, in robes of emerald, and ruby, and gold, are on either side of the central Figures; and Jechonias, the link in the pedigree between the royal David and the captive exile. Three Prophets—Abraham, misplaced indeed in order of time, but most fitly in place as 'the father of the faithful, unto whom and through whom the gospel was before preached to the Gentiles' (Gal. iii. 8); Hosea, and Daniel. All these are clad in the magnificence of Oriental drapery, the colours of each pair on either side of the central light answering like to like. Some are looking upward, some are pointing with outstretched hand towards The Child, towards the Crucified One.

"There in central light in the mid-panel of the window is the Virgin Mother and the Holy Child, The Child born in Bethlehem the home of Jesse, not in David's royal Palace, the flowering shoot of the stem of Jesse. Now from His throne on His Mother's knee He looks out over the world and as with outstretched arms to embrace. A ray of white light on the Mother's head gives a natural halo of purity to Her 'the highly favoured' 'with grace replete,' whom all generations have called 'blessed,' as she looks down wondering on the Holy Child.

"A subdued and sadder colour seems to veil the subject of the highest panel in the central light. There is the green Cross in the background, and upon it are affixed the attenuated arms and the bent form of the Crucified—the head drooping on the breast. On either side of the Cross stand, the sorrowing Mother on the right, in attitude of calm resignation, very different from the conventional garb of mourning, and the exaggerated expression of grief in so many paintings; on the other hand St. John, in sadder colours and the gloom of grief. Again above, in two of the smaller six-cusped lights, are figures rising from the tomb, and in the two at the side are angels blowing trumpets calling to judgment. At the head and apex of the window are outstretched wings as of the Holy Spirit like the Dove brooding over the world re-created by the Word made Flesh, giving Himself for our redemption."

The clerestory windows contained a figure under a canopy in each of the lower lights. Four of these old windows remain. One light in the north-east window contains a St. George, thus described by Mr C. Winston (Arch. Soc., Bristol vol.): "He is clad in a surcoat which reaches to the knee. He wears a helmet, avant and rerebras, shin-pieces and sollerets of plate, or rather cuir boulli; the rest of his person is defended with mail, on his shoulders are aiglettes." In the next window are St. Egidias with very distended ears, and St. Gregory in a tiara. There are also two modern windows; a glaring one by Willement has St. Dunstan and St. Benignus, who were both abbots of Glastonbury and St. Honorius; another, by Bell, has Augustine, Ambrose, and Athanasius.The Aisles of the Choir are entered from the transepts by ogee arches, which have crockets and finials, and are flanked by a pair of pinnacles on either side. The aisles are of the same character as the choir itself, as they were vaulted when the choir vault was made, and new windows of the Decorated style were inserted in the western bays as well as in the newer part. There is a stone bench along the aisles on both sides, and on the north side some very fine specimens of Early English carving lie on the bench. The vaulting is lierned with four bosses at each intersection. The foliage of the third group of capitals on the north side consists of a single leaf which runs horizontally round the caps.

Two old wooden doors, with fine hinges, close the entrance to the presbytery on the north and south sides.

The body of Bishop Jocelin lies buried in the midst of the choir, where he was laid in the place of honour as a founder. Bishop Godwin relates that the tomb was "monstrously defaced" in his time, and all traces of the burying-place were lost until, in 1874, an ancient freestone coffin was found under the pavement in the midst of the choir. Its covering stone had been broken, and the bones within disturbed; but on its discovery the stone was renewed, and the inscription Jocelinus de Welles, Ep. 1242 cut on it.The South-East Transept is the chapel of St. John the Evangelist, but it is mainly occupied by a stove, one of those characterised by Mr Freeman as "the most hideous stoves with which human perversity ever disfigured an ancient building." Odds and ends are also kept here, in accordance with the extraordinary idea, not yet quite extinct, that a chapel is a place where rubbish may be shot. There is, nevertheless, a decorated piscina in the east wall to remind one of its former purpose. Against the south wall is the tomb of the learned Dean Gunthorpe (1472-98), who built the present Deanery, and gave to the cathedral a silver image of our Lady, 158 oz. in weight. His initials occur on the panels, I.G. on a blue ground, and also his arms, which include guns, in allusion to his name. There are traces of colour, especially a strong light blue on the panels. Unless one has good nerves, it is advisable not to look at the window, which was given by the students of the Theological College under Canon Pindar, its first Principal. The middle of this unfortunate chapel is encumbered with a monument to Dean Jenkyns (ob. 1854), the ornamentation of which may be taken as marking the lowest point to which the debasement of Gothic design has descended. A row of tiles round it serves to make it more conspicuous, and its unhappy prominence is further secured by a low brass railing of unutterably bad workmanship. It was Dean Jenkyns who restored the choir, and Professor Freeman remarks that on his tomb "is written, with an unconscious sarcasm, Multum ei debet ecclesia Wellensis," words which, he slily points out, seem to be borrowed from Lucan's address to Nero, the destroyer of Rome, Multum Roma tamen debet, etc.

Monuments in the South Choir Aisle.—Besides two of the thirteenth-century effigies of earlier bishops, there are in this aisle two ancient monuments of great interest. In the second bay is the tomb of Saint William Bytton (1267-1274), a low slab of Purbeck marble, with the figure of a bearded and fully-vested bishop, in the act of benediction, cut upon it. This is the oldest incised slab in England; and it was at this tomb that the offerings were made which helped to finish the church. Godwin says that "many superstitious people (especially such as were troubled with the tooth-ake) were wont (even of late yeeres) to frequent much the place of his buriall, being without the North [a mistake for south] side of the Quier, where we see a Marble stone, having a pontificall image graven upon it."

It may have once been more raised than now, and four small plugged holes in the masonry of the wall opposite suggest the existence of some arrangement in connection with the devotions here. In the restoration of 1848 the tomb was discovered between the second and third piers of the south choir aisle. It is thus described by Mr J.R. Clayton, an eye-witness on the occasion:

"On the coffin being opened in the presence of Dean Jenkyns, it contained a skeleton laid out in perfect order, every bone in its right place; an iron ring, and a small wooden pastoral staff in two fragments; a leaden tablet, 10 in. by 3-1/3, with inscription most beautifully rendered in Lombardic characters.

It was noted at the same time that "the teeth were absolutely perfect in number, shape, and order, and without a trace of decay, and hardly any discoloration." From this one would infer that the saint was famous in his lifetime for his beautiful teeth, and that it was for this reason that his aid came to be invoked after his death by those suffering from toothache. It is certainly curious that men now living should have discovered his teeth to be still in such perfect preservation. His contemporaries would, no doubt, have called it a miracle.

A little farther east is the remarkable tomb of Bishop Beckington, surrounded by an exquisite iron screen of the same period. Its canopy formerly projected into the choir, being large enough to form a small chantry; but, when the choir was so stupidly restored, the canopy was dragged from its place, and set up in St. Calixtus' chapel, where it still is (p. 99,) a hard-looking stone screen being built between the tomb and the choir in its stead. The tomb is divided into two parts, the arcade which forms the canopy of the lower effigy supporting the slab on which rests the figure of the bishop. The carving is very beautiful, and the delicately-wrought wings of the angels, which spread over the arches so as to fill the spandrels, are especially fine. Traces of colour are strong on the tomb, as they are on the canopy from which it has been divorced, so that one can form some little idea of what the whole must have been like in its first magnificence.

The effigy of the bishop rests upon it, the old and wrinkled face (best seen from within the choir) bearing deep traces of that active public life which did so much for the city and the church. Below, in strange contrast to the gorgeous vestments, which have still the remnants of the painted pattern on them, lies a corpse, almost a skeleton, in its open shroud. At first one's feeling is that of repulsion, but it is lessened when we remember that Beckington himself had the tomb made, and consecrated it before a vast concourse of people, saying mass for his own soul, for those of his parents, and of all the faithful departed in the January of 1452. Thus for thirteen years did this great and famous prelate live with his tomb standing as a witness to all that, under those sumptuous robes of office which we are told he wore at its consecration, he knew himself to be but as other men, and could wait humbly for his end.

A little farther east is a large and rather clumsy effigy of Bishop Harewell (ob. 1386), whose name and arms are suggested, in the playful fashion of the time, by two hares at his feet. Harewell is known to have been a portly man.

To the west of Beckington's monument an altar tomb in reddish alabaster has been placed in memory of Lord Arthur Hervey, the late bishop, with an effigy by Mr Brock. It may be hoped that it is the last of its kind, since there is little room for more tombs, and great need of other and more useful forms of memorial.

Bishop Drokensford's tomb, at the entrance to the south-east transept, is of unusual design, the ogee heads of its panels being through-cut from side to side. Only the bases remain of its canopy, which was taken down in 1758, as it was thought to be in danger of falling. There is a good deal of colour on the tomb; the chasuble is red with green lining, its orphreys are painted on the stone. The apparel is also painted on the alb, the orphreys and ornaments on the mitre, and a lozenge-shaped pattern on the cushion. Two shields are emblazoned over and over again on the spandrels, the ground being alternately red and green with white sprays of foliage; the coat with four swans' heads, couped and addorsed, is Drokensford's. He was bishop when Dean Godelee's great works were going on, and he gave money towards building the central tower.

Monuments of the North Choir Aisle.—One of the Early English effigies, which were made probably by Bishop Jocelin, lies here, with a modern inscription, to Bishop Giso. There are four others, to Æthelwyn, Leofric, Duduc, and Burwold, all having the same characteristics, in the ambulatory chapels and opposite aisle. Graceful and solemn as they are, they seem rough in outline, as if they were carved by a hand used to calculating for the distant views of the west front, and almost weather-worn, by the side of the more highly-finished effigies in marble and alabaster which are near them. In the year 1848, when these monuments were set back and placed on their present ugly bases, they were found to contain boxes with bones therein, and leaden tablets with the name of each bishop inscribed upon them.

A different monument is that of Ralph of Shrewsbury (ob. 1363), whose marble effigy, scored by the names of long-departed vandals, affords a good example of the episcopal ornaments, the mitre, gloves, maniple, the apparel round the neck, and the vexillum round the crozier. The tomb formerly stood surrounded by a grating, in the midst of the presbytery, for Ralph was the "finisher" of the church. But it was afterwards moved, and, says Godwin, it "lost his grates by the way." At the entrance to the little transept is the tomb of Dean Forrest (ob. 1446), similar to that of Drokensford in the opposite aisle, but more mutilated. The canopy is gone, but fragments of it are in the undercroft of the chapter-house.

The North-East Transept is the chapel of St. John Baptist, and contains a Decorated piscina. On its east wall is a sculpture of the Ascension, which formerly was fixed in the east cloister above the I.H.S. in the fourth bay. St. Andrew with his cross may be noticed among the Apostles. There are traces of blue in the background, and of red in one of the cloaks. Most noticeable among its monuments is the handsome marble sarcophagus and effigy of Bishop Creyghton, who gave the lectern. The figure is vested in cope, mitre, and alb, a fact which is worth noting, as the bishop lived in the reign of Charles II. There is also an effigy of John de Myddleton or Milton, who, after being chancellor for a very short time, became a friar and died in 1337. The plain tomb of Bishop Berkele (ob. 1581) bears a curious inscription, which assumes more than the character of its subject would seem to warrant: Spiritvs, ervpto, salvvs, gilberte novembre, carcere principis en(c) aethere barkle, crepat. aÑ: dÃt ista salutis. Which may thus be translated, "Thy soul is safe, Gilbert Barkley, having broken from its prison in the beginning of November, it speaks from the sky. These words give the year of its safety," The words referred to are in the middle part of the tomb—

The figures 83 at the side of Vixi and Lvxi suggested to Mr J. Parker that the letters stood also for figures thus—vi (6) xi (11) lv (55) xi (11), the total being 83, which was the age at which Berkeley died. The quatrain may be translated—

The east end of the north aisle forms a roomy chapel which is dedicated to St. Stephen, and contains a piscina of the same type as those in the neighbouring chapels. Its east window has five lights, and that in the side wall has three, with good reticulated tracery; the principal mouldings are already assuming the large flat hollow form which was to become characteristic of the Perpendicular style. The chapel of St. Catherine on the south side corresponds to it exactly.

The Procession Path, or, to use the uglier and more accurate word, the Retro-choir, is a rectangular space between these chapels and the transepts, on the north and south, and the Lady Chapel and presbytery on the east and west. This space is vaulted; and the vault is carried by four slender piers of Purbeck marble, with attached shafts, in the midst, by a group of Purbeck shafts on each of the two piers which lead into the Lady Chapel, and by the light blue Purbeck shafts of the eastern arches of the presbytery. As two of the middle piers (which are set diagonally from north-east to south-west, and from south-east to north-west) are in a line with the pier-arches of the choir, while the other two, though in a line with those of the Lady Chapel (which themselves project into the Path), are without those of the choir, a complicated system of vaulting and a charming arrangement of piers is the result. Indeed, this exquisite group of piers has never been surpassed, and nothing can be found that better illustrates the subtlety and extreme refinement of the last stages of Gothic architecture at their best. At whichever point one stands fresh beauty is apparent. It is merely a device for connecting Lady Chapel with choir, while leaving a wide path free for processions, yet what a gem of perfection has been drawn from the need! As one sits at the corner near the south wall of the Lady Chapel, one can best appreciate the range of vaulting, which, though it is doubled here, is of the same height as that of the aisles, running faithfully round to cover the ambulatory which encircles the choir, while on either side the pillars soar upward to the higher vault of the Lady Chapel and the yet higher ceiling of the choir. Opposite are the painted fragments of glass in the north choir aisle, seen through the arches of the presbytery, and the windows over the range of tabernacle work in the choir itself. On the left the south aisle can be seen stretching onwards, across the bright break of the transept, to the west end, and on the right are the gorgeous windows of the Lady Chapel. Everywhere the slender pillars stand, and the mouldings branch away from their rich capitals, each doing its appointed work, calculated and exact, in what would seem at first but a lavish profusion of marble shaft and moulded stone. Yet we can hardly now imagine what it all was like before the richly-decked altars were torn down, the painted windows knocked to fragments, the canopies, tombs, and images defaced or destroyed.

The vault is lierned with richly-carved bosses still warm with the marks of gilding; both on the bosses and the capitals the foliage is of the crumpled character suggestive of the oak-leaf.

Unlike the piers of the Lady Chapel, the bases here are of marble, though the plinths are of stone. Two grotesque heads, lower than the bosses, at the north and south-western angles, hold three ribs in their mouths, the ribs, which end there in seeming futility, being used to cover an awkward corner of the vaulting.Glass in the Choir Aisles and Chapels.—A good deal of glass in a more or less fragmentary condition survives in the eastern portion of the church. It is fine work of the first half of the fourteenth century. In the south aisles there is good glass in all the upper lights; the third window has later glass in the lower lights, which bears the date 1607, and consists of coats of arms and a series of small square pictures of foreign type. The east window of St. Catherine's chapel is composed of fragments fitted together at random; in the upper lights of the south window are rather coarse heads of St. Aldhelm, St. Erkenwald, and other saints: two of them should be noticed for the early form of papal tiara. In the corresponding chapel of St. Stephen both the east and north windows are the same, the north window even containing a second head of St. Erkenwald; the other saints are inscribed—"St. Stephanas Papa" (the Pope Stephen, who died 257), "S. Blasii Epi" (St. Blaise), and "S. Marcellus Papa"; in the topmost light of both windows is a small figure of Our Lord.

In the north aisle, the first window (counting from the east) contains a St. Michael; the next a crucifix and a figure of St. Mary Magdalen, with some sixteenth-century coats (including the curious arms of Bishop Knight, p. 87) in the lower lights. Similar coats are in the third window, which has a figure of St. John Baptist. The fourth window contains modern glass erected in honour of Bishop Ken (p. 157), as a memorial to Dean Plumptre, who died in 1891. In the centre Ken is represented in full pontifical vestments, below him angels are supporting his arms impaled with those of the see; over his head is the favourite superscription of his letters, "All glory be to God," and at his feet his rule of life "Et tu quÆris tibi grandia? Noli quÆrere" (Jer. xlv. 5). The left-hand panels represent St. Paul teaching Timothy (because Ken wrote the "Manual for Winchester Scholars," and the "Exposition of the Catechism"), Christ's charge to St. Peter; the right panels represent St. Paul before Agrippa and St. Peter in prison (because Ken was one of the seven bishops imprisoned by James II.). The two lower panels represent labourers going to their work singing Benedicite, and a priest and choristers chanting Nunc Dimittis, in allusion to Ken's morning and evening hymns.The Lady Chapel was finished in 1326, before the presbytery was added to the present choir, and thus it belongs to the middle of the Decorated period. In plan it is octagonal, the three western sides consisting of the three arches by which it is opened to the rest of the church. It could, in fact, stand perfectly well as a detached building like the Lady Chapel at Gloucester, and doubtless it did so stand while the presbytery was a-building; but its connection with the church itself allows its apsidal west end to be cunningly combined with the beautiful pillars which support the vault of the ambulatory. The arrangement by which these three western sides project into the ambulatory is more easy to see than to describe; from the west side of the piers which support them spring the vaulting ribs of the retro-choir, while on the east side of the piers the shafts rise much higher up to carry the loftier vault of the Lady Chapel. As the chapel is not a perfect octagon like the chapter-house, but is elongated from east to west, this vault was difficult to manage, and its lines are somewhat distorted in consequence. The vault springs from triple shafts between fine traceried windows of five lights, and its ribs meet in a boss containing a beautiful figure of our Lord seated on a throne with outstretched arms; the colour and gilding are well restored.

Professor Willis said that "the polygonal Lady Chapel and the vaulted work which connects it with the presbytery is a most original and unique piece of architecture, of pure and beautiful design." As to the first part of this sentence there can be no difference of opinion, and all will agree as to the fineness of the general effect of the chapel; yet there may well be two opinions as to the purity of the work. I confess that the following criticism (Builder, Aug. 1862) from a lecture of Mr E.W. Godwin seems to me to be not entirely without justification:—"With the single exception of the way in which the vaulting is managed, I look upon this Lady Chapel as no better than the other work of the same date. There is a weakness about the constant recurrence of the same form in the tracery of the windows; the lines of the vault are, in some cases, clumsy to a degree; and the capitals have lost their constructional character altogether. The growth and vitality, the change and joyfulness, so visible in the earlier caps, especially those with figures, are no longer to be seen. Leaves are now stuck on; or, at the best, wreathed round the bell of the capital; and so the function of the capital—the upbearing principle—is lost." So much for its defects. The peculiar excellence of the chapel is that it gives that apsidal ending to the church which adds so much to its beauty both within and without, and yet does not interfere with the square end of the presbytery.

The Lady Chapel has been fitted up for the use of the Theological College, and its furniture contrasts favourably with that of the choir. A litany desk, stalls, and credence-table in oak have recently been given, and a retable carved by Miss Neville; the altar cross, however, is too stunted for its position. The eagle lectern, in spite of its dark appearance, is modern, of Dean Goodenough's time. The doorway on the south side led to the old vestry, so wantonly destroyed in the present century: now that the chapel is in daily use the need of the vestry is much felt, and a cupboard in St. John's chapel has to serve for a makeshift. The gas-brackets are of later and more pleasant work than those elsewhere.

Mr Ferrey discovered fragments of a reredos at the east end of the chapel, and set them up as best he could to form the present reredos: the original arrangement seems to be lost, for some of the pedestals are on the level of the floor, while some of the niches at the top are cut in half. Mr Ferrey restored the whole chapel at the same time, and paved it with tiles.

Glass in Lady Chapel.—The large windows of this chapel are all filled with beautiful fourteenth-century glass, but alas! in a marred condition. The side windows contain fragments packed together anyhow. The eastern window was made up out of old pieces by Willement at Dean Goodenough's restoration, and its colour almost completely spoilt by modern insertions. The harm, however, is not irreparable, for the figures are almost entirely genuine, and the bad effect is mainly due to Willement's blue background. A careful examination would easily separate the new from the old, and it would be quite easy at the present day to remove the bad work and replace it by glass that would carry out the old harmony of colour. The lower lights are filled with two tiers of figures in canopies, David and other patriarchs in the upper tier, and the following well-chosen series in the lower:—The Madonna in the midst, on her right the Serpent and Eve, on her left the Brazen Serpent and Moses. The upper lights of this window contain angels bearing the instruments of the Passion, which are unspoilt, as are also the busts of patriarchs in the north-east window, and of bishops in that on the south-east. Three of the topmost lights contain emblems of the Evangelists, the fourth is lost. One inscription remains, Ista capella constructa est ... but the date is gone.

A tall and light monument stands between the Lady Chapel and St. Catherine's; its crocketed finials, filled with tracery, rise almost to the ceiling. The canopy is open at the sides and western end, but the eastern end forms a niche; this part has been restored in colour and gilding, it is powdered with fleurs-de-lys, and bears a shield containing the Agnus Dei. No other part shows any trace of colour. The base is much higher than that of an ordinary tomb, and the canopy seems to have been somewhat altered at Ferrey's restoration.

The spot where the altar of St. Catherine and All Virgins stood is now "Sacred to the memory of John Phelips Of Montacute in this county esquire. Descended from a line of ancestors, Whose names for two centuries and a half abound in the annals of the county, He succeeded at an early age to the paternal estates, And sustained the wonted hospitality of his house. He soon became a most active and intelligent magistrate," etc., etc.The Chapter-House Staircase is entered by the doorway in the eastern aisle of the north transept. There are few things in English architecture that can be compared with it for strange impressive beauty; the staircase goes upward for eighteen steps and then part of it sweeps off to the chapter-house on the right, while the other part goes on and up till it reaches the chain-bridge; thus the steps lie, worn here and there by the tread of many feet, like fallen leaves, the last of them lost in the brighter light of the bridge. Here one is still almost within the cathedral, and yet the carts are passing underneath, and their rattle mixes with the sound of the organ within.

The date of the staircase is clearly somewhere between that of the chapter-house and that of the church itself. It is later than the church, for it is built up against the transept buttresses, and it contains some of the best examples of simple geometrical tracery, while there are nothing but lancet windows in the church of Reginald and Jocelin. But the simple geometrical tracery of its two four-light windows prove that it was finished before the chapter-house was begun. The arches of these windows are rampant, to follow the level of the stairs; their beautiful circular tracery is massive, deeply-moulded, and filled with remnants of rich glass; their shafts of blue lias have naturalistic capitals which are in striking contrast both to the Early English carving in the church and the full Decorated of the chapter-house itself. Below the windows is a stone bench rising in steps with a foot-pace of similar construction; this arrangement adds much to the effect of the staircase, though it is marred by a modern hand-rail.

Before the Chain Gate was made, the vestibule ended with a graceful window of four lights similar to those at the side. The upper part of the window remains, but the lower part is occupied by a Perpendicular doorway, and the whole now forms a screen which, by breaking the light, adds considerably to the charm of the staircase. Through this doorway, where they are cut away to allow the door to open, the steps continue for two stages, but in a narrower flight. Here the windows are Perpendicular, and the vaulted ceiling has given place to a wooden roof, for this is the Chain Gate, as light and pretty within as without. It was only an after-thought, a matter of convenience, thus to connect the chapter-house with the Vicars' Close, and the screen that now breaks the light had for a century and a half been the outside window, just as the blocked window of the transept had been the outer light for the fifty years before the staircase itself was thought of. It was just a practical matter-of-fact device; but what magnificent utilitarianism, what an inspired after-thought!

The main gallery of the Chain Gate is shut off by a door which, if it were kept open, would make the prospect even more beautiful than it is. Two corbels which support the vaulting-shafts of the lower staircase should be noticed; they both represent figures thrusting their staves into the mouth of a dragon, but that on the east (wearing a hood and a leathern girdle round his surcoat) is as vigorous in action as the figure on the west side is feeble. A small barred opening in the top of the east wall lights a curious little chamber, which is reached from the staircase that leads to the roof.The Chapter-House is entered by a double-arched doorway, the small vault between the arches having an odd boss composed of four bearded heads. There are marks in the wall which lead one to think that the doors were hung in a wooden screen under this vault. The old doors are now used in the house of the Principal of the College, where they were identified by Canon Church. They have little slits in them, through which those in the chapter-house could speak with those without, who no doubt waited for admittance on the stepped stone bench of the staircase. Grooves in the two inner shafts of the doorway seem to have been made for the insertion of some light screen, by which the entrance was divided into two passages for ingress and egress. The absence of doors certainly adds to the rather cold unfurnished appearance of the chapter-house in its present condition.

The room itself ("a glorious development of window and vault" it has been called) is one of the best examples of that type of chapter-house which belongs mainly to the thirteenth century, and is a peculiar glory of English architecture. Of octagonal plan, its vaulting ribs branch out from sixteen Purbeck shafts which cluster round the central pillar, typifying the diocesan church with all its members gathered round its common father, the bishop. Each of the eight sides of the room is occupied by a window of four lights, with graceful tracery of an advanced geometrical type. These windows, which are among the finest examples of the period, have no shafts, but their arch mouldings are enriched with a continuous series of the ball-flower ornament. Most of the old glass, in which ruby and white are the predominant colours, remains in the upper lights.

Under the windows runs an arcade which forms fifty-one stalls, separated into groups of seven by the blue lias vaulting-shafts at the angles, but in the side which is occupied by the doorway there are only two stalls, one on either side of the entrance. Two rows of stone benches are under the stalls, and there is a bench of Purbeck round the base of the central pier. The arcade strikes one as too shallow: its canopies, which rest on blue lias shafts, are ornamented with feathering, crockets, finials, and an interesting series of small heads. Some of the heads wear crowns, mitres, hoods, and square caps; others are grotesque, though I cannot detect the "jesters" to which some writers refer. Some of the heads have the same formal twist in the hair as those of the large corbels in the nave (p. 81). The heads on the side opposite the door are all (with the exception of one modern head in plaster) covered with the early form of papal tiara, a conical hat with a crown round its rim. On this side, in the middle stall, is the bishop's seat, and here are traces of colour; the little heads are still pretty with pink cheeks and painted eyes and hair, and above the canopy the saltire of St. Andrew is discernible.

Thus the bishop still retained, at least in theory, the head-ship of the chapter. The dean sat on one side of him, the precentor on the other, and the rest in due order from the archdeacons and officers down to those in minor orders. Even the boys of the school were admitted to part of the meetings, and they stood on the floor round a desk which was in front of the chief pastor. "There every morning," says Canon Church (Chapters in Hist, of Wells, p. 333), "after the prayers of the third hour and the morning mass, the chapter of the whole body was held for the daily lection and commemoration of brethren departed, for maintaining discipline, hearing complaints, passing judgment, inflicting punishment; for ordering the services of the day and of the week—for sitting in council and drawing up statutes."

Beautiful as is the general effect of the chapter-house, it must be admitted that its detail is inferior to that of the staircase, which is just one stage earlier in the development of architecture. Nor can its capitals be compared for a moment with those in the nave; the lighter form of structure doubtless calls for a lighter cap, but these are distinctly untidy in their decoration. The crockets are very near having that wholesale look which has caused nineteenth-century architects to make so much of this easily debased ornament. The arrangement, too, by which the fine doorway rises into a window of unmodified pattern seems a rather awkward compromise, especially as the line of the staircase roof cuts slantwise across the lights. One cannot help thinking that an earlier architect would have departed from his uniform pattern at this point, and have inserted a window or arcade better adapted to the position, with the addition, perhaps, of sculpture in the vacant space.

Between the roof and the vault there is a curious chamber which reminds one of the crater of a volcano, and the impression is increased by the sponge-like stone, which has some resemblance to tufa. The open arcade under the roof has served to keep the woodwork in remarkably sound condition.

The Undercroft.—Much of the external beauty of the chapter-house, as well as the charm of its staircase, is due to its unusual height above the ground. It rests upon a vaulted chamber or undercroft, which is popularly called the crypt, though that term is not very accurate, as the chamber is not sunk underground, but stands almost on a level with the floor of the church. The innumerable springs in the soil of Wells do not, indeed, admit of a subterranean building. The undercroft was finished before the chapter-house staircase was begun; perhaps its walls were built at the end of Jocelin's episcopate; at any rate it was finished by 1286, and represents the last development of the Early English style. It was used as the treasury, where the vestments, ornaments, registers, and other precious things, both of the bishop and chapter, were kept, and, to increase the security of its massive walls, the sacristan had to sleep within them every night.

It is reached by a dimly-lit, impressive passage, which is entered from the north choir aisle through a doorway with deeply-sunk mouldings and carved capitals. Two heads, slanting inwards in a rather awkward manner, support the curious pediment-shaped canopy over the doorway. At the commencement of this fine passage, just within the doorway, is a small vault supported on extremely odd corbels, as if the mason had taken advantage of the obscurity to wanton with his craft. One is a large head with enormous cheeks, apparently suffering from acute neuralgia; a handkerchief, under which a few comically-stiff curls escape, covers the head and is tied under the chin; another represents two dragons biting each other, with a head upside down beneath them; another, which reminds one of the worst eccentricities of modern crockery, is formed by a hand holding a foliated capital. I suppose that the head with swollen cheeks is really another testimony to St. William Bytton's power over the toothache. The undercroft itself was finished before 1286, perhaps some time before; but the more advanced sculpture of the passage looks as if that part were built in the "toothache" period—that is to say, some ten years or so after Bytton's death in 1274.

Certainly the bosses of the vault in the passage beyond the doorway are of a character that suggests the transition to Decorated which was in progress at this time. They are elaborate, and, with one exception, through-carved. The first from the door represents a head, the next an Agnus Dei, the next two grotesque heads joined together, then apparently the Serpent tempting Eve, then an ox, dragons, two small grinning heads, with animals apparently biting them on one side. The corbels are carved into heads, some crowned, others reversed with the shaft in their mouths. On the right-hand side, as one enters the undercroft, a pretty stone lantern projects from the wall; of the little mullions which form its face, one is set far enough from the wall to admit of the insertion of a lamp.

Two heavy wooden doors at the entrance leave no doubt as to the purpose for which the undercroft was built. The outer door is the most massive; it is studded with nails, and has two great bolts and a huge lock: on the outer side a kind of escutcheon is formed round the keyhole by a heart-shaped piece of iron, surmounted by a cross; on the same side there is an iron bar, and the hook to hold it across the doorway. A deep hole has been worn in the pavement by the feet of those who pulled open the door. The inner door is lighter, and ornamented with beautiful elaborate hinges: on this side are deep sockets in the wall, into which the inner bars were run.

In the undercroft itself the walls are impregnably thick, the windows narrow, with wide splays. The vaulting, somewhat later in style than the walls, is an admirable piece of construction, well-fitted to bear the weight of the lofty chamber above. It is also remarkable, Professor Willis points out, for the way in which the arches are disposed without the introduction of ribs. From the round shafts which are grouped about the octagonal pier in the centre spring the vaulting ribs, the extremities of which rest upon eight round pillars; and another set of vaulting ribs spans the space between these pillars and the eight walls, where they rest upon twelve shafts between the lancet windows. Could anything be more simple and secure in construction, and more varied in effect?

Here, on one of the capitals and on a moulding near the door, we meet with the dog-tooth moulding usually so characteristic of the Early English style. The piscina in the doorway should be noticed for its carving of a dog gnawing a bone.

A large aumbry is formed by a recess in the thickness of the wall. The parapeted structure opposite is a modern coal-hole, for which some other place might surely be found. There are several stone coffins in the undercroft, and a good many fragments of carved stone, some of which are very fine. Here also is a cope-chest of the usual shape, which allows the copes to be put away with only one fold. Near it there is a large oblong chest covered with iron bands. An iron door which is also kept here is thus described by Mr H. Longden (ArchÆological Journal, 1890, p. 132): "It is made of slabs of iron nailed to an oak frame-work, and liberally braced across with hinges and diagonal cross-straps, stiffening the door in the best way known at the time. This is not an iron-plated door, but an iron door; it is, in fact, a 'safe' door of the time, and is an uncommon instance. It must be remembered that the slabs of which this door is formed were all beaten out of lumps of iron, and that iron was not then made, as now, in plates, bars, or rods, but ... The lump of iron had to be heated and drawn out on the anvil at a great expenditure of time and labour. Much of the charm of old work arises from the irregularity of the shapes, never quite round, or square, or flat, which the iron took, and we miss this in the neat and mechanically-finished work of the present time."

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