fittings are extremely small, but there is a screen across the north aisle at the second pier from the east, of plain but excellent design of early fourteenth-century date. The monumental remains in the church have been exhaustively dealt with by Mr. Fredk. Chancellor, in his great work on this branch of ecclesiology in relation to the county of Essex.

Of the work done within recent years only a few words will be expected. The name of the late W. Burges, who was engaged as architect, is at least a guarantee that true architectural design prevails in it. The question of the style of treatment was, perhaps, more fitly his prerogative than that of any one else. He chose not to attempt to work in harmony with the Norman designer's detail, but to trust to his own knowledge and skill in the style he most favoured, namely, French Gothic of the thirteenth century. Criticism now is hardly admissible, but this at least it may be permitted to say, namely, that if at first a discordance strikes the eye in relation to the east end, further reflection and study bring to light the fact, that, though in another style, Mr. Burges's additions bear the marks of his own genius in the solidity, breadth, and artistic treatment of his work. This may be specially noticed in his large arch, nearly under the ancient western arch of the

nave.

Before leaving notice of this fine interior, dwell for a moment or two on its superlative fitness of design, noting first of all the proportion of the relation of solids to voids; then the exquisite relation of height to width and length; also the proportion of the several stages in height, and, last of all, the effectiveness of its decorative details. Then, in the mind's eye, lift the flat ceiling-not to any great height of roof, but enough to properly harmonise with the walls, and to put into it sufficient of the mystery of dimness which its great total height must have secured and say whether in the Norman church of Holy Cross at Waltham, when its eastern length formed part of it, there was not a building here whose architectural effect could hardly be surpassed? "Rude in its design", does anyone think? Well, to the flourishing Queen

Anne-ish taste of this day it may be so, but paying regard to the great architectural productions of the wide world, surely not so.

This brings us to the very important addition known as the Lady Chapel on the south side of the church. This is a building of fourteenth-century design, of the dimensions before given, and is of two pairs of bays, having on the south side two great end buttresses and one central one, with two lesser ones between the centre and the ends. The first point which demands attention is that the east end is without any window, but its wall was decorated by a painting in colours representing what is known as "The Doom". Its treatment has been fairly made out, and there are particulars of it in the vestry. This east wall of the chapel was the west wall of the south transept, and its face next the transept is still preserved, with its windows, panels, and strings. The determination to glaze the south and west sides is fully expressed by the four three-light windows in the flank, and that of six-lights in the gable. The motive in providing this excess of window surface was probably to compensate, not only for the blocking up (occasioned by the erection of this chapel) of the south transept windows, but also of three windows in the south aisle; thereby involving that three bays of the east end of the church on this side should be lighted only by the chapel windows through the arched opening between it and the south aisle. It is probable also that this reduction in the lighting of this part of the church gave rise to the insertion of the two large windows on the north side. The large arch on the north side of the chapel was formed by breaking through the south aisle wall, and its treatment is of the plainest character. There is no direct connection between this chapel and the church, and it would seem to have been intended for separate services under parochial and not monastic control. It was furnished, of course, with its own altar, piscina, and sedilia. The windows and doorway in this chapel are of more elaborate design than any other part of the church; and the treatment of the large west window, with its second face of tracery on the internal line of the wall,

exhibits the artistic resources of the medieval designer in a remarkable manner.

Having the southern windows, and having determined to employ a large square-headed window in the gable, how could this have been of better design? The crypt beneath this chapel, with its groined roof, characteristic windows and doorway, was worthy of the superstructure, and was probably a repository of famous relics, but is now put to a purely utilitarian use, and is not easy of detailed examination.

The western tower only now remains for our notice. If Mr. Burges's opinion be correct (and there is no reason to doubt it) that the erection of this tower saved the church from falling, we may indeed bless the unintentional service which its builders in the seventeenth century rendered, not only to Waltham Abbey but to the country at large, by the preservation of this historic church. The main features of the tower, its doorway, west window, and the materials of its walls, have mostly been quarried, as it were, from the ruins of the eastern portion of the Abbey church.

It still serves the useful purpose of accommodating a ring of eight bells, cast by Bryan, of Hertford, in 1806; but it must be confessed that it forms a very disappointing feature on a first view of the church from its main approach, and the archaeologist yearns for the presence of the great front which adorned the west end of the Norman church, or even for that which the ambition or other motive of the early fourteenth-century improvers erected in its stead.

This general view of our subject could hardly close without a word or two on the exterior of the building.

The east end is, to the archæologist, perhaps the most interesting part, as its discloses the west arch of the great central tower, with the abuttals of its north and south sides, and the wall within the west arch partitioning the parish from the monastic church, with two doorways for communication; also the east arch to the south aisle, and the fact that there was not a corresponding arch on the north side, together with the internal faces of the transepts, and the abuttal of the south wall of the