e manner with carving, and supported by
bosses, sometimes of one or more figures, often foliage, fruit, and
flowers, or shields. Among them may be found the figures of a lion and
dragon biting each other; owls and little birds fighting; Sampson in
armour (?) slaying the lion; monkeys fighting, one holding a rod, another
in a wheelbarrow; the prodigal son feeding swine; a monk tearing a dog's
hind legs; another flogging a little boy, amid a group of other urchins;
and numerous other equally inexplicable designs. If, indeed, such
objects did occupy the place under the eyes of the monks at their
devotions, they must have served admirably to train the risible muscles
to self-command.

It is among these carvings that the presumed satires are to be found,
that are attributed to the dissensions existing between the secular and
regular clergy, about the period of the building of the Cathedral; they
would have us interpret them as something akin to liberty of the press,
with all its caprices, sarcasms, and ironical sneers; but as the
self-same subjects have been found to range over the works of the carvers
from the thirteenth century down to the Reformation, and on the Continent
as well as in this country, it is much more probable that they were
copies from the illustrations of books, at that time popular, or from the
illuminations of fanciful legends, upon which the monks were continually
engaged, and which were always at hand to serve as patterns for the
workmen. The Bestiaria, a work very celebrated, has been suggested as
the source of many of the figures; among its pages figured mermaids,
unicorns, dragons, &c.; and the calendars also, in which the agricultural
pursuits of each month were depicted on the top of the page, might form
another copy to be modelled from. Such is the most probable way of
accounting for the presence of such objects, although it is possible that
in an age when the church offered scope for every talent to display
itself, so, obscure recesses were found for the offspring of these
original, though not very refined, creations of fancy, often, however,
executed by the hands of skilful craftsmen.

One look at the antique specimen of the reading desk--a pelican
supporting it with the clot of blood on its breast, symbolizing, we are
told, the shedding of the blood of Christ, as that bird sheds its blood
for its young. It may, or may not be so--but if it be, it is indeed a
gross substitute for the eagle