village churches, superior in decoration, though not, perhaps, in size; for this at St. Georges is on a very large scale:  on each side of it is a smaller blank arch, with a single moulding and a single pillar.  Two tiers of circular-headed windows of equal size fill up the front.—­The rest of the exterior may be said to be precisely as it was left by the original builders, excepting only the insertion of a pointed window near the central tower.

The inside is at least equally free from modern alterations or improvements.  No other change whatever is to be traced in it than such as were required to repair the injuries done it during the religious wars; and these were wholly confined to a portion of the roof, and of the upper part of the wall on the south side of the nave.  The groined roof, though posterior to the original date of the building, is perhaps of the thirteenth century.  The nave itself terminates towards the east in a semi-circular apsis, according to the custom of the times; and there, as well as at the opposite extremity of the building, it has a double tier of windows, and has columns more massy than those in the body of the church.  The aisles end in straight lines; but, within, a recess is made in the thickness of the wall, for the purpose of admitting an altar.  Both the transepts are divided within the church, at a short distance from their extremities, into two stories, by a vaulted roof of the same height as the triforium.—­M.  Le Prevost, who has very kindly communicated to me the principal part of these details, has observed the same to be the case in some other contemporary buildings in Normandy.  On the eastern side of each transept is a small chapel, ending, like the choir, in a semi-circular apsis, which rises no higher than the top of the basement story.  A cable moulding runs round the walls of the whole church within.—­You and I, in our own country, have often joined in admiring the massy grandeur of Norman architecture, exemplified in the nave of Norwich cathedral:  at St. Georges I was still more impressed by the noble effect of semi-circular arcades, seen as they are here on a still larger scale, and in their primitive state, uninterrupted and undebased by subsequent additions.

On closer examination, the barbarous style of the sculpture forces itself upon the eye.  Towards the western end of the building the capitals are comparatively plain:  they become more elaborate on approaching the choir.  Some of them are imitations or modifications (and it may even be said beautiful ones) of the Grecian model; but in general they are strangely grotesque.  Many represent quadrupeds, or dragons, or birds, and commonly with two bodies, and a single head attached to any part rather than the neck.  On others is seen “the human form divine,” here praying, there fighting; here devouring, there in the act of being devoured; not uncommonly too the men, if men they must be called, are disfigured by enormous heads