.

Wires have been stretched across the nave to prevent the excessive echo
from marring the effect of the music, but many curious echoes are to be
heard. The mocking sounds that follow upon the sounds of the voice of a
preacher, especially when the attendance is small, are very weird. They
may be heard best from the last few rows of seats near the west end.

There are still to be found enthusiasts who would like to remove the
screens from our cathedrals on the ground that they interfere with the
utility and the beauty of the nave and the choir. But these well-meaning
people quite overlook the fact that the beauty of the interior would be
entirely marred by such a change. Firstly, the organ would have to be
chopped into two and stowed away in the triforium, unless these
enthusiasts would prefer to revert to an organ-gallery blocking up one
of the transepts. Secondly, the stalls would have to be mutilated and
rearranged. Certainly, the cathedral would resemble a parish church in
some respects, but at a tremendous cost. There would be a vista, too,
but the effect of the lofty choir would be lost entirely without the
presence of the screen and the organ, and the nave would look more
dwarfed in height. There is one more point, too, always forgotten by
these enthusiasts--viz. this, that the building was not designed by
Henry VIII. at the Dissolution as a parish church. He laid down quite
clear and simple rules for the regulation of the cathedral foundation,
and he intended the choir to serve, as it had served for the monks
before, as the private chapel of those on his new foundation.

The #Choir Screen# was erected in 1820 by Dr Griffiths, to whose memory
a tablet has been inserted in the north-west tower pier. Though this
screen has its defects, it superseded one by Kent, erected in Bishop
Benson's time (1741), of which Bonner, who seems to have appreciated the
stucco front applied by the same good bishop to the reredos in the Lady
Chapel, says in his "Itinerary" (1796) that it combined the
characteristics of the various orders of architecture without any of
their good points.

[Illustration: NAVE.

Drawn by F. S. Waller, F.R.I.B.A., from Brown
Willis' Survey of Gloucester Cathedral (1727).]

To give an idea of the original screen arrangement, Mr Hope's
description is here quoted:--

"The quire proper is under the Tower, a not unusual Benedictine
arrangement. The original scree