1743, under the direction of Mr. Sloane; new stalls and pews were erected, the partition walls wainscotted, and the pavement laid with Bremen and Portland stone beautifully disposed. The choir was also new furnished, and the episcopal throne erected at the expence of Dr. Joseph Wilcocks, bishop of the diocese. The pillars, which are of Petworth marble, were then injudiciously white-washed, but they have been since polished and restored to their original beauty; the altar-piece, which is made of Norway oak, is plain and neat. Dr. Herring, archbishop of Canterbury, who was many years dean of the cathedral, gave fifty pounds towards ornamenting this part of the church. There was then only a pannel of wainscot in the middle, in the place of which was fixed a large piece of rich velvet in a frame elegantly carved and gilt. This was removed a few years ago, and it is now decorated with a picture of The Angels appearing to the Shepherds, by WEST. Adjoining to the south wall of the chancel there are three elegant stone seats. In the front of these seats are three shields, bearing the arms of the see of Rochester; the centre bears the arms of the priory of Christchurch, Canterbury; and the third emblazoned with the arms of the prior and convent of St. Andrew, the tutelar saint of this cathedral. Formerly there were episcopal portraits in each of the niches; one of them was a picture of bishop John de Shepey, who died in 1360. He was buried at the foot of these stalls, and his remains were covered with a flat stone, removed when the choir was new paved. Perhaps these stalls may have answered the purpose of a cenotaph for this bishop. From the stile of their architecture they do not seem to have been of an earlier period.

Within the communion rails are four tombs: the uppermost against the north wall has been assigned to bishop Lawrence de St. Martin, who died June 3, 1274; the lower to bishop Gilbert de Glanville, who died June 24, 1214. The tomb nearest the stalls is appropriated to bishop Thomas de Inglethorp, who died May 12, 1291; though it is a matter of doubt whether he might not be deposited in

the

the more eastern tomb. This chest has indeed been shewn for the receptacle of Gundulph's remains, but without any authority. It is certain that he was not buried near the high altar, but near the altar of the crucifix, which was placed in the centre between the two eastern pillars of the nave; and no translation of his body is upon record. At the foot of the steps of ascent to the communion table, and not far from the steps leading up to the rails, there are large brassless slabs, each of which had the figure of a bishop under a rich canopy; there is a similar grave-stone near the great west door, and two more in the south transept of the nave; but tradition has not perpetuated the names of any of the prelates whose remains they cover. Behind the south wall of the choir, there is a chapel called after St. Edmund, though the altar erected in honour of him was fixed in the undercroft. The builder of this chapel, and the time of its construction, are unknown. Through it was the common passage for the monks from the north cloister into the church, and the arch of the door of communication is still discernible, both in the chapel and in the garden of the fourth prebend. The moulding of a pointed arch in the west wall shews there was formerly another door into this. chapel. In the partition wall of the choir there is a stone chest, which has upon it a figure, of Purbeck marble, pon.. tifically habited, lying under a canopy, about thirteen feet high, curiously ornamented, and terminating in a pyramid. The head is entirely gone; in its place a flat stone. A part of a crosier is in the left hand, only the fore-finger of the right is remaining, which is extended to the left, and what it holds has the appearance of a book. The inscrip. scription is so much defaced, that it is not possible to trace to whose memory this monument was erected: but there is sufficient ground for concluding it to be the tomb of bishop Bradley, who died April 23, 1283. The antient organ having been a very indifferent instrument erected in 1668; in place of which a very fine toned organ, by GREEN, was put up in 1791. It is supposed that originally there was a south aisle of the same width with that on the north side

5

of

of the choir, and that the wall of it might be continued to the east transept. Traces of such a wall appear by the steps into the undercroft, and in what is now the minor canons vestry.

In this transept against the south wall there is a stone chest raised about a foot above the pavement; another of the same size was removed 1791. They had antique crosses upon them, and appeared to have been forced open. It is said that some persons, who, about the year 1645, defaced and pillaged the tombs in this church, found in one of these coffins a crucifix and a ring: they were probably the tombs of some of the priors. In this transept a doorcase richly ornamented is deserving attention. It is the entrance into the present chapter-house, which is also used for a library; but it was the grand door of communication. between the church and the chapter-house of Ernulph in all solemn processions. The moulding of the arch of entrance into the north cloister is still to be seen. The constructor is unknown, as is also the date, but it is judged by an eminent artist to have been executed about the middle of the fourteenth century. Age and wilfulness have much defaced this elegant piece of sculpture, and its beauties are also disguised by the white-wash with which it has been injudiciously covered. It is presumed that some of the portraits exhibited may be pointed out with a high degree of probability. The royal figures on each side, supported by bustos, like those on the sides of the great west door, may be reasonably thought to denote Henry I. and his queen Matilda; the scroll in the king's right hand having a reference to his new grants, and to his acts of confirmation of former rights and privileges; and the church in his left, to his being present at the dedication of the cathedral. The queen is holding a book or scroll in her hand, but to what they particularly relate there is no clue. Gundulph having been the architect of the church, and founder of the priory, it will be readily admitted that the episcopal figure above the king was designed for him, though the symbols are so much mutilated, that an interpretation of them is scarcely possible.

possible. Bishop Ernulph, who was a man of learning, will not be judged to be unaptly characterized by the book placed before the opposite figure. In the niche above the king and Gundulph, if the building is supposed to be a shrine, the figure might be intended for Lawrence de St. Martin, by whose interest with the pope William, the Pilgrim was enrolled in the catalogue of saints. What he holds in his hand, and which partly covers the shrine, may be meant for a bull, or a label, in allusion to the papal bull of canonization. There is the resemblance of a tower in the opposite niche; and, if designed for one, it was no unsuitable symbol to annex to a portrait of bishop Hamo de Hethe, who raised the steeple in the centre of the church, and furnished it with bells. Still higher are four angels, two on each side, with labels in their hands, enwrapped in clouds. They appear singing praises to the small statue in the centre, surrounded with clouds, designed probably for the resurrection of Our Saviour.

The north-east transept was formerly separated from the choir by a screen of wood, with Gothic arches. Before the Reformation, devotees without number used to visit the chapel, because St. William, from whom it acquired its appellation, was enshrined in it. The tomb, which consists of a large stone coffin of Petworth marble, adjoins to the north wall, near a door that leads up to an apartment, over the east end, called the Treasury. This shrine containing within it a source of wealth to the monks, it may be presumed that it was by them richly ornamented. But, whatever decorations it may have had, it now makes a mean appearance. A palmer's staff upon the lid still serves to denote the class of the person here deposited; it was cased with metal, that is become rusty, and is continually peeling off. Hubert de Burg, justiciary of England in the reign of Henry III. gave the middle window at the shrine of St. William. The window here described, it is apprehended, is not either of the central windows now extant, but a window that was under them. The stone frame of it may be seen in the wall without the church; and to the west of

the

the window is a niche in which might be placed the statue of this imaginary saint. The monument to the west of this shrine is to the memory of Walter de Merton, founder of the college in Oxford which bears his name. He died October 27, 1277, being drowned by unwarily passing a river, the depth of which was unknown to him; and he is the earliest prelate of the see of Rochester whose place of burial in the cathedral can be ascertained by his tomb. The original monument was made at Limoges, in France, where the art of enamelling most flourished, and that was antiently a common ornament of sumptuous tombs. Fortyone pounds five shillings and sixpence was the expence of constructing it and of the carriage from Limoges to Rochester. This tomb was almost entirely destroyed at the Reformation, and a new and elegant monument erected in 1598 at the expence of the warden and fellows of Merton College. In 1662 it was repaired, and in 1772 cleaned and beautified, by the same learned body. From this prelate the chapel has acquired the appellation of Merton Chapel. The monument opposite is in memory of bishop Lowe, who died September 30, 1467. It is still in good preservation, and the oldest monument in the church with a legible inscription. This may probably be owing to the letters not having been engraven on a brass plate, but cut in high relief upon the stone, which is of Sussex marble. At the west end, within a shield held up by an angel, are the family arms of the bishop, impaled with the arms of the see of Rochester, which are, however, placed on the sinister side. The prelate's arms on a bend, three wolves heads erased, are thought to be an allusion to his name; louve being, in French, a she-wolf. At the east end of this chapel, on the north side, is a beautiful tomb, of white and black marble and alabaster, in memory of bishop Warner, who died in 1666, in the eighty-sixth year of his age, and was the last prelate of the see interred in this cathedral. Between Lowe and Warner, Hilsey was the only bishop interred; here. The time of his death is not quite certain, but supposed to be about the end of the year 1538.