y one who has attempted to
identify them. Cockerell's numbers are the only ones that are at all
accurate (and he omits the two figures on the extreme south of the
fourth and fifth tiers); but, as he recommenced his enumeration with
each series, they are not much use for purposes of identification.
There are mistakes and omissions in the enumeration of the
photographs, there are mistakes in the album in the cathedral library,
the photographs in the South Kensington Museum are hopelessly muddled,
and even the descriptions of the restorer, Mr Ferrey, are so arranged
that it takes days to identify them, while some of them elude one's
efforts altogether. I have, therefore, numbered the statues and groups
in a continuous order from bottom to top, so that comparison with
photographs will in the future be easy. In the case of work most of
which can only be seen from a distance, the study of photographs is
absolutely necessary for a full appreciation of their beauty, more
especially as in very many cases the photographs reveal the form which
the accidents of discoloration have partly concealed. Mr Phillips of
10 Market Place has an almost complete set of admirable photographs,
which he was enabled to take when the scaffolding was up for the
restoration of 1870-73: it is these which Mr Ruskin has so much
admired.

As there are so many statues, some of inferior interest and beauty, I
have ventured to put an asterisk (*) to those which I think no one
should fail to see; and, in almost every case, I have but echoed the
general verdict.

THE LOWEST TIER.--This tier contains sixty-two niches, forty-three of
which are empty, so fatally convenient has their position been for the
iconoclast. Of those which remain nearly all are on the north side of
the tower, so that at first sight the tier seems to be quite empty.
The loss here has been the greater because the figures were of the
finest kind, as well as the most easily seen: those remaining are
certainly of the most exquisite loveliness. Cockerell's theory that
this tier represents the heralds of the gospel, prophets and
missionaries, has nothing to support it.

It seems to me not unlikely that the tier was devoted to some of the
most popular saints in the calendar; the position, so near the
passer-by, would have suited this arrangement, and the front must have
been singularly deficient in saints if it were otherwise. The figures
which remain, a group of deacons, a group of bearded