remembrance at his master's cost." Our feet
are treading now upon the graves of Garrick's contemporaries, Spranger
Barry, his wife Ann Crawford, and Mrs. Cibber. As we turn into the east
walk we see the names of two other lights of the eighteenth-century
stage, Betterton and Mrs. Bracegirdle, cut in the pavement; the mural
tablet close by to "Jane Lister, deare child," by its very simplicity is
sure to attract the child-lover. Before moving on, let us look up at the
east cloister door with its delicate thirteenth-century moulding, which
is far more beautiful than the later Perpendicular work of Abbot
Litlington's time above the west door. Lower down a grand portal with a
double doorway, of the same earlier date, leads through a dark vestibule
into that incomparable specimen of Early English architecture, the
Chapter House. In one of the outer arches are fragments of figures and
foliage representing a tree of Jesse, and in the tympanum above we see
two decaying but still beautiful {125} stone angels. The centre was once
filled by a group of the Virgin with the infant Saviour in her arms, no
trace of which now remains. The Chapter House, which was built at the
same time as Henry the Third's church, ranks as one of the finest in
England, but it has suffered much damage at various periods from the
hands of careless guardians and from the well-meaning efforts of
successive restorers. It was originally designed for the use of the
convent, but ever since the dissolution of the monastery it has been in
the possession of the Government, and has never been under the
jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter. Here it was that the monks used to
assemble in conclave, under the presidency of the Abbot, about once a
week, to discuss their affairs, and summary justice was administered to
such of the elder brethren who had broken the rules of the Order. These
were flogged near the central pillar, under the eyes of the other monks,
who sat round on the stone benches against the wall; the younger
offenders were chastised in the cloisters. Quite early in the reign of
the first Edward, however, the kings began to use this council chamber of
the monastery for their own purposes, and would often hold synods of the
clergy within its walls, usually with the purpose of {126} extorting
subsidies. About the middle of the fourteenth century the Abbot lent the
Chapter House to the Crown for the use of the Commons, who met henceforth
in the mon