Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/72

46 is powdered with letters, crowned. A portion of the founder's legend, now missing, crossed the pedestal.

No. 8. The figure is that of a Queen. The niche tapestry is powdered with letters, crowned. A portion of the founder's legend, now missing, crossed the pedestal.

The tracery lights of this window, A to F inclusive, are each filled with a canopy, under which stands an angel. Seraphim is written upon a small scroll at the foot of each canopy in the lights A and B. The smaller tracery lights are filled with foliage, and monsters, as in the other windows.

The present seems the most convenient place for offering a few remarks on the date, style, and general effect of the oldest or original glazing of the Chapel.

In the absence of any direct information, we can arrive only at an approximation to the date of this glass. That it was erected in Wykeham's lifetime may be inferred, if not even from the style of the legend which runs across the windows, and contains the expression "Orate pro Willelmo de Wykeham," at least from the fact of New College having been the first of Wykeham's three great works, and the silence of his will respecting its fabric; a will which, as is well known, contains minute directions for the glazing of a part of Winchester Cathedral. Indeed, the somewhat earlier character of the glass as compared with the windows of Winchester College Chapel, which have been copied faithfully, as it would seem, from the original glazing of that edifice, would justify the supposition that it was erected before the commencement of Winchester College, in 1387. On the whole, I think we shall not be far wrong in concluding that the windows of New College were glazed between the founding of the establishment, in 1379, and its being taken possession of by the first warden, and fellows, in 1386, at which time, we have reason to believe, that the Chapel and Hall were completed; and if so, that the windows were glazed, for it is true, as a general rule, that in medieval times the glaziers commenced operations as soon as any part of a building was ready to receive the glass.

The glass, though Perpendicular in its general character, and therefore to be regarded as one of the earliest, if not the earliest, exponent of that style, displays, as might be expected, many Decorated features, as in the design of some of the canopies, especially as exemplified in the square tower