Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/307

 seventeenth-century monument I have actually noticed the same word spelt in three different ways. Above Sir John Read's fine altar-tomb is suspended a helmet with a crest coloured proper, only the helmet is not a genuine one, being of plaster! and the plaster has got cracked, and therefore the sham is revealed to the least observant; so the whole thing looks ridiculous! Possibly, however, this was merely intended for a temporary funeral helmet, and would have been removed in due course but had been forgotten.

In the pavement we noticed a slab containing an interesting brass dated 1503, to "Iohn Reed marchant of ye stapell of Calys, and Margaret his wyfe." Their eight sons and five daughters are also shown upon it. Round this slab run portions of an inscription in old English. It is unfortunate that this is incomplete, for it appears to be quaint.

On leaving the church we observed with pleasure that the ancient and curious gargoyles that project from its roof still serve the purpose for which they were originally constructed, and have not been improved away, or suffered the common indignity of being converted into rain-water heads. Who invented the gargoyle, I wonder? A monk, I'll wager, if I have read past ecclesiastical architecture aright. And all lovers of the quaintly decorative are under great obligations to the unknown monk, for gargoyles offered an irresistible opportunity for the medieval craftsman to outwardly express his inmost fancies and the artistic spirit that consumed his soul, and must somehow be visibly revealed. He was