are
recommended to look for a special symbol which they alone can understand
and appreciate.

The floor of the portico is paved with gravestones, some apparently in
their original position. This place was at one time appropriated as a
burial place for the Minor Canons.[23] Some of the stones, however, are
of mediaeval date, and it can be seen where the brasses have been
wrenched from them: some of these have been used again for later
inscriptions. One stone bears an incised cross originally filled with
some coloured composition. Some of the marble wall-shafts had fallen,
and their places had been filled by stone substitutes. Others had been
cheaply replaced by wood. The stone shafts still remain, but the wooden
imitations have all been replaced by new marble which was specially
quarried for this reconstruction.

Wood had also been used for the repair of the battlements on the gable
of the porch under the centre arch of the west front. These have, of
course, been reconstructed in stone. All the criticisms that have been
passed by amateur architects upon the front, as a termination to the
building, cannot be discussed here. It is clear, however, that the
existence of the portico does away with any objection that could be made
(as has been done with regard to the west fronts at Lincoln, Wells, and
elsewhere), that the front might be considered to hide rather than to
bring out the construction of the nave and aisles. It is true that the
side gables are not the gables of the aisles, and indeed the roofs that
are built against the gables are built only for them; but they are a
legitimate finish to the great arches, and to the vaulted roof of the
portico. Possibly the inequality of the great arches may be explained
when we reflect that the central gable is the honest termination of the
nave roof; the two central piers were therefore bound to be built so as
to give support to the existing nave roof, and to fit it. The position
of these piers being fixed, the outer ones might be as distant as was
desired, for the front must of course extend to the entire length of the
western transept. It has been commonly supposed that the three great
arches of the Lincoln front suggested the idea to the Peterborough
builders. If so, they improved upon their model. The central arch at
Lincoln even before the round arch was altered, must have been half as
high again as the side arches; and as they all are integral parts of the
wall, and there