hes, were, I think, my first feelings in
Amiens Cathedral.

We go down the nave, glancing the while at the traceried windows of the
chapels, which are later than the windows above them; we come to the
transepts, and from either side the stained glass, in their huge windows,
burns out on us; and, then, first we begin to appreciate somewhat the
scale of the church, by looking up, along the ropes hanging from the
vaulting to the pavement, for the tolling of the bells in the spire.

There is a hideous renaissance screen, of solid stone or marble, between
choir and nave, with more hideous iron gates to it, through which,
however, we, walking up the choir steps, can look and see the gorgeous
carving of the canopied stalls; and then, alas! 'the concentration of
flattened sacks, rising forty feet above the altar;' but, above that, the
belt of the apse windows, rich with sweet mellowed stained glass, under
the dome-like roof.

The stalls in the choir are very rich, as people know, carved in wood, in
the early sixteenth century, with high twisted canopies, and histories,
from the Old Testament mostly, wrought about them. The history of Joseph
I remember best among these. Some of the scenes in it I thought very
delightful; the story told in such a gloriously quaint, straightforward
manner. Pharaoh's dream, how splendid that was! the king lying asleep on
his elbow, and the kine coming up to him in two companies. I think the
lean kine was about the best bit of wood-carving I have seen yet. There
they were, a writhing heap, crushing and crowding one another, drooping
heads and starting eyes, and strange angular bodies; altogether the most
wonderful symbol of famine ever conceived. I never fairly understood
Pharaoh's dream till I saw the stalls at Amiens.

There is nothing else to see in the choir; all the rest of the fittings
being as bad as possible. So we will go out again, and walk round the
choir-aisles. The screen round the choir is solid, the upper part of it
carved (in the flamboyant times), with the history of St. John the
Baptist, on the north side; with that of St. Firmin on the south. I
remember very little of the sculptures relative to St. John, but I know
that I did not like them much. Those about St. Firmin, who evangelised
Picardy, I remember much better, and some of them especially I thought
very beautiful; they are painted too, and at any rate one cannot help
looking at them.

I do not remember, in the