ing a label in their hands telling who they
are. The altar piece is very mean, and behind this altar, in the
Virgin Mary's Chapel, are some very good monuments." But in the first
edition of the same book Defoe himself says: "The inside is certainly
hurt by the paltry old paintings in and over the choir, and the
whitewashing badly done, wherein they have very stupidly everywhere
drawn black lines to imitate joints of stone." In another edition of
1724 the passage reads: "The painting in the choir is mean and more
like the ordinary method of Common Drawing Room or Tavern painting
than that of a church." Whatever be the actual value of the painting
on its own merits, as a record faithfully transcribed of very early
roof-decoration, it has an interest of its own far beyond much more
important work of later periods.

[Illustration: THE CHOIR, LOOKING WEST.
_From a Photograph by Messrs. Carl Norman and Co._]

=The Choir.=--In the second bay from the east, on the north side of
the choir, stands the chantry of Bishop Audley, who died in 1524.
This excellent example of late Perpendicular work was built by the
bishop himself in 1520. Its style is not unlike the chantry of Bishop
Fox at Winchester with octagonal shafts, (similar to those of the
Salisbury Chapel at Christchurch,) which impart a semi-Oriental touch
that is so characteristic of this final development of Gothic art. The
images it once enshrined are lost, but the original rich colouring is
still distinguishable on the fan tracery of the roof. The arms and
initials of its founder are borne on the shields of the cornice. In
the corresponding bay on the south side is the chantry founded by
Walter Lord Hungerford, in 1429, and removed from the nave in 1778 by
his descendant, the Earl of Radnor, who converted it into a family
pew. It has been re-decorated, and new emblazonments added. The arms
of its founder and his two wives appear on the base. The
superstructure is of iron, and a fine example of its class, which
includes among the few still extant the chantry of Edward IV. (died
1483) at Windsor, and that of Henry VII. at Westminster Abbey (died
1509). The Audley and Hungerford chantries are the most important left
in a cathedral once rich in their kind, as the report of the
alienation of their endowments proves.

Of modern fittings, the Brass Lectern was given by members of the late
Dean Lear's family. A brass eagle is mentioned by Price, and said to
have been