hurch! That is a marvellous place; its
massive lantern-tower, with solid, softly-moulded outlines--for the
sandy oolite admits little fineness of detail--all weathered to a
beautiful orange-grey tint, has a mild dignity of its own. Inside it is
a treasure of mediaevalism. The screens, the woodwork, the monuments,
all rich, dignified, and spacious. And the glass! Next to King's College
Chapel, I suppose, it is the noblest series of windows in England, and
the colour of it is incomparable. Azure and crimson, green and orange,
yet all with a firm economy of effect, the robes of the saints set and
imbedded in a fine intricacy of white tabernacle-work. As to the design,
I hardly knew whether to smile or weep. The splendid, ugly faces of the
saints, depicted, whether designedly or artlessly I cannot guess, as men
of simple passions and homely experience, moved me greatly, so unlike
the mild, polite, porcelain visages of even the best modern glass. But
the windows are as thick with demons as a hive with bees; and oh! the
irresponsible levity displayed in these merry, grotesque, long-nosed
creatures, some flame-coloured and long-tailed, some green and scaly,
some plated like the armadillo, all going about their merciless work
with infinite gusto and glee! Here one picked at the white breast of a
languid, tortured woman who lay bathed in flame; one with a glowing
hook thrust a lamentable big-paunched wretch down into a bath of molten
liquor; one with pleased intentness turned the handle of a churn, from
the top of which protruded the head of a fair-haired boy, all distorted
with pain and terror. What could have been in the mind of the designer
of these hateful scenes? It is impossible to acquit him of a strong
sense of the humorous. Did he believe that such things were actually in
progress in some infernal cavern, seven times heated? I fear it may have
been so. And what of the effect upon the minds of the village folk
who saw them day by day? It would have depressed, one would think, an
imaginative girl or boy into madness, to dream of such things as being
countenanced by God for the heathen and the unbaptized, as well as for
the cruel and sinful. If the vile work had been represented as being
done by cloudy, sombre, relentless creatures, it would have been more
tolerable. But these fantastic imps, as lively as grigs and full to
the brim of wicked laughter, are certainly enjoying themselves with an
extremity of delight of which no