o the building and the prospect. The high
altar in the choir is plain and insulated. No other praise can be given
to the screen, except that it does not interrupt the view; for surely it
was the very consummation of bad taste to place in such an edifice, a
double row of eight modern Ionic pillars, in white marble, with the
figures of Hope and Charity between them, surmounted by a crucifix,
flanked on either side with two Grecian vases.

The interior falls upon the eye with boldness and regularity, pleasing
from its proportions, and imposing from its magnitude. The arches which
spring from the pillars of the aisles, are surmounted by a second row,
occupying the space which is usually held by the triforium: the vaulted
roof of the aisles runs to the level of the top of this upper tier. This
arrangement, which is found in other Norman churches, is almost peculiar
to these; and in England it has no parallel, except in the nave of
Waltham Abbey. Within the aisle you observe a singular combination of
small pillars, attached to the columns of the nave: they stand on a
species of bracket, which is supported by the abacus of the capital;
and they spread along the spandrils of the arches on either side. These
pillars support a kind of entablature, which takes a triangular plan.
The whole bears a near resemblance to the style of the Byzantine
architecture. Above the second row of arches are two rows of galleries.
The story containing the clerestory windows crowns the whole; so that
there are five horizontal divisions in the nave.--I give these details,
because they indicate the decided difference of order which exists
between the Norman and the English Gothic; a difference for which I have
not been able to assign any satisfactory cause.

The tombs that were originally in the choir, commemorating Charles Vth,
of France; Richard Coeur de Lion; his elder brother, Henry; and William,
son of Geoffrey Plantagenet, were all removed in 1736, as interfering
with the embellishments then in contemplation. The first of them alone
was preserved and transferred to the Lady-Chapel, where it has
subsequently fallen a victim to the revolution. The others are wholly
destroyed; nor could Ducarel find even a fragment of the effigies that
had been upon them; but engravings of these had fortunately been
preserved by Montfaucon[81], from whom he has copied them. The monument
of the celebrated John of Lancaster, third son of our Henry IVth, better
known