Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/28

12 there is a shaft with a shelf or bracket in each of the inner angles.

6. A small octagonal pedestal, attached to the pier. It is supposed originally to have supported an image of St. Bartholomew, in whose honour the church is dedicated.

7 and 8. Fine Gothic tombs.

9. The Font.—Octagonal, on a shaft. Each of the faces which are exposed, has a trefoiled arch with a shield. The workmanship, though good, is not very elaborate. Width, 2 feet 8 inches; height from the step, 3 feet.

10. A tomb of the sixteenth century, comparatively plain.

11 and 12. Rich Gothic tombs.

13. A fine tomb in the Italian style.

14. Tomb of Sir Henry Vernon already noticed.

15. A brass let into the wall.

The four monuments in the centre of the church, viz. No. 7. 12. 11. and 8. (I place them in the order of their dates) are invaluable, as presenting a series of Perpendicular work, each specimen being characteristic of the period to which it belongs. The first, though executed with great care, (in fact the minutest details of costume are elaborately worked,) is comparatively severe and simple in its design, having more a massive than an ornate character. The second is decidedly florid, yet all its enrichments are of a strictly architectural description. The third, though it has also open-work canopies, yet depends much for its richness upon spaces filled with minute and intricate panelling. The fourth, equally rich with any of the others, has the Burgundian arch, and shews other decided symptoms of the decline of the style. This debasement also appears on the outside of the Golden Chapel, where the crockets, instead of adding lightness and elegance to the pinnacles, as is the case in the tower and porch, give them a very cumbrous appearance.

It is hardly to be supposed that so beautiful a church will long escape the process of restoration. Nor indeed is it to be altogether wished, though I should earnestly deprecate one on a very comprehensive scale. Externally, some of the pinnacles are broken or displaced, and others have lost their finials; if these were renewed after the model of such as are sufficiently perfect to preserve their general effect, the latter being suffered to remain untouched, and other mutilations of the stone-work, as in the tracery of the west window,