glass had long disappeared, and the present glass, the work of Messrs.
Clayton and Bell, was inserted at the end of the last century as a
memorial to Dean Stanley. Part of one window is still unfinished,
waiting until sufficient funds are forthcoming, but the remainder have
now been filled up. The east window was given by the generosity of Queen
Victoria as a token of her admiration for her old friend, while the cost
of the one next to it was defrayed entirely by American subscribers.
Historical scenes closely connected with the Abbey are here represented;
above them are figures of those sovereigns and abbots who rank as
benefactors to the foundation. We passed just now in the vestibule a
small medallion portrait with a modern window above it, both of which
were put there as a memorial to James Russell Lowell, who was for many
years the United States Minister in London, and whose brilliant speech in
this very place, when he supported Dean Bradley's appeal for funds to
worthily commemorate Dean Stanley, will never be forgotten by those
present on that occasion. Railed off in the centre of the floor are
remnants of the ancient encaustic tiles, with which the whole was once
paved, and {129} round about them are glass cases containing many
interesting documents, seals, and other relics, which should be studied
at leisure by the antiquarian members of our party. These are already
admiring the famous Litlington Missal and the Liber Regalis, an
illuminated book containing the order of the Coronation Service, which
was prepared for the use of Richard II., and is probably the actual
volume which the boy King held in his hands during the long and, to a
child, tedious ceremony. There is also a fine manuscript containing an
agreement between Henry VII. and the Bermondsey convent. Others are
attracted to the skeletons of rats, mice, and sparrows which were found
when cleaning out the old organ pipes. In the vestibule as we go out we
see a curious old doorway, which was originally the entrance to the royal
treasury, now called the Pyx Chapel. Upon the other side hang strips of
the human skin with which it was once entirely covered, like the door
which used to divide the chapels of St. Faith and St. Blaise, in the
south transept. The latter was taken down long ago, but in Scott's time
the frame, which still had some skin adhering to it, was extant, but it
was then carried off by the Abbey master-mason and has been since
entire