CHAPTER XVI

Approach to Ely.--The Park.--Walpole Gate.--Crauden Chapel.--Western Tower, Galilee.--Nave.--Baptistery.--Roof.--Prior's Door.--Cloisters.--Owen's Cross--Octagon.--Alan's Grave.--Transepts.--St. Edmund's Chapel.--Choir Stalls.--Presbytery.--Norman Piers.--Reredos.--Candlesticks.

The foregoing pages have taught us something of the history of Ely Cathedral, of the men and women who have loved it and worked for it; of those who have defaced and pillaged it; of the wars and revolutions that have surged around it. Now we propose to visit it, and to see for ourselves the very stones which, though silent, can speak to us; hoping to be favoured with a fine day, that we may be able to study the Minster advantageously from without as well as from within. And let us come provided with a glass, for much of the best carved work is high above our heads.

It may be unenterprising to come to Ely by rail; but yet there is no approach that can give us a finer impression of the Minster than we gain by our first view of it from the train, whether we arrive from the north or from the south. In either case we have been travelling over flat dull country, when suddenly there stands up before our eyes the "stately fane" of which we have heard so much, and our first impulse is to show her some token of reverence. We take a good look at the pile of building before us, and we resolve not to forget our first sight of this our new friend. Well did the quaint historian, Thomas Fuller, write of Ely Minster in 1660, "This presenteth itself afar off to the eye of the traveller, and on all sides, at great distance, not only maketh a promise, but giveth earnest of the beauty thereof."

Leaving Ely station, our best course will be to walk toward the Cathedral, taking the second turn to the right. This brings us into a commonplace street; where, however, we should notice on our right a row of thatched cottages, with their overhanging upper storeys, that have survived from olden days. Just opposite these cottages is an iron gateway which invites us into the Cathedral "Park," an undulating piece of ground some sixteen acres in extent grazed by cattle and sheep, its highest point being an artificial mound, now densely clothed with trees, called Cherry Hill. An award of the seventeenth century speaks of it as Mill Hill, an early print shows it topped by a windmill; so here, doubtless, stood the windmill of the Monastery, mentioned in the epitaph on Alan of Walsingham as one of the four wonders of Ely due to his genius (the others being the Lantern, the Lady Chapel, and the Abbey vineyard). The place of the mill (which itself superseded the Norman keep built on this eminence by William the Conqueror) is now occupied by a monument in memory of Bentham, the historian of the Abbey of Ely, who wrote in the eighteenth century.

Grassy hillocks rise between us and the cathedral; and we gain an impression as of some great ship riding majestically over ocean billows. The church, indeed, is actually about the size of a large liner, and the green swells of the park are not unlike in magnitude to those of the Atlantic. Turner's painting of Ely Minster gives this same ship-like impression of the place, thus embodying the history of this wondrous pile. It has in truth weathered many a tempest, has been wrecked and built afresh, has sunk and been restored, and is preserved for us still as a holy and classic House of God.

The first of the Abbey buildings that we come to on our walk is the tithe barn with its tiled roof, one of the largest in England, constructed in mediaeval days, with no architectural beauty, yet with a dignity of its own. It still bears witness to a financial state of affairs, when rent was paid in kind, far removed from that which now exists, since the commuting of tithes for payment in cash.

Leaving this barn on our left, we find ourselves in front of a massive gatehouse, known as the "Ely Porta" or "Walpole Gate." It was begun about 1396, and finished under Prior William Walpole, whose name still clings to it. This gatehouse has been used for various purposes, for a chapel, for a prison, for a brewery. To-day it serves as the chief schoolroom of the "King's School," which represents the famous Choir School where Edward the Confessor was educated. His coat of arms, a cross and five martlets, is carved accordingly on the northern hood-moulding of the gateway, those of the See of Ely on the other side. It was never finished according to the original design; the money of the Abbey being needed for other matters, of which one was a tedious lawsuit relating to the Bishop's jurisdiction.

We will not pass through the gateway yet; but, again turning to the right, follow the alley that leads us toward the cathedral itself. We will stop first at Prior Crauden's Chapel, a small upper room with a vaulted chamber beneath it. Passing through a narrow doorway, we climb a spiral staircase which brings us into the little Sanctuary, built by Prior Crauden, from the designs of his friend Alan of Walsingham, for his own private use. The Abbey records speak of him in monkish Latin as follows "Brother John of Crauden ruled the convent as a peaceable shepherd, and was beloved by God and man; may his memory be held blessed for ever. Adjoining the Priory he built a chapel of wondrous beauty, where he might worship God in prayer and praise. Hither did he resort by night and day for spiritual meditation, unless prevented by sickness; here he would commend to God, himself, his Church and all that concerned the Church. His face and his form were goodly to behold." Let us picture him to ourselves at his devotions in this tiny chapel--it only measures 31 feet by 15 feet--a very gem of Decorated architecture; and from the delicate leaf-like tracery around us, let us learn what to expect when we reach the Minster itself, which abounds in the work of this period. The contemporary mosaic pavement, representing Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, is specially noteworthy. So is also the dim fresco of daisies and trefoils, as delicate in design as it is true to nature, still visible on the southern wall.

[Illustration: _Prior Crauden's Chapel._]

John of Crauden held the office of Sacrist from 1321 till 1341, while John Hotham was Bishop. On the Bishop's death, in 1337, the monks of Ely unanimously elected Prior Crauden to succeed him, as being a man of marked piety and generosity; but the Pope annulled this election, and Simon de Montacute became Bishop. We are not told how the saintly prior took this rebuff; we may believe he bore it with a grace reflected from or by the chapel that he had built. Not only was he a builder and a man of piety; he was also a promoter of education; providing an endowment for the maintenance of three or four young monks in the then yet youthful University of Cambridge. For generations this chapel was partitioned into three rooms and belonged to the adjoining house. It has been restored of late years for devotional use, and here the boys of the King's Grammar School attend daily Mattins and Evensong.

The Canon's residence which adjoins the chapel was once the Priory, and is attached to the professorship of Hebrew at Cambridge. Here Prior Crauden entertained Queen Philippa, when she visited Ely with her husband, Edward the Third. Further on we see the Deanery, built of old as the dining-hall of the Abbey. Adjacent to it is the "Fair Hall," designed for great receptions, now the residence of the Head Master of the King's School.

Retracing our steps, we have on our right ancient buildings at present used by the boys of the same school; beyond them we reach again the Ely Porta; and this time we pass through it to find ourselves in a side street of the little city, along which run the station omnibuses. Opposite the gateway is a modern building, "Hereward Hall," occupied by the King's Scholars; while the dignified Chamber of the Ely Porta is also at their service in school hours. Turning to the right we follow the street, here styled "the Gallery," and we make straight for the cathedral. On our left is the wall of the Palace garden, and, showing well above, we see its splendid plane tree, planted in 1639, and said to be the finest in England.

Now we are actually approaching the western tower and the south-western transept of the cathedral; and these we may take as an object lesson. Ely, like Rome, was not built in a day, and it took centuries to complete its tower. Begun during the latter half of the twelfth century, the lower part is of late Norman work, with round arches and bold simple mouldings; but the architect and workmen who built these passed away, and their work had to be continued by the hands of others on whom had dawned the beauty of pointed arches. These later builders were not to be tied down by what they felt to be the crude ideas of former generations; and we see the workmanship of the tower and transept, stage above stage bearing evidence of growth, till through the Early English period it has passed into a narrowed octagonal tower with windows of Decorated tracery. There is a delicious harmony in it all; in the intricacy of the masonry, in the very colour of the stone; and we admire those builders of yore who, while respecting the work of their forefathers, did not hesitate to deal with their material according to their own fuller light and skill. Perhaps we shall doubt as to calling the topmost octagonal tower wholly in keeping with the base of the steeple; yet if we had the power we should not have the wish to alter it.

It is well that we should realise how much the preservation of this stately steeple has cost. Ever since the central tower fell in 1322, sacrists, priors, monks, bishops, deans, have lived in constant terror lest what had befallen the central might also befall the western tower. We can read how they have braced it with iron and wood, how they have weighted it with bells; how they have lightened it by removing its wooden spire, how they have buttressed it, how they have plastered it. Century after century they have continued the repairs, sometimes making mistakes, but never asking the question, fatal to all good work, "Is it worth while?" There it stands, surveying its vast plain for thirty miles around, with its air of unbroken security.

Jutting out from the tower, westward, is the so-called Galilee Porch. It is conjectured that it was so named because, as Galilee was the district of the Holy Land furthest from Jerusalem, so this western porch was the part of the sacred building farthest from the High Altar. Much doubt exists as to the date of this porch. It is commonly said to have been built under Bishop Eustace, who died in 1215; but some authorities hold that it belongs to a somewhat later period, when the style in which it is built had fully developed. Probably it dates from the close of his episcopate. Anyhow, it is a beautiful specimen of that Early English work of which we shall see so much more before we leave the Cathedral. Its walls are thicker than needful if the porch alone were to be considered, and it is thought that it was built thus massively with a view to acting as a buttress to the tower, which needed support. Over the porch is a parvise chamber, now disused; it may in early days have served to accommodate musicians, or as a place of sanctuary for criminals fleeing from justice. During the eighteenth century the Galilee narrowly escaped demolition; for Essex, who was architect to the Chapter of Ely, advised that it should be pulled down as being of no use, and in a condition too ruinous to admit of repair. Happily his counsel was rejected, and the Galilee still stands to gladden our eyes with its beauty.

From the Galilee we step into the nave. To attempt any description of the view before us would be futile; when we say that we are "uplifted" by it we have expressed in one word all that we dare to formulate. By moonlight, when the minster is empty; or on some day of Choral Festival, when arch and pillar echo back the music, this wondrous fabric, hallowed and mellowed by time, says to us, with a voice almost audible, "Sursum corda!" "The place whereon thou standest is holy ground."

The nave in which we are standing is wholly Norman in its architecture; its pillars, alternately clustered and cylindrical, support round arches; these again support the round-headed double arches of the triforium, and these yet again the triple lights of the clerestory windows, three tiers in all. The arches are somewhat stilted, starting with a straight line, and are rather higher than semi-circular. All this severe architecture of Norman type leads on, as it were, to the more delicate tracery and moulding of the Early English lancet lights of the east window.

It seems almost paradoxical to say that the western arches as we see them are of more recent date than the tower which they support; yet this statement is true, for they were constructed in the fifteenth century to strengthen the steeple built more than two hundred years before. The more ancient masonry is for the most part completely hidden by the newer, but the tops of the original archways remain in full view to show how much they have been contracted by this encasing stonework. During the previous century six bells had been hung in the steeple; moreover, the eight-sided turret had been built on the top of it, and all this additional weight must inevitably have led to the fall of the whole, but for the strengthening and underpinning of the piers.

[Illustration: _South Aisle of the Nave, Ely._]

Over the westernmost archway is a modern window inserted by Bishop Yorke toward the close of the eighteenth century, noteworthy only for its Flemish glass. In the lower southern light we see St. John the Evangelist playing with a partridge, illustrative of the legend which relates how his disciples found him, as an aged man, thus engaged, and how, in answer to their expression of surprise at this unwonted relaxation, he remarked to them "A bow cannot be kept always strung." Strange to say, this story, which would seem specially fitted to call forth the painter's gifts, is almost unknown to art.

Through the southern of these archways we step into the western transept, the Baptistery of the cathedral, where stands a font of modern date. Here to the east is the apsidal chapel known as St. Catharine's. All tracery and ornament around us is still strictly Norman in character, and zigzag moulding prevails; but we can see here how the round arched stone-work, as it intersects, forms graceful lancets, thus suggesting the pointed or two centred arch; and when once the architect's eye had caught its beauty, he refused to let his compass trace out the simpler one-centred arch of the Norman period, and Early English architecture came in with a rush.

St. Catharine's Chapel is used daily by the students of the Ely Theological College, and a beautiful altar of alabaster and jasper, placed here in 1896, harmonises, in its character of dignity and permanence, with the Norman stonework around. The apse in which it stands is a modern restoration, having been for many years a ruin; indeed the whole of this western transept was for long cut off from the Tower by a wall of stud and plaster, and served as a workshop and lumber-room, where materials for use in the repairs of the Cathedral could be stored, till Dean Peacock set himself in 1842 to remedy this condition of things. It is now one of the most romantic corners of the Minster.

We return to the Tower, and pause for a moment to notice "the Maze"[224] inlaid in marble in the pavement. From this quaint design at our feet we turn to look at the roof of the nave over our heads, painted with scenes from the Old and New Testaments. The western end is the work of Mr. Le Strange, who died in 1864, before his work of love was completed. Happily it was continued and finished by Mr. Gambier Parry, as devoted a lover of the Church and of art, a personal friend of Harvey Goodwin, who was Dean at the time, and at whose request the artist undertook the arduous task of roof-painting. A slight change in the character of the designs shows where one painter ended his work and the other took it up.

[Footnote 224: This is a wholly modern device. Mediaeval mazes are common in Continental churches; but none are found in England.]

These over-head paintings take us from the Creation of Man and his fall, through the old Testament up to the Annunciation and Nativity, in a series of scenes instructively thought out; while Patriarchs and Prophets lead on to the Evangelists. Some part of the design is said to be due to a visit paid by Mr. Le Strange, on the advice of Sir Gilbert Scott, to the Church of Hildesheim in Hanover, where there existed a then untouched painted ceiling of mediaeval date; but in the main it was his own conception.

Let us next turn aside into the southern aisle to look at the "Prior's Door." If we find it locked we can get it opened by asking one of the vergers to let us go through it. We shall thus obtain a sight of its outer mouldings; bold and fantastic, yet withal dignified and graceful, executed about the year 1180, and due, it may be, to some Masonic Company that had handed on its traditions from east to west, generation after generation; perhaps to members of that "Comacine Guild" that had its headquarters on an island in Lake Como, where its members had taken refuge from the Gothic invaders of Italy. In the tympanum, within a vesica shaped panel, is sculptured our Lord in Glory, holding in His left hand a book and a cross, while the right is raised in the act of blessing. On the door-posts are carved designs somewhat grotesque, suggesting the Signs of the Zodiac, and the course of human life.

This unique doorway opens into the garden of the Deanery, where once stood the Cloisters. In the walls that bound it, traces of the cloister windows still remain, now filled in with brickwork. The garden has its own especial charm, in its gay borders and pleasant paths; but when we picture what once it was, when we recall the cloisters we have perhaps ourselves seen, at Westminster, at Salisbury, at Gloucester, at Chester, we cannot but feel this walled-in garden, attractive though it is, a place of ruin. Beyond almost any other abbey where the church still stands, Ely has been robbed of her cloisters. They once ran round this garden, the southern wall of the nave forming one side, the whole being thus sheltered from the northern wind, while catching all the warmth and light of the sun. Traces are still left in the masonry, proving that Norman cloisters once existed here, but that these were removed and replaced during the fifteenth century.

Could we have passed through this ornate doorway while the cloisters were still in use, what should we have met with in this "haunt of ancient peace"? We should have entered a covered cloister forming a square, with each side approximately one hundred and forty feet long,[225] its windows opening into the well-turfed cloister garth. Low-recessed archways in the cathedral wall, facing south (one of which still exists), would hold a set of aumbries or cupboards containing a good library of books of reference, the works of the great doctors of the church, and of profane authors as well. Of such books there was an ample and well-replenished store, for Bishop Nigel had, towards the close of the twelfth century, bequeathed certain tithes to provide for the "making and repairing of books" at Ely, and this bequest would doubtless be spent on books for purposes of study in the cloister, as well as for use in church. Opposite to these aumbries we should see a row of carrells, or wainscoted cells, under the windows, each holding a desk fitted up suitably for reading and writing, large enough for the use of one monk, and there we should see him in his black Benedictine robes seated at his work. Through his bit of the window, if his eye wandered from his books, he could look out on the pleasant plot of enclosed grass, and see the other three sides of the cloister. During the fifteenth century glass came into use in the cloister windows, chiefly on the side next the church, where most of the writing and reading was done. It would appear that the cloisters were not only used for study but served also as a school-room, where novices and choir boys received instruction; and the part chiefly dedicated to study was the northern side, close to the bookcases. The Cloister, we must remember, was the centre of monastic life, giving its very name to the calling of a monk, for here the brethren spent their working hours.

[Footnote 225: This was the average length in the larger abbeys, notably surpassed only by the splendid dimensions of Glastonbury, where the cloisters were a square of 221 feet on each side.]

We shiver at the very thought of the cold that life in the cloister must have entailed. We hear of a scribe whose hands were so paralysed by cold that he had to delay finishing his copy of the works of Bede; one author had to lay aside his writing for the winter till spring should return. No attempt was made to heat the cloisters, but in mid-winter a single fire was kept burning in a room called the "_calefactorium_" where the brethren might go in turn to warm themselves. We speak of life in the open air as an idea of modern days; in truth it had been forestalled by the monks of old. The cloisters were lighted by lamps fed with grease from the kitchen, and the candles used were of rush-pith dipped in the same.

Silence was maintained in the cloister, and the monks used signs instead of words when asking for a book. Strict rules were laid down as to the keeping clean and putting back of books. One Benedictine writer adds to his manuscript the following note: "Whoever pursues his studies in this book should be careful to handle the leaves gently and delicately, so as to avoid tearing them; and let him imitate the example of Jesus Christ who, when he had quietly opened the book of Isaiah and read therein attentively, closed it with reverence and gave it again to the minister." The lending of books was counted as one of the principal works of mercy, but only to be done under the most careful regulations as to the return of the volume lent. Such is in outline the scene we should have beheld had it been our lot five hundred years ago on this very ground,

"To walk the studious Cloister's pale."

We now re-enter the cathedral through the Prior's Door, and taking a few steps further along the interior of the aisle we come to Owen's Cross. Owen was St. Etheldreda's faithful steward, the "Primus Ministorum" (or "Over-alderman," as the Anglo-Saxon has it,) of her fenland kingdom, and governor of her family. His Welsh sounding name bears witness to his being a fenman of British ancestry. Bede tells us that Owen was a man of much piety; that when his royal mistress no longer needed his services he forsook the world and became a monk under St. Chad, Bishop of Lichfield. Owen set forth on his journey to the monastery dressed in a plain garment, carrying a pick-axe and bill-hook, to denote that as he was little capable of meditating on the holy scriptures he would the more earnestly apply himself to the labour of his hands, and had not come to the monastery, "as so many do," to live idle. St. Chad received him with much favour, and it was Owen who was permitted to hear the angelic voices that announced to the holy bishop that he was to die within seven days.

Owen was himself canonized, and this cross became an object of veneration at Haddenham, where pilgrims from Cambridge crossed the Ouse. During the eighteenth century its mutilated base was brought into the cathedral from Haddenham, where it had long served as a horsing-block. It is now more worthily placed, and we can still read the inscription in Latin which runs as follows (the name of Owen being Latinized almost out of recognition),

LUCEM TUAM OVINO DA DEUS ET REQUIEM. AMEN.

Grant O God to Owen Thy light and rest. Amen.

A little further on, still in the south aisle, we come to the "Monks' Door," with its strange outer carvings of dragons, its one door-post enriched with spiral fluting, a sister doorway to the prior's, but by no means a twin. Almost touching it is the half of an ancient arched doorway now walled up, its door-post spirally and deeply sculptured. In both doorways one door-post is hidden by the masonry of a great buttress built here by Alan of Walsingham to support his central tower. We are here in the last remnant of Ely's cloisters, and let us not fail to observe the recessed archway for books in the southern wall of the nave mentioned above. Before leaving the aisle we should notice that its windows are for the most part late insertions, the original Norman fenestration being replaced by Perpendicular.

We now come to the wonder of Ely, of which we have already heard much, its Octagon Tower and Lantern. Other features in the cathedral we may meet with elsewhere, but this central feature was not itself a copy, nor has it served as a pattern--it remains alone, a brilliant make-shift, a great Necessity having proved the mother of a great Invention. We can hardly here enter into the details of this Octagon Tower as an engineering feat, but we can remind our readers how, by enlarging the base of his steeple, by making it rest on eight supporting piers, instead of on four like its fallen predecessor, Alan of Walsingham gave it greatly increased stability.

[Illustration: _The Tower from the Cloisters._]

Thomas Fuller, whom we have quoted before, thus racily describes the Lantern at Ely, as it was at the close of the Commonwealth, and draws from it the lesson he loved to find underlying outward things. After speaking of the beauty of the minster, he goes on to say, "The lanthorn therein, built by Bishop Hotham, is a masterpiece of architecture. When the bells ring the woodwork thereof shaketh and gapeth (no defect but perfection of structure) and exactly chocketh into the joints again; so that it may pass for the lively emblem of the sincere Christian who, though he has _motum trepidationis_ of fear and trembling, stands firmly fixed on the basis of a true faith."

We, too, can admire the ingenuity with which the woodwork forming the Lantern is fitted together so as to be self-supporting; and our attention should be called to the vast size of the eight upright beams of oak above us, fore-shortened, as we see them from the floor, so that we hardly realise that the length of each is sixty-eight feet. We can well believe the chronicler who tells us that Alan "procured them with much trouble, searching far and wide, and with the greatest difficulty finding them at last, paying a great price for them, and transporting them by land and water to Ely." During the nineteenth century, when this woodwork had to be restored, and to some extent replaced, the difficulty met with in procuring and conveying the timber required was almost enough to daunt those responsible for the work.

On the central boss of the groining we see a half-length figure of Christ in Glory, carved in oak, the right hand raised to bless, considerably above life size. In the sacrist's accounts for the building of the Lantern, under the date of 1340, occurs this item: "Paid to John of Burwell, for carving the figure upon the principal Key Vault, two shillings and his keep at the Prior's table." A good two-shillings' worth, even if we multiply the sum by thirty to make it equivalent to the present value of coin.

The modern glass of the windows above these arches commemorates those whose names are connected with Ely; eight personages in each window. The south-east window gives us in its upper lights, St. Etheldreda as Queen, with her father and her two husbands; below she appears again as Abbess, with Bishop Wilfrid and the two sisters who followed her as Abbesses, Sexburga and Ermenilda. In the north-east window is represented her niece Werburga, who also became Abbess, and St. Withburga; and, on a line with these ladies, St. Edmund and Archbishop Dunstan; in the lower four lights stand Bishop Ethelwold, Earl Brithnoth, Abbot Brithnoth, and King Edgar the Peaceful, the refounder of the Abbey after the Danish desolation. The north-west window depicts in the upper tier four kings of England, William the Conqueror, Henry the First, Henry the Third, and Edward the Second. In the row beneath stand Abbot Simeon, Hervey, the first Bishop of Ely, Bishop Northwold, and Alan of Walsingham. In the four upper lights of the south-west window are portrayed Queen Victoria in her Coronation robes, Prince Albert arrayed as Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, Edward the Third and Queen Philippa; below come Bishop Turton and Dean Peacock, who both contributed to the cost of this glass, and in a line with them are Bishop Hotham and Prior Crauden.

At the ends of the hood-mouldings of the diagonally placed arches of the Octagon are carved eight heads. Edward the Third in his crown gazes with kingly bearing across the archway at his Queen, Philippa, who wears an expression of cheering benignity, well becoming a queen; Bishop Hotham looks his part, and Prior Crauden has the countenance of a saint and an enthusiast. On the north-western archway Alan of Walsingham, clean shaven, and his master mason, with flowing locks, face each other carved in the stone that they knew so well how to manipulate. The seventh and eighth heads are grotesque.

Slightly higher than these portrait heads, supporting canopied niches, come the celebrated corbels on which are sculptured the leading events of the life of St. Etheldreda in the following order:

I. She appears at her second marriage, as a most reluctant bride, forced into holding the bridegroom's hand.

II. Having escaped from her husband, she takes the veil from St. Wilfrid.

III. Her pilgrim's staff bears foliage and fruit.

IV. Seated on a rock, the tide protects her from her husband's pursuit.

V. She is enthroned as Abbess by St. Wilfrid.

VI. Her death and burial.

VII. A prisoner is miraculously released by her prayers.

VIII. The first translation of her body.

Just where the nave and the Octagon Tower join is a slab, which some hold to cover the grave of Alan of Walsingham. A well-worn stone is all we see, but we can trace on it a dimly embossed matrix, showing that once it held a brass of rich workmanship, since torn away. Whether this be his tomb or no, Alan has his monument here in the structure we behold above and around us, bearing witness to his life, which ended in 1364 when he had reached the age of seventy. On the brass which once marked his resting-place we know that there was engraved a lengthy epitaph in Latin verse, still extant, of which we offer an abridged translation as follows:

"These things of note are at Ely, the Lantern, and Chapel of Mary, A windmill too, and a vineyard that yieldeth wine in abundance. Know that the Choir before you exceedeth all others in beauty, Made by Alan our brother, Alan the wise Master Builder; He who of craftsmen the flower, was gifted with strength in his lifetime. Alan the Prior, forget not, here facing the Choir lieth buried. He, for that older Tower which fell one night in the darkness, Here erected, well-founded, the Tower ye now are beholding. Many the Houses of God that, as Prior and Sacrist, he builded. May God grant him in Heaven a seat as the end of his labour."

From this epitaph we may conclude that Alan of Walsingham had given Ely both a windmill and a vineyard; of these no trace exists (though we know that the mill stood on the summit of "Cherry Hill"); but "the Lantern and Chapel of Mary" and the western bays of the Choir, as built under him at Bishop Hotham's charge, remain for us to this day.

From the Octagon we can view the transepts begun in 1083 by Abbot Simeon. The columns and mouldings bear witness to the fact that these eastern transepts are of earlier date than the nave. At the western corner of the north transept we notice a doorway of classical design inserted in 1699 by Sir Christopher Wren, to repair a fall which had taken place there. Before leaving this transept let us enter the Chapel of St. Edmund (one of two screened off chambers against the eastern wall), and take note of the alabaster reredos, exquisite in design and material, placed there in 1898 by Canon Stanton, in memory of his father.

[Illustration: _Cathedral Towers._]

On this reredos Christ appears in glory, as the ascended High Priest of His Church, interceding for His people. Beneath on the retable is inscribed in Greek the words: "Able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him." The chapel is intended to be used for private meditation and for services connected with missionary work. We leave it with the sense that the highest message the minster has to give is still remembered among us.

From the Octagon we may pass into the Choir, where gates of brass open through the richly carved screen of oak. This screen is a really beautiful creation of the nineteenth century, while the tabernacled oaken stalls within are mediaeval, dating from 1337, and are yet more beautiful, forming as they do part of Alan of Walsingham's great restoration. For over four centuries these stalls stood where Alan placed them, under the Octagon, separated from the nave by a massive Norman screen of stone. About 1770 they were moved by the architect Essex to the eastern end of the Choir. The stalls having been thus removed, Essex saw no reason for preserving the Norman screen, so he had it destroyed. Had the venerable structure still stretched across the nave we should feel it purposeless, and it would undoubtedly have been inconvenient: so we ought perhaps to admit that Essex really conferred on the cathedral a boon by his drastic act on which a less daring and more conservative architect would not have ventured. Still we send a sigh of regret after the ancient work, that had stood through so many centuries only to be pulled down as an encumbrance, and carted away at last as rubbish.

The stalls after their removal eastward were painted to look like mahogany (!) in accordance with eighteenth century standards of beauty. They were left in this far eastern position for about eighty years, when they were shifted half-way back again, into their present place, under the supervision of Sir Gilbert Scott, the architect employed to direct the restoration then in progress. Their upper panels have been filled with Bible scenes carved in high relief in wood; mostly the work of a Flemish artist of the nineteenth century. On the south are scenes from the Old Testament, on the north from the Gospels. They repay a careful study, being beautiful and original in design. Twenty-five in number on either side, arranged chronologically, they face each other, answering in several instances as type and antitype; the Deluge corresponds with the Baptism, Jacob's Deception of Isaac with the Betrayal; the Lifting up of the Brazen Serpent with the Crucifixion, the Ascent of Elijah with the Ascension. Whether this is intentional or accidental we leave to be decided by those who, familiar with Bible incidents, are wishful to exercise their ingenuity and their power of discernment, in discovering further and less obvious correspondence.

The stall seats are on hinges, and are known as "Miserere" (_i.e._ mercy) seats. They were thus named from being so contrived that when turned back they gave a merciful support to the monks, who could thus sit after a fashion, instead of having to stand, during the lengthy nocturnal services in which they were engaged; but if the occupant of the stall abused this relief by permitting himself to be overcome with sleep, he and his seat fell forward together with a crash, to his great discomfiture. When turned back the quaint carvings usual under such seats may be seen, the work of the fourteenth century carvers. The subjects represented are strangely varied; scriptural, legendary, grotesque, according to the taste and fancy of the carver, and no two are alike. We find here Noah's Ark, a pelican feeding her young, a nun at prayer, monkeys and dragons, a woman beating a fox for robbing her hen-roost, a fox attired as a bishop, a monkey extracting a man's tooth, a king and a monk fighting, St. Martin sharing his coat with a beggar. The upper canopied work of these stalls is of delicate beauty, little damaged by all it has undergone, whether of neglect or of change, during the six centuries and a half of its existence.

But while admiring these choir stalls, we are almost inclined to grudge their presence, for they obstruct the view of the stone arches against which they stand. We are still beholding the work of the great Alan; after the tower fell he and his workmen built these three bays, with the triforium and clerestory arches above; and we feel how perfectly brain, heart, and hand must have worked together in harmony to produce so exquisite a result. It was Bishop Hotham who provided the funds for most of this work.

Passing on up two steps beyond these three bays we come to arches somewhat different; while we observe a corresponding change in the character of the liern vaulting overhead. We are now in the presence of Early English masonry, wrought a century before under Bishop Northwold, and perhaps yet lovelier than the Decorated work which was her daughter. Arch beyond arch, six in number, extends this Presbytery, as it is called, ending in an east window of three lower lancet lights, with an upper tier of five smaller lancets. The Northwold Presbytery does not merge imperceptibly into Alan's Choir; for the transition is marked on either hand by a semicircular shaft of stone that soars aloft, the only remnant left to us of the eastern limb of the original Norman church. These venerable piers therefore deserve our special notice, though they might not attract it if we were ignorant of their story. They themselves stand as raised by their builders, but Bishop Northwold gave them new capitals of Purbeck marble harmonising with the work he was erecting eastward.

Next let us study the modern reredos or altar screen, all of white stone and marble, having as its background the three lancet windows of the east end, filled with not unworthy modern glass, against which it stands out with grace and dignity; a space of thirty feet intervening. The reredos consists of five spandrels surmounted by gables, and is made of alabaster, lavishly gilt and bejewelled, inlaid with mosaic. On the highest gable stands a figure representing Christ in Glory, His hand held forth to bless His people. Immediately below comes the Annunciation, carved in low relief in a trefoil-shaped medallion. Below again is a statuette of our Lord, with Moses and Elijah on either hand, and beneath these, under a canopy of alabaster, is the Last Supper. In a line with this, still in the same high relief, is sculptured our Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, His washing of the Disciples' feet, His agony in Gethsemane, His bearing of the cross. Immediately over these Gospel scenes, under the shadow of a marble canopy, we have the heads of the four great prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, on one side, balanced on the other by the four Latin doctors of the Church, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Gregory. Within the four side spandrels are carved the heads of Mary Magdalene, of Mary the mother of James, of St. John the Evangelist, and St. John the Baptist; on the points of the gables above are the four Evangelists, while between them, and flanking them, stand on spiral pillarets delicate figures emblematical of faith, hope, and charity, of justice, prudence, and fortitude--those graces and virtues which made the saints here represented to be such.

On the retable at the foot of the reredos, stand two massive candlesticks of silver gilt. These were procured for the cathedral in 1660, on the restoration of the Chapter and the return of Bishop Wren after his imprisonment of eighteen years. During the Commonwealth the cathedral staff had dwindled down to one canon and one verger. It is recorded that the first requisites purchased by the Chapter on being reinstated were these very candlesticks--plus a wheelbarrow and a broom.

And now we shall do well to make an appreciable physical effort, in order to get a view of two bosses of special interest in the vaulting overhead. It is somewhat neck-racking work, and a glass is absolutely necessary if we are to carry away any definite impression of the sculptures in question. On one of these bosses the coronation of the Virgin is carved most gracefully and reverently; on the other is St. Etheldreda, crowned and gorgeously robed, seated with a crozier in her right hand, as Abbess. Both are richly coloured, and have escaped, through being inaccessible, the injury done to the other images in the cathedral. For more than 600 years they have looked down on the tomb of Bishop Northwold, the builder of this noble Presbytery, erected, we must remember, to do honour to the shrine of the Foundress.

This Presbytery of wondrous beauty, enriched by the best that could be wrought by human hands, alike in the past and in our own days, may well recall to us Keble's lines:

"Love delights to bring her best, And where Love is, that offering evermore is blest."

The "Angel Choir" in Lincoln Cathedral, built at the same time, is so nearly a twin with Bishop Northwold's Choir at Ely that to distinguish the two, if their photographs are placed side by side, requires some nicety of observation. Whether either was actually copied from the other we do not know, for in those days the torch of architectural inspiration quickly passed from hand to hand. This is the case in our own time with regard to inventions due to the increase of scientific knowledge; when no part of the civilised world remains long behind the rest, if light, locomotion, or medicine is concerned. Age after age man sets himself to make his own the best that can be obtained, and to say for himself, no less than for the world at large

"Let Knowledge grow from more to more."

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