ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 395
hastily completed with crow-stepped gables and a slanting roof.
specimen of the decorated English style of archi-
The church is 8 beautiful
tecture. The east end of the choir more especially
has a very stately and imposing effect. It is
an Apsis, with a lofty window in each of its three
sides, originally iilled with fine tracery, and not
improbably with painted glass, though the only evidence of either that now remains is the
broken ends of mullions and transoms. The ornamental details with which the church
abounds exhibit great variety of design, though many of those on the exterior are greatly
injured by time. Various armorial bearings adorn different parts of the building, and
particularly the east end of the choir. One of the latter has angels for supporters, but
otherwise they are mostly too much decayed to be decipherable. One heraldic device,
which, from its sheltered position on the aide of a buttress at the west angle of the south
transept, has escaped the general decay, is described both by Maitland and Arnot as the
arms of the foundress. It proves, however, to be the arms of her brother-in-law, Alexander
Duke of Albany, who at the time of her decease was residing at the court of the Duke
of Guelders. From the royal supporters still traceable, attached to a coat of arms sculptured
on the north-east buttress of the vestry, the arms of the foundress would appear to
have been placed on that part of the church where she lies buried. In the foundation
charter it is specially appointed, that '' whenever any of the said Prebendaries shall read
Mass, he shall, after the same, in his sacredotal habiliments, repair to the tomb of the
foundress with a sprinkler, and there devoutly read over the De Profundis, together with
the Fidelium, and an exhortation to excite the people to devotion." Many of the details
of the church are singularly grotesque. The monkey is repeated in all variety of positions
in the gurgoils, and is occasionally introduced in the interior among other figures that
seem equally inappropriate as the decorations of an ecclesiastical edifice, though of common
occurrence in the works of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The varied corbels exhibit
here and there an angel, or other device of beautiful form; but more frequently they
consist of such crouching monsters, labouring under the burden they have to bear up, as
seem to realise Dante's Purgatory of Pride, where the unpurged souls dree their doom of
penance underneath a crushing load of stone :-
As, to support incumbent floor or roof,
For corbel, ia 8 figure sometime0 seen,
That crumple8 up ita knees unto its breast;
With the feigned posture, stirring ruth unfeigned
In the beholder's fancy.1
The centre aisle is lofty, and the groining exceedingly rich, abounding in the utmost
variety of detail. -A very fine doorway, underneath a beautiful porch with groined roof,
gives access to the south aisle of the choir, and a small but finely proportioned doorway
may be traced underneath the great window of the north transept, though now
built up. The admirable proportions and rich variety of details of thiq church, as well
as its perfect state externally, untouched, Nave by the hand of time-if we except the
tracery of ita windows-render it oqe of the most attractive objects of study to the
C q ' s Dante. Purgatory. Canto x.
