ure, were the vaulted roof, and the pendants
of the Lady-Chapel. The latter were originally ornamented with female
figures, representing the Sibyls, made of colored terra cotta, and of
such excellent workmanship, that Cardinal Barberini, when he visited
this chapel in 1647, declared he had seen nothing of the kind, not even
in Italy, superior to them for the beauty and delicacy of their
execution; but they are now gone, and, according to Noel[6], were
destroyed at the time of the bombardment. The state, however, of the
roof does not seem to warrant this observation; and, contrary also to
what he says, the pendants between the Lady-Chapel and the choir are
still perfect, and serve, together with numerous small canopies in the
chapel itself, to give a clear idea of what the whole must have been
originally. One of the most elegant of the decorations of the church is
a spirally-twisted column, elaborately carved, with a peculiarly
fanciful and beautiful capital, placed against a pillar that separates
the two south-eastern chapels of the choir. The richest object is a
stone-screen to a chantry on the north side, which is divide into
several canopies, whose upper part is still full of a profusion of
sculpture, though the lower is sadly mutilated. I could not ascertain
its history or use; but I do not suppose it is of earlier date than the
age of Francis Ist, as the Roman or Italian style is blended with the
Gothic arch. The Chapel of the Sepulchre, is not uncommonly pointed out
as an object of admiration. There is certainly some, handsome sculpture
round the portal; but it is not this for which your admiration is
required: you are told that the chapel was made in 1612, at the expence
of a traveller, then just returned from Palestine, and that it offers a
faithful representation of the Holy Sepulchre itself at Jerusalem; by
which if we are to understand that the wretched, grisly, painted, wooden
figures of the three Maries, and other holy women and holy men,
assembled round a disgusting representation of the dead Saviour, have
their prototype in Judea, I can only add I am sorry for it: for my own
part, putting aside all question of the propriety or effect of
symbolical worship, and meaning nothing offensive to the Romish faith, I
must be allowed to say that most assuredly I can conceive nothing less
qualified to excite feelings of devotion, or more certain to awaken
contempt and loathing, than the images of this description, the