ves it: they are altogether unlike those
used on Queen Matilda's tomb, a relic, whose authenticity was never
called in question. The character of the architecture of the chapel
affords a still more decisive contradiction. Indeed, after what has
already been said, it needs scarcely be added, that the building itself
did not exist at the period assigned by Ducarel to the epitaph, which is
most probably that of the person who erected the apsis, and made the
other alterations in the fourteenth century.

The western front of the church exhibits two different characters:
below, all is simple, almost to meanness: the upper part abounds in
ornament; and here the good sense of the architect, who added the
pinnacles and spires, merits commendation, in having made them
correspond so well in their decorations with the towers. The plate
sufficiently explains all that is to be said of this part of the
building, excepting as to the more minute ornaments of the door-ways,
which deserve to be exhibited in detail. The architrave is composed of
several bands of the simplest moulding, inclosed within three of a
different style; the two outermost being formed of the chevron ornament,
with its angles unusually acute; the inner, of the billet moulding. The
capitals of the pillars are studded with small heads, placed under the
Ionic volute, exhibiting a mixture of classical and barbarous taste,
which is likewise to be found at Cerisy, and upon one of the capitals in
the abbey church of the Trinity.

Along the exterior of the upper part of the nave, runs a row of
twenty-four semi-circular arches, with imposts and bases, and all
uniform, except that eight of them are pierced for windows. This portion
of the building is entirely without buttresses. Upon the extremity of
the north transept are three very shallow buttresses, which rise from
the ground to the bottom of the clerestory windows, unbroken by any
interruption whatever, but here meet with a string-course, beyond which
the two outer ones are continued, unchanged in form and appearance, to
the summit of the ends of the gable, while the centre one, though it is
raised to an equal height, loses more than half its width, and is also
much reduced in depth. Over this latter buttress is a window; and
between the buttresses are six others, arranged in a double row. Each
pair differs in size from the rest: those nearest the ground are the
largest, and those immediately above them the least. The lo