-known figures of the Vices which stand around the quadrangle
at Magdalen College, Oxford, are interpreted by an old Latin manuscript
in the college. The statues should properly be known as the Virtues
and Vices, for some of them represent such moral qualities as Vigilance,
Sobriety, and Affection. It is indeed a shock to learn from this
presumably authoritative source, that the entertaining figure of a
patient nondescript animal, upon whose back a small reptile clings,
is _not_ intended to typify "back biting," but is intended for a
"hippopotamus, or river-horse, carrying his young one upon his
shoulders; this is the emblem of a good tutor, or fellow of the
college, who is set to watch over the youth." But a large number
of the statues are devoted to the Vices, which generally explain
themselves.

[Illustration: GROTESQUE FROM OXFORD, POPULARLY KNOWN AS "THE
BACKBITER"]

No more spirited semi-secular carvings are to be seen in England
than the delightful row of the "Beverly Minstrels." They stand on
brackets round a column in St. Mary's Church, Beverly, and are
exhibited as singing and playing on musical instruments. They were
probably carved and presented by the Minstrels or Waits, themselves,
or at any rate at their expense, for an angel near by holds a tablet
inscribed: "This pyllor made the meynstyrls." These "waits" were
quite an institution, being a kind of police to go about day and
night and inspect the precincts, announcing break of day by blowing
a horn, and calling the workmen together by a similar signal. The
figures are of about the period of Henry VII.

[Illustration: THE "BEVERLY MINSTRELS"]

The general excellence of sculpture in Germany is said to be lower
than that of France; in fact, such mediaeval German sculpture as
is specially fine is based upon French work. Still, while this
statement holds good in a general way, there are marked departures,
and examples of extremely interesting and often original sculpture
in Germany, although until the work of such great masters as Albrecht
Duerer, Adam Kraft, and Viet Stoss, the wood carver, who are much
later, there is not as prolific a display of the sculptor's genius as
in France.

The figures on the Choir screen at Hildesheim are rather heavy,
and decidedly Romanesque; but the whole effect is most delightful.
Some of the heads have almost Gothic beauty. The screen is of about
1186, and the figures are made of stucco; but it is exceptionally
good s