in colour. Its designs are often more interesting pictorially. Look at
the window simply as an isolated example of stained glass, and you will
certainly prefer the earlier work. Look at it as a patch in a whole
system of decoration, and you will be inclined to prefer the later. The
wonderful success, as decoration of fragments of ancient stained glass
pieced together almost at random, goes to prove, almost as clearly as
the pictorial errors of modern designers, that a stained glass window
should be conceived, not as a picture, hardly even as a pattern, but as
a simple arrangement of broken patches of colour. This is what the
designers of the windows in the choir have done, for they have seen that
by that means, and not by the representation of architectural forms,
they obtain the best contrast with the real architectural forms of the
building. At their best, the windows of the choir remind one of patches
of coloured sunlight on running water. It is true that these windows are
really filled with pictures, but these pictures are only an excuse and a
stimulus for the inventions in pure colour of the designer. Without them
his work might seem merely kaleidoscopic. It is his great merit that he
has never allowed his representation of actual things to interfere with
his decorative purpose.

[Illustration: Compartment of Ancient Choir Stalls.]

To sum up, then, this choir has not the delicate and spiritual beauty of
the choirs of Lincoln or Ely. That is never found even in the finest
work of Perpendicular architects; but for stateliness and magnificence
it has not a rival in England. These qualities may be best appreciated
standing midway between the two transepts and in front of the altar.
From that point glittering screens of glass and soaring shafts of stone
are to be seen on all sides; the whole effect is one of triumphant light
and space and colour, not to be surpassed by the splendours even of
Moorish or Italian architecture.

To pass to a more detailed description: the original stalls were
irretrievably ruined by the fire of 1829. An illustration of one of
these stalls from Britton is here given. They appear to have been
magnificent examples of Perpendicular woodwork, and their destruction is
an irreparable loss. There were twenty of them on each side of the choir
and twelve at the west end. The modern stalls erected in the thirties
are a simple imitation, better perhaps than original work of the period
would have b