Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/209

 the beautiful west front, glorious even in ruin, with its elaborate decorations, its many statues standing, as erst, each in its niche, its great window, now a mighty void, shaftless and jambless, and its graceful pointed Gothic doorway below. An illustration of this portion of the abbey is given with this chapter. The other portions of the building are of much archæological interest, but not so statelily picturesque, nor can any drawing in black and white suggest the wonderful wealth of weather-tinting that the time-*worn masonry has assumed. The summer suns and winter storms of unremembered years have left their magic traces upon the wonderful west front of this age-hallowed shrine, tinging it with softest colouring varying with every inch of surface!

Within the ancient nave now open to the sky, where grows the lank, rank grass under foot in place of the smooth inlaid pavement often trod by sleek abbot, and meek or merry monk, we observed the base of a Perpendicular pillar round which the earth had been excavated, apparently to show the foundation, and we noticed that this was composed of various old carved stones of an earlier period of architecture, presumably when the abbey was undergoing a medieval restoration or rebuilding; plainly proving, as is well known, that the builders of the past did not hold their predecessors' works so very sacred, and to a certain extent the modern restorer would be justified in quoting this fact in extenuation of his doings, or misdoings, "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" surely? Only those medieval restorers sinned so magnificently, and the