morial jointly to
the best of parents.
The moral of the English lines
Behold yourselves by us;
Such once were we as you:
And you in time shall be
Even dust as we are now.
is enforced by a drawing, in outline, representing the nude figures of
the departed lying side by side upon a couch in the sleep of death--no
doubt intended as a _memento mori_ of a less repulsive kind than the
usual desiccated corpse. The monument has been invested with a coating
of black, which at once conceals the whole of the marble (said to be
brown), and shows up the inscription and the figures, both clearly
incised and gilded.
#The Ambulatory#, which encompasses the choir, and is open to it on the
inner side throughout its course, is an interesting part of the original
fabric, and displays to full advantage the characteristic features of
early Norman work--here made more conspicuous by the low pitch of the
roof, which gives the columns and arches an appearance of even greater
solidity than really belongs to them. The semicircular arches which
support the roof spring from the capitals of the main arcade, and are
merely wide bands of stone, without moulding or adornment of any kind.
The intermediate spaces are equally plain, each compartment simply
taking the quadripartite form (without vaulting-ribs) to accommodate it
to the arcading on which it rests. The ceiling has been repaired with
stone, and overlaid with plaster in the panels, but the design has been
left undisturbed, as a specimen of early vaulting, rare enough to be
worth preserving.[5]
[Illustration: THE AMBULATORY AND ENTRANCE TO THE LADY CHAPEL
_E. Scamell. Photo._]
Perpendicular work occurs here and there throughout the ambulatory,
conspicuously in the three recesses in the exterior wall on the north,
each of which contains a three-light window in that style. The first and
second of these recesses, or small chapels, are open to the ground
level; but the third (nearest the east) has been walled up beneath the
window sill. Beyond it is the door of the clergy vestry, which occupies
the site of another chapel: and in the curve of the wall towards the
Lady Chapel there is a tablet which usually attracts attention for the
curious device upon it--three pillars crowned by a garland of roses--and
the poetical conceit of the epitaph, which explains the emblem, and
otherwise speaks for itself:
Sacred
To the memo
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