roof settled to the level of the vault. A parapet wall, and a mullion to some of the windows, is all that intrudes on the original integrity of this part of the church.

The original design of the CENTRAL TOWER may here be advantageously observed. The extreme pitch of the ancient roofs nearly hid its exterior walls, except where the space on each side of the gables was pierced with a semicircular-headed window. A shaft that runs up the angle is checked only from forming a pinnacle by a capital that ranges with the corbel table; and may have suggested the moulding that was afterwards used in the same portions of the western towers. The octagonal spire of timber and lead, that surmounted this tower until 1660, was of the height of 120 feet-having four spurs of the height of 21 feet, and a battlement at its base.

On passing towards the CHOIR, we see the most perfect specimen of Archbishop Roger's work in its three western bays, though, from the intrusion of Decorated windows in the side aisles, we may judge better of the original effect, by inspecting the contiguous face of the transept, which is precisely of the same design. The elevation of the clerestory exhibits, simply, a succession of bays, made by pilaster strips, each occupied by an arcade of one round between two pointed members, the central one being pierced for a window-a Romanesque design, which was, judiciously, assimilated in the subsequent construction of the western front. The remainder of this side of the Choir, being the two bays of the Presbytery, was rebuilt in the Decorated style, probably by Archbishop Melton (1319-1340), and is worthy of examination, if only from the amount of evidence it contributes to the disputed history of the Chapter-House at York, to which it bears strong resemblance in much of its character and detail.

The elevation of the east end, though simple in outline, is rendered extremely effective by the massy buttresses, capped with corresponding pinnacles or miniature turrets, which break it into three divisions, and flank its sides. Each of the aisles shows but a plain window like the lateral lights; but the great window of seven lights, occupying an area 51 feet high and 25 wide, is a magnificent example of the Early Decorated style, though not so rich as the east window at Guisbrough Priory, with which the whole of this façade may, indeed, be usefully compared.

The south side of the church, being enclosed by the wall of the cemetery, cannot be conveniently viewed by a visitor before he is conducted through the interior.

INTERIOR OF THE NAVE.

On entering the church, at the western door, an imposing perspective, to the extent of 270 feet, is presented to the eye, intercepted only by the rood screen and the superincumbent organ; but presenting, in the most unseemly and useless protrusion of one of the piers of the central tower, an anachronism, which a previous external inspection could alone, instantly, explain. The harmonious design of the spacious nave, captivating even to a spectator unacquainted with the principles and capabilities of Gothic architecture, will fill him with astonishment, who finds that, at least, the proportions of the plan were defined by antecedent operations; and that a judicious apportionment of its constituent parts has effected almost entirely this triumphant result. The tall and graceful pillars that support, without an intermediate triforium, a range of lofty windows of elaborate tracery, extending from the summit of the arcade to the panels of the roof, range on the foundation walls of Archbishop Roger's nave; the aisles having been obtained by comprehending a space defined by the towers that projected to give breadth to the western front. This combination has rendered the nave the widest of any cathedral in the kingdom, except those of York, Chichester, Winchester, and St. Paul's-measuring 87 feet. If we may judge from the bays still incorporated with the extremities of the present nave, the structure which preceded it must have had a sombre, though singular, effect, having presented a lofty pointed triforium, surmounted by plain round-headed lights, and divided into bays by shafts resembling those in the transept. The aisles remain open to the roof; but it is evident that they were intended to be groined, from the springers, whose capitals are adorned with angels holding shields, five of which are charged. On the north side are, Three horse shoes, for Fountains Abbey.

Quarterly, 1 and 4, two battleaxes in pale, in chief two mullets; 2 and 3, a squirrel sejant, cracking a nut, surmounted by a Cardinal's hat; being the arms of Archbishop Bainbridge, created a Cardinal in 1511, and poisoned at Rome in 1514.

Three stars of six rays; the mediæval insignia of St. Wilfrid.
On the south side, the last shield; and that of

Savage, Archbishop of York, 1501-7-a pall imp. a pale fusily. On the west pillar of the northern colonnade are sculptured, also two contemporary shields:

1st. Three mill picks, two and one-Pigot of Clotherholme. 2nd. A bugle-horn, belted and garnished; being the arms of the town. The letters RIPPON now interspersed are here omitted, but the belt is studded with bosses, similar to those of silver, on that worn by the Serjeant-at-Mace in procession. Randal Pigot was the Wakeman in 1471.

The font, an octagon of blue marble, supported by a shaft and splayed base of the same mystical form, is coeval with the present nave, and stood in its canonical, but inconvenient, situation, at its western extremity, until 1722, when it was removed to that end of the south aisle.

Near the font, and contiguous to the outer wall, will be observed an ALTAR-TOMB Covered with a slab of grey marble, on the horizontal surface of which is sculptured, in low relief, the representation of a man and a lion in a grove of trees; its romantic allusion being rendered more tantalising by a black-letter inscription, which is irretrievably defaced on the vertical stone below. A century ago, tradition recounted that it covered the body of an Irish Prince, who died at Ripon, on his return from Palestine, whence he had brought a lion that followed him with all the docility and faithfulness of a spaniel; but the precatory position of the man induces me rather to suppose that the sculpture is in memory of his consequent providential deliverance from the ferocious animal, whose attitude is indicative of fear.

Near the north-west pier of the central tower is a monumental bust, and quaint inscription, commemorating Hugh Ripley, the last Wakeman and first Mayor, who died in 1637; restored, after its destruction by the Quixotes of the Civil War, by Mr. Harvey, at the expense of the Corporation, in 1725.

It is much to be regretted that the fall of the southern and eastern

sides of the Lantern, or ST. WILFRID'S TOWER, previously to 1459, should have deprived us of the effect of its four elegant Romanesque arches, springing from an altitude little less than forty feet. Though the eye will be offended by the mixture of the Perpendicular with the original style, and especially, on entering the church, by the obtrusion of its south-western pier, it is some consolation that this defection in the design, or rather in the Chapter funds, has preserved such an interesting specimen of art as the remnant of Archbishop Roger's tower. On the face of the western piers opposite the nave, there remain, at about the height of 28 feet, two brackets, for the support of the original rood beam, which must have formed a most conspicuous object on entering the church.

The TRANSEPT demands particular attention from the architectural antiquary, as it presents, in all but the eastern wall of the southern member, a specimen of imperfectly developed Early English work, which, by comparison with the two transepts of the adjacent Abbey of Fountains, will alone afford a valuable illustration of the progress of architectural design in the latter half of the twelfth century.

Though the pointed arches of the eastern aisle, and the triforium above, with its germ of double lights and tracery, apparently give to the interior of this part of Roger's church a more developed character than the exterior; yet, in its round and flat trefoils, its lintels, its alternating round and pointed arches, a strong attachment is still manifested for the Romanesque; which must here have been considerably increased, when the original flat roof neutralised the upward aspiring tendency, which was the soul of the Gothic style. This may be also observed in each end of the transept, where the three bays are not continued on one plane upwards to the roof, but are each crowned with a semicircular head rising from the shafts that divide the windows of the clerestory.

I need not, unfortunately, warn an observer that the groining of the Transept is a recent work; nor that its character is aggravated by grafting new capitals on the old shafts, in a style and position wholly inconsistent with the old design.

In the aisle of the North Transept-the original groining of which, still lingering with the square bay and flat dividing arch, merits notice, on account of its early character-was formerly the CHANTRY OF ST. ANDREW; the piscina, a round trefoil aperture, with a projecting basin, remaining in the south wall. This chapel was also

the burial-place of the Markenfields of Markenfield, near this city; but no other memorial of them now remains in it, except a fine

altar-tomb of Sir Thomas Markenfield, a warrior in the time of Richard II., and Dionisia his wife, daughter of Sir William Fitzwilliam, of Elmley. He is vested in a suit of complete armour, and wears a collar, which, on being recently cleaned, exhibits the design of a park-pale and a stag couchant, above the elongated, but depressed, pales in front. His arms (argent) on a bend (sable), three bezants, are sculptured on his breast, and on the hilt of his richlydecorated sword; as well as repeated, impaling Fitzwilliam and Miniot, in a series of 15 shields, graven round the tomb, commemorative of the alliances of his powerful and chivalrous race.

There has been removed from the north-east angle of this chapel that noble altar-tomb, of unusual height, without the rails, on which are placed the effigies of Sir Thomas Markenfield and Elenor his wife, daughter of Sir John Conyers of Hornby Castle. On the champ or filleting of this tomb is the following memorial, in defaced and obscure characters, which consanguinity with the persons commemorated has alone furnished me with patience to explain.

Hic iacent tomas m'knefeld miles et elenor uxor (ejus ille obijt pri)mo menc' maij anno d['ni mec]ccolrrrrvij qi fuit seneschallus isti' ville et kurkbi mallzede et elenor [obijt] vo die menc' maij a° d'ni mecccolrrrr.