-two feet wide,
ninety-nine feet high in the nave, and its towers rise about two hundred
feet, the central tower being two hundred and twelve feet high. Its
great charms are its windows, most of them containing the original
stained glass, some of it nearly six hundred years old. The east window
is the largest stained-glass window in the world, seventy-seven by
thirty-two feet, and of exquisite design, being made by John Thornton of
Coventry in 1408, who was paid one dollar per week wages and got a
present of fifty dollars when he finished it. At the end of one transept
is the Five Sisters Window, designed by five nuns, each planning a tall,
narrow sash; and a beautiful rose-window is at the end of the other
transept. High up in the nave the statue of St. George stands on one
side defying the dragon, who pokes out his head on the other. Its tombs
are among the minster's greatest curiosities. The effigy of Archbishop
Walter de Grey, nearly six hundred and fifty years old, is stretched out
in an open coffin lying under a superb canopy, and the corpse instead of
being in the ground is overhead in the canopy. All the walls are full of
memorial tablets--a few modern ones to English soldiers, but most of
them ancient. Strange tombs are also set in the walls, bearing effigies
of the dead. Sir William Gee stands up with his two wives, one on each
side, and his six children--all eight statues having their hands folded.
Others sit up like Punch and Judy, the women dressed in hoops,
farthingales, and ruffs, the highest fashions of their age. Here is
buried Wentworth, second Earl of Strafford, and scores of archbishops.
The body of the famous Hotspur is entombed in the wall beneath the great
east window. Burke's friend Saville is buried here, that statesman
having written his epitaph. The outside of the minster has all sorts of
grotesque protuberances, which, according to the ancient style of
church-building, represent the evil spirits that religion casts out.
Adjoining the north transept, and approached through a beautiful
vestibule, is the chapter-house, an octagonal building sixty-three feet
in diameter and surmounted by a pyramidal roof. Seven of its sides are
large stained-glass windows, and the ceiling is a magnificent work.

[Illustration: TOMB OF ARCHBISHOP WALTER DE GREY, YORK MINSTER.]

[Illustration: CLIFFORD'S TOWER.]

[Illustration: THE SHAMBLES.]

York Castle occupied a peninsula between the Ouse and a branch called