ortraiture, as we now employ that expression, have
nevertheless strong claims upon our veneration. Often their sculpture is
very noble; and even when they are rudest as works of art, there is
rarely lacking a rough grandeur about them, as exhibited in the fine
bold figure of Fair Rosamond's son, Earl William of the Long Sword,
which reposes in such dignified serenity in his own cathedral at
Salisbury. These effigies may not bring us closely face to face with
remote generations, but they do place before us true images of what the
men and women of those generations were.

Observant students of monumental effigies will not fail to appreciate
the singular felicity with which the medieval sculptors adjusted their
compositions to the recumbent position in which their "images"
necessarily had to be placed. Equally worthy of notice is the manner in
which many monumental effigies, particularly those of comparatively
early date, are found to have assumed an aspect neither living nor
lifeless, and yet impressively life-like. The sound judgment also, and
the good taste of those early sculptors, were signally exemplified in
their excluding, almost without exception, the more extravagant fashions
in the costume of their era from their monumental sculpture, and
introducing only the simpler but not less characteristic styles of dress
and appointments. Monumental effigies, as commonly understood, represent
recumbent figures, and the accessories of the effigies themselves have
been adjusted to that position. With the exceptions when they appear on
one side resting on the elbow (as in the case of Thomas Owen (d. 1598)
and Sir Thomas Heskett (d. 1605), both in Westminster Abbey), these
effigies lie on their backs, and as a general rule (except in the case
of episcopal figures represented in the act of benediction, or of
princes and warriors who sometimes hold a sceptre or a sword) their
hands are uplifted and conjoined as in supplication. The crossed-legged
attitude of numerous armed effigies of the era of mail-armour has been
supposed to imply the personages so represented to have been crusaders
or Knights of the Temple; but in either case the supposition is
unfounded and inconsistent with unquestionable facts. Much beautiful
feeling is conveyed by figures of ministering angels being introduced as
in the act of supporting and smoothing the pillows or cushions that are
placed in very many instances to give support to the heads of the
recum