model to work by:  having all the stiffness and precision of an erection of forty-eight hours standing only.  The central tower is of very stunted dimensions, and overwhelmed by a roof in the form of an extinguisher.  This, in fact, was the consequence of the devastations of the Calvinists; who absolutely sapped the foundation of the tower, with the hope of overwhelming the whole choir in ruin—­but a part only of their malignant object was accomplished.  The component parts of the eastern extremity are strangely and barbarously miscellaneous.  However, no good commanding exterior view can be obtained from the place, or confined square, opposite the towers.

But let us return to the west-front; and opening the unfastened green-baize covered door, enter softly and silently into the venerable interior—­sacred even to the feelings of Englishmen!  Of this interior, very much is changed from its original character.  The side aisles retain their flattened arched roofs and pillars; and in the nave you observe those rounded pilasters—­or alto-rilievo-like pillars—­running from bottom to top, which are to be seen in the abbey of Jumieges.  The capitals of these long pillars are comparatively of modern date.  To the left on entrance, within a side chapel, is the burial place of MATILDA, the wife of the Conqueror.  The tombstone attesting her interment is undoubtedly of the time.  Generally speaking, the interior is cold, and dull of effect.  The side chapels, of which not fewer than sixteen encircle the choir, have the discordant accompaniments of Grecian balustrades to separate them from the choir and nave.  There is a good number of Confessionals within them; and at one of these I saw, for the first time, two women, kneeling, in the act of confession to the same priest.  “C’est un peu fort,” observed our guide in an under-voice, and with a humourous expression of countenance!  Meanwhile Mr. Lewis, who was in an opposite direction in the cathedral, was exercising his pencil in the following delineation of a similar subject.

[Illustration]

To the right of the choir (in the sacristy, I think,) is hung the huge portrait, in oil, within a black and gilt frame, of which Ducarel has published an engraving, on the supposition of its being the portrait of WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.  But nothing can be more ridiculous than such a conclusion.  In the first place, the picture itself, which is a palpable copy, cannot be older than a century; and, in the second place, were it an original performance, it could not be older than the time of Francis I:—­when, in fact, it purports to have been executed—­as a faithful copy of the figure of King William, seen by the Cardinals in 1522, who were seized with a sacred phrenzy to take a peep at the body as it might exist at that time!  The costume of the oil-painting is evidently that of the period of our Henry VIII.; and to suppose that the body of William—­even had it remained in so surprisingly perfect a state as Ducarel intimates, after an interment of upwards of four hundred years—­could have presented such a costume, when, from Ducarel’s own statement, another whole-length representation of the same person is totally different—­and more decidedly of the character of William’s time—­is really quite a reproach to any antiquary who plumes himself upon the possession even of common sense.