Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/398

 374 NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. allowed to know what has happened to his Church within his own incumbency. It is nowhere stated that the roojii w.is original, an idea only hinted in the former note. I do not however see anything- so very absurd in the notion ; the room, whether original or not, need not have touched the window ; and the latter would ha e been in any case a great improvement to the internal effect. Even now it is almost lost in an external view^. With regard to the great blank arch in the north transept, the Reviewer employs his usual t(me, attempting to throw ridicule upon me as ignorant of its use as a rere-dos or receptacle for an Altar. It so happens that I did incline to the belief of its being so, but that neither myself nor the rest of the Committee felt sufficiently certain on the point to justify us in dogmatically asserting it. I did not see what else it could be, but I had never seen another of the kind. If the Reviewer's greater experience can point out such another, one, I mean, of similar relative proportions, I shall be simply and without pretence, thankful to him for the information". " The following questions, as referring to small minutiw, I have not obtruded on the text, but they are worthy of notice, as exhibiting the unfairness of the Reviewer's criticisms. Speaking of the remains ex- isting of the original Romanesque Cliurch, he observes, "the capital or impost of the original Chancel-Arch remains in its place, and shews that this part of the wall belongs to the original structure : several Norman strings rLUiain in other parts of the walls: but the impost is described as a bracket, and the strings are said to have been placed in their present situation within a few years ; where they were pre- viously placed, we are not informed." The three passages on which this mis- representation is founded are as follows. 1st. "A Norman capital is built into the wall, near the north spring of the [Chancel] arch, which may have served the purpose of a bracket." p. 123. 2nd. " Fragments of Norman strings above and below. Note. These were found detached, and inserted here to preserve them about sixteen years ago." p. 122. 3rd. " Below which is a string appa- rently of Norman date." p 12-5. No fair person would speak of the first sentence as "describing the impost as a bracket." I may perhaps have looked upon it as a fragment worked up again, an opinion less probable, I freely grant, than that of the Reviewer, though I have seen analogous cases. But my words, or those of the Committee, do not necessarily imply even so much as this. With regard to the other passages, the Reviewer speaks as if I had stated all the Romanesque strings to have been worked uj) again. This is not the case, as the two passages arc totally distinct, relating to different parts of the Church ; and nothing is said as to any change of position in the stiing mentioned in p. 123. The note, I feel confident, was an addition of the inspecting Members ; but in any case, neither they nor I could have dreamed of a thing so little likely to occur to any one, unless we had had some positive testimony on the subject. Perhaps however the Reviewer's familiarity with those ancient documents which he censures our Society so sharply for not having sufficiently con- sulted renders all modern testimony worth- less in bis eyes. It is riot a very un- common thing to find detached fragments of detail; I liojie Irthlingborough is not the only place where, if found, they are preserved. •' The piscina in the other transept gives the Reviewer an opportunity, which he eagerly grasps at, of sneering at my "eyes" and my "fertile imagination." I grant that there is a manifest contradic- tion between the description and the en- graving. But I cannot think that either author or artist could have imagined a feature which had no existence at all. It is possible that among the many correc- tions which both MS. and proof sheet have undergone, some confusion or trans- position eitiier of the description or the cut may have taken place ; I might even have inserted a note taken in some otl'.er Ciiurch. That thep.' is some confusion or other is clear from this same piscina being marked sedilia in the ground-*plan. and scdilia there certainly are none. But in any case the error is of that sort which can only arise from accident or careless- ness, but to which ignorance or inexperi- ence could not possibly give birth.