mall wooden pastoral staff in two
fragments; a leaden tablet, 10 in. by 3-1/3, with inscription most
beautifully rendered in Lombardic characters.

_Hie jacet Willelmus de Button secundus Bathoniensis
et Wellensis episcopus sepultus XII.
die Decembris anno domini MCCLXXIIII_."

It was noted at the same time that "the teeth were absolutely perfect
in number, shape, and order, and without a trace of decay, and hardly
any discoloration." From this one would infer that the saint was
famous in his lifetime for his beautiful teeth, and that it was for
this reason that his aid came to be invoked after his death by those
suffering from toothache. It is certainly curious that men now living
should have discovered his teeth to be still in such perfect
preservation. His contemporaries would, no doubt, have called it a
miracle.

A little farther east is the remarkable tomb of _Bishop Beckington_,
surrounded by an exquisite iron screen of the same period. Its canopy
formerly projected into the choir, being large enough to form a small
chantry; but, when the choir was so stupidly restored, the canopy was
dragged from its place, and set up in St. Calixtus' chapel, where it
still is (p. 99,) a hard-looking stone screen being built between the
tomb and the choir in its stead. The tomb is divided into two parts,
the arcade which forms the canopy of the lower effigy supporting the
slab on which rests the figure of the bishop. The carving is very
beautiful, and the delicately-wrought wings of the angels, which
spread over the arches so as to fill the spandrels, are especially
fine. Traces of colour are strong on the tomb, as they are on the
canopy from which it has been divorced, so that one can form some
little idea of what the whole must have been like in its first
magnificence.

The effigy of the bishop rests upon it, the old and wrinkled face
(best seen from within the choir) bearing deep traces of that active
public life which did so much for the city and the church. Below, in
strange contrast to the gorgeous vestments, which have still the
remnants of the painted pattern on them, lies a corpse, almost a
skeleton, in its open shroud. At first one's feeling is that of
repulsion, but it is lessened when we remember that Beckington himself
had the tomb made, and consecrated it before a vast concourse of
people, saying mass for his own soul, for those of his parents, and of
all the faithful departed in the January of 145