le alike to interpret truly, is a gem, and the perfectly
preserved lavatories at the opposite corner have their own features of
interest. The roof, groined and vaulted with sculptured bosses, is
covered with fanciful and legendary carvings--the martyrdoms of saints,
St. Anthony roasting on his gridiron, &c., St. John the Baptist and
Herodias with his head in a charger; the mutilated body of another
headless saint has received from some kind charitable hand the blessing
of a new head, while the old one is under his arm; the date of this
addition or growth is uncertain--it looks very white, rather new; above
the door leading into the ancient refectory is a carving of the
Temptation, Adam and Eve and the serpent as usual; about this said
carving hangs a tale, another than the story of the Fall of man, and too
good to be omitted. The great historian of this comity, and all the
little historians that have condensed, contracted, extracted, and
dove-tailed little bits of his history together, have all with wonderful
precision agreed that above this arch was carved the _espousals_ or
Sacrament of Marriage; and upon that foundation, or perhaps rather
_under_ that head we should say, entered into elaborate details of how
this spot was the chosen site for the celebration of the sacrament of
marriage, which every one knows was performed in the _porch_ of the
church, and not in the church itself as now, but as this spot is a very
considerable number of yards distant from either church or porch, some of
those troublesome people who will be continually saying Why? and seeking
for a Because, began to look for these _espousals_, and found only a
_Temptation_. One of these individuals, of a peculiarly persevering
nature, earnestly desirous of reconciling these strange discrepancies
between the assertion of a respectable old historian, and his own
eye-sight, set to work, and the following was the result. He found that
much of this good historian's description of the cloister was a tolerably
free translation of an old Latin work by William of Worcester, the
original manuscript of which exists in the library of Corpus Christi, at
Cambridge. It was printed and edited, many years ago, by one Nasmith,
and an extract is to be found in the last edition of the Monasticon,
where the work of a bishop who built one side of the cloister is
described as extending to the arches, "in quibus maritagia dependent,"
which must be translated "in which the