ings. It has continued above five hundred years,
and may it yet continue a noble proof of his consummate skill as an
architect!" The conception was original, being perhaps the first
building of the kind ever erected. By throwing the weight upon eight
strong piers and arches instead of four, he has probably guarded
against the recurrence of a similar accident; at the same time he has
given a larger space, a more agreeable form, and greater scope for
embellishment, which is, however, most judiciously confined within
such limits as not to interfere with sober and impressive grandeur. No
one can behold it without admiring the skill which has suspended,
rather than supported, a very heavy timber roof over so wide an area
without a pillar.

[Footnote 34: He was made Sub-Prior, then Prior, and elected Bishop,
A.D. 1344, but the election was not confirmed.]

"It is not equilateral; there are four longer and four shorter sides,
alternate and respectively equal. Four lofty arches, in the four
longer sides, open into the four principal parts of the church:
alternately with these, in the four shorter sides, are as many more,
much lower, opening obliquely into the aisles above and below the
Transept. The arches are all supported by elegant clustered and
conjoined columns, and their capitals are wreaths of flowers and
foliage."

In the shorter sides there is room for some ornamentation, but the
ornaments are chaste and not profuse. The four low arches in them are
under canopies resting on good carved heads, which remain perfect.
Those on the north-east are said to be intended for Edward III. and
his queen Phillippa, in whose time the building was erected; on the
south-eastern arch are represented the heads of a bishop and a priest,
perhaps meant for Bishop Hotham and Prior Crauden, superiors at the
period of erection. On the north-west arch are the heads of another
priest, apparently younger, and of some secular person with long hair;
the former is supposed to represent Alan de Walsingham, the skilful
architect of this noble work; and the latter the chief mason. On the
remaining arch are two figures, the meaning of which we can scarcely
comprehend.

A little above each of these lower arches are three brackets, or
corbels, with canopies; the original figures (if any) placed on these
brackets have long since disappeared, but the spaces have lately been
filled with sitting figures of the Apostles,[35] executed in stone by
Mr. Redf