ke room for
faculty pews; recently a glaring white pillar has been introduced into
the westernmost of these two bays, and two sub-arches built. If the
same kind of work is carried out in the other, we shall see in all
probability an attempt to copy the unique scale decoration which still
exists on the tympanum under the corresponding principal arch on the
north side, cut with modern tools with all the lifeless rigidity of
modern work. Another mistake which has been made, is the scraping off of
the plaster from the interior walls of the chamber known as St Michael's
Loft, over the Lady Chapel, and the re-pointing of the stonework. Old
builders invariably covered their rubble walls with plaster, but the
modern restorer for some reason seems to hate plaster and prefers, to
show the coarse stonework which the builder never intended should be
seen, and to emphasise the roughness by filling up the joints with
conspicuous pointing. This, however, is not so destructive as much of
the work which has been condemned above, because at any time the walls
could be recovered with a thin coat of smooth plaster laid on with a
trowel, but not "floated,"--that is, not brought to a smooth surface
by a long straightedge.

A large and old building such as this Priory Church will need almost
constant repairs to keep it sound and safe, and the income from
visitors' fees is quite sufficient for this purpose. It is, however,
much to be feared that restoration and reconstruction will form far too
large a part of the work done in this building. Every new ornamental
stone, to make room for which some original stone is displaced, detracts
from the value of the building from an archaeological point of view; and
though there may be some, or even many, who prefer the trim and smug
appearance of modern work to that of the old, instinct with life, full
of the thoughts of the builders and workers in wood and stone, whose
bones have mouldered into dust in the garth of the vanished cloisters,
and whose very names have in many cases been forgotten, yet we hope that
those who have this priceless treasure in their keeping may recognise
ere it is too late, that the result of a continuance of the process of
restoration commenced about the middle of the nineteenth century will
be the gradual conversion of a splendid memorial of bygone ages into a
modern sham, and they themselves will be regarded, when true love of art
becomes general, with the same indignation as