stalls, contrasting well with the pale delicacy of the walls above.

Overhead is seen to swell the fine vault of the roof, with its rich
tracery, and its central line, and orbs at the junction of its timbers,
embossed with bold armorial shields of the houses of Tudor, Lancaster, and
Castile, as united in John of Gaunt and Beaufort, with those of various
episcopal sees, and stretching on to the splendid east window in that
direction, emblazoned with "the several implements of our Savior's
Passion--the cross, crown of thorns, nails, hammer, pillar, scourges,
reed, sponge, lance, sword, with the ear of Malchus upon it, lantern,
ladder, cock, and dice; also the faces of Pilate and his wife, of the
Jewish high priest, with a great many others, too numerous to be
described, but worthy of notice for the ingenuity of design," and the
richness of their tints. They are, indeed, emblazoned in the most gorgeous
colors--scarlet, blue and gold; and, to a fanciful eye, may resemble, many
of them, huge sacred beetles of lordly shapes and hues.

On each side rise up, into the very roof, the tall pointed windows glowing
with figures of saints, prophets, and apostles, who seem to be ranged on
either hand, in audience of the divine persons in the great east
window--the Savior and the Virgin, with apostles and other saints. But
what is the most striking to the eye and mind of the spectator is to
behold, on the floor of the sanctuary before him, a plain beveled stone of
dark marble--the tomb of William Rufus; and arranged on the top of the
beautiful stone partitions on each side of the sanctuary, dividing it from
the aisles, are six mortuary chests, three on a side, containing the bones
of many of the most eminent Saxon princes. The bones which, from the
repeated rebuildings and alterings of the cathedral, must have been in
danger of being disturbed, and the places of their burial rendered
obscure, or lost altogether, Bishop de Blois, in the twelfth century,