the porch is flanked with staircases, one on each side,
forming three parts of an octagon, and leading to an apartment now used
as a library. The summit is closed with an embattled parapet, having a
pediment at each end, and one in the centre. The surface of the walls
is enriched with canopied niches, pilasters, brackets, panel work, and
string courses in all the wildness and profusion which distinguish the
last stage of gothic architecture.

"Besides the arch before mentioned, the porch has two smaller arches,
north and south, parallel with the piazza formed by the great arches
and piers of the front, and keeping up the communication with its
opposite extremities. Over these also are mullioned windows with blank
interstices.

"The great window of the nave, the outer arch of which is obviously an
alteration from the original design, is divided by mullions into five
lights,--those of the side aisles into three lights, both under
cinquefoil arches, and the lancet windows of the transepts into two
lights, under trefoil arches: these windows are parted, each by an
embattled transome into an upper and lower range of lights, and the
heads filled with subordinate tracery.

"The door-ways beneath are exceedingly rich, and in point of execution
and delicacy of detail perhaps the finest portions of the front. The
central door-way is divided by a pillar, rising from a carved
cylindrical base into two smaller arches; but the whole design and
finish cannot be made out, in consequence of the introduction of the
porch, the foundation and butments of which are built against it.

"The arches of the side door-ways are lined with isolated columns,
receding in the manner of perspective; the ribbed mouldings between
these columns, the interlaced and pendent foliage of the capitals, and
the multiplied mouldings of which the arches above are composed, cannot
be too closely examined, or too much admired. This is that peculiar
style of gothic architecture, in which the beauty of the pointed arch,
with its accompaniments is best discerned; and, therefore, it is that
judges are wont to give it the preference over all subsequent
alterations and refinements. The spaces between these door-ways, like
those of the windows over them, are empannelled with pointed arches,
subdivided by smaller arches, and resting on slender pillars.

"From the description thus given of this stately front, the reader will
perceive that it was begun in one age, and fi