have carved an infant if they had thought fit so to do, men who again and again grasped eagerly common everyday things when in any way they would tell their story.  To return to the statues themselves.  The face of the young Christ is of the same character as His figure, such a face as Elizabeth Browning tells of, the face of One ’who never sinned or smiled’; at least if the sculptor fell below his ideal somewhat, yet for all that, through that face which he failed in a little, we can see when we look, that his ideal was such an one.  The Virgin’s face is calm and very sweet, full of rest,—­indeed the two figures are very full of rest; everything about them expresses it from the broad forehead of the Virgin, to the resting of the feet of the Child (who is almost self-balanced) in the fold of the robe that she holds gently, to the falling of the quiet lines of her robe over her feet, to the resting of its folds between them.

The square heads of the door-valves, and a flat moulding above them which runs up also into the first division of the tympanum, is covered with faintly cut diaper-work of four-leaved flowers.

Along the jambs of the doorway on the north side stand six kings, all bearded men but one, who is young apparently; I do not know who these are, but think they must be French kings; one, the farthest toward the outside of the porch, has taken his crown off, and holds it in his hand:  the figures on the other side of the door-jambs are invisible in the photograph except one, the nearest to the door, young, sad, and earnest to look at—­I know not who he is.  Five figures outside the porch, and on the angles of the door-jambs, are I suppose prophets, perhaps those who have prophesied of the birth of our Lord, as this door is apportioned to the Virgin.

The first division of the tympanum has six sitting figures in it; on each side of the canopy over the Virgin’s head, Moses and Aaron; Moses with the tables of the law, and Aaron with great blossomed staff:  with them again, two on either side, sit the four greater prophets, their heads veiled, and a scroll lying along between them, over their knees; old they look, very old, old and passionate and fierce, sitting there for so long.

The next division has in it the death and burial of the Virgin,—­the twelve Apostles clustering round the deathbed of the Virgin.  I wish my photograph were on a larger scale, for this indeed seems to me one of the most beautiful pieces of carving about this church, those earnest faces expressing so many things mingled with their regret that she will be no more with them; and she, the Virgin-Mother, in whom all those prophecies were fulfilled, lying so quiet there, with her hands crossed downwards, dead at last.  Ah! and where will she go now? whose face will she see always?  Oh! that we might be there too!  Oh! those faces so full of all tender regret, which even They must feel for Her; full of all yearning, and longing that they too might