parapet can be seen rising above the tree-tops.

Though much of the detail of the outside is far from being classical or
correct, the whole is well proportioned and well put together, but the
same cannot be said of the inside. Pilasters of inordinate height have
been seen in some of the Lisbon churches, but compared with these which
here stand in couples between the chapels they are short and well
proportioned. These pilasters, which are quite seventeen diameters high,
have for capitals coarse copies of those in Sao Vicente de Fora in
Lisbon. In Sao Vicente the cornice was carried on corbels crossing the
frieze, and so was continuous and unbroken. Here all the lower
mouldings of the cornice are carried round the corbels and the pilasters
so that only the two upper are continuous, an arrangement which is
anything but an improvement. Another unpleasing feature are the three
niches which, with hideous painted figures, are placed one above the
other between the pilasters. The chancel arch reaches up to the main
cornice, but those of the door and chapel recesses are low enough to
leave room for the windows. The dome is divided into panels of various
shapes by broad flat ribs with coarse mouldings. The chancel and choir
beyond have barrel vaults divided into simple square panels.

The church then, though interesting from its plan, is--inside
especially--remarkably unpleasing, though it is perhaps only fair to
attribute a considerable part of this disagreeable effect to the state
of decay into which it has fallen--a state which has only advanced far
enough to be squalid and dirty without being in the least picturesque.
Far more pleasing than the church is the round cloister behind. In it
the thirty-six Ionic columns are much better proportioned, and the
capitals better carved; on the cornice stands an attic, rendered
necessary by the barrel vault, heavy indeed, but not too heavy for the
columns below. This attic is panelled, and on it stand obelisk-bearing
pedestals, one above each column, and between them pediments of
strapwork. (Fig. 98.)

Had this cloister been square it would have been in no way very
remarkable, but its round shape as well as the fig-trees that now grow
in the garth, and the many plants which sprout from joints in the
cornice, make it one of the most picturesque buildings in the country.
The rest of the monastic buildings have been in ruins since the siege of
1832.

[Sidenote: Coimbra, Santa Cruz Sacr