being the place in which the ambitious Henry the Fourth ended a life of anxiety. Westminster-School, erected about the year 1070, was refounded by Queen Elizabeth in 1560, for a head and second master, and for forty students, called "King's scholars," and twelve almsmen. The broad part, on the north side of the Abbey, was appointed as a Sanctuary; the church belonging to it was in the form of a cross and double, the one being built over the other. Dr. Stukeley, who remembered it standing, says it was of great strength, and was not demolished without great labour, and is supposed to have been the work of the Con-. fessor. Westminster Market rose on the site of this ancient fabric; and this being long disused, was taken down, to make room for the new Guildhall for the city and liberty of Westminster, In closing this brief account of the Abbey, by a review of its exterior, as it now appears, it may be observed, "the great door-way is of considerable depth, and contracts inwards. The sides are composed of pannels, and the roof intersected with numerous ribs. On each side of the door are pedestals in empty niches, with shields in quatrefoils beneath them. A cornice extends over the whole, on which are ten niches, separated by small buttresses; they are without statues, and their canopies are cones, foliaged and pinnacled. Above these is another cornice of a doubtful order: the King's, and eight other coats of arms, adorn the frieze above it. Hence arises the great window before-mentioned; it has a border of eight pointed enriched pannels, a large heavy cornice over it, and a frieze inscribed Georgis II. A. D. 1736. The roof is pointed, and contains a small window. Twogreat buttresses strengthen the towers, and are considerable ornainents, with two ranges of canopied niches, unfortunately deprived of the statues on their fronts. Each tower has projecting wings pannelled. The lower windows are pointed ; those above them arches, only filled with quatrefoils and circles. It is from this part that the incongruity of the new design begins in a Tuscan cornice; then a Grecian pediment, and enrichments over the dial of the clock, with a plain window, pannels, and battlements. The truly great and excellent architect, Sir Christopher Wren, reprobates irreconcileable mixtures in such designs; "I shall speedily prepare perfect drafts and models, such as I conceive proper to agree with the original scheme of the architect, without any modern mixtures to shew my inventions." The ancient front of the Jerusalem Chamber obstructs the view of the south tower; it has a square window of a horizontal direction, and three upright mullions, with a battlement repaired with bricks. The wall extends some distance westward, when it terminates in modernized houses, against the end of which is the ruin of a great arch of decayed stone, leading to Dean's Yard. The north side of the Abbey has nine buttresses, each of five gradations, with windows to the side aisles, and over them semi-windows filled with quatrefoil. These buttresses join the nave by slender arches; the wall finishes with battlements. The niches on the buttresses still remain, though there are but four statues, which appear but little injured, and are excellent figures. What Sir Christopher Wren said of the north side, nearly one hundred years past, is strictly descriptive at this moment-"The stone is decayed four inches deep, and falls off perpetually in great scales." And so indeed has the casing intended to repair it from the north transept to the towers, leaving a decayed, corroded, and weather-beaten surface, half black, and half the colour of the stones. The front of the transept is less injured, because most of the heavy rains are from the west; and the north sides remain perfectly smooth and good, as Sir Christopher Wren left them. |