usual with these ancient
designers, represented side by side on different angles of the post.

[Illustration: Fig. 62.]

[Illustration: Fig. 63.]

Our next engraving, Fig. 63, is a very striking specimen of grotesque
design in ironwork of the fourteenth century. It is a door handle from a
church in the High Street of Gloucester, and a more extraordinary
admixture of incongruous details could not very readily be imagined.
The ring hangs from the neck of a monster with a human head having ass's
ears, the neck is snake-like, bat's wings are upon the shoulders, the
paws are those of a wolf. To the body is conjoined a grotesque head with
lolling tongue, the head wrapped in a close hood. Grotesque design, for
the reason already stated, frequently appears in the details of church
architecture and furniture during the Middle Ages, particularly from the
thirteenth to the seventeenth century. The capital of a column was the
favourite place for the indulgence of the mason's taste in caricature;
the _misereres_, or folding scats of the choir, for that of the
wood-carver. It is impossible to conceive anything more droll than many
of the scenes depicted on these ancient benches. Emblematic pictures of
the months, secular games of all kinds, or illustrations of popular
legends, frequently appeared; but as frequently satirical and grotesque
scenes, often bordering on positive indelicacy; and occasionally satires
on the clerical character, which can be only understood when we remember
the strength of the _odium theologicum_, and how completely the
well-established regular clergy disliked the wandering barefooted
friars, who mixed with the people free of all clerical pretence, and
induced unpleasant comparison with the ostentatious pride of the greater
dignitaries. The Franciscans were in this way especially obnoxious, and
between them and the well-established Benedictines an incessant feud
existed. The tone of feeling that pervaded the middle and humbler
classes found a mouth-piece in that curious satire, the Vision of Piers
Ploughman, than which Luther never spoke plainer.

[Illustration: Fig. 64.]

One very prevailing form in early Gothic design was that of the mythic
dragon, whose winged body and convoluted tail were easily and happily
adapted to mix with the foliage or other decorative enrichments these
artists chose to adopt. Hence we find no creature more common in early
art than this purely fanciful one, rendered still more