[Illustration: Symbols of the Evangelists]

You must excuse me that, now I am upon this subject, I venture to
"travel somewhat out of the record," for the sake of proposing to you a
difficulty which has long puzzled me:--the connection which Catholic
divines find between St. Luke's Bull and the word Zecharias;--for it
appears, by the following distich from the Rhenish Testament, that some
such cause leads them to regard this symbol as peculiarly appropriate to
the third Evangelist:--


"Effigies vituli, Luca, tibi convenit; extat
Zacariæ in scriptis mentio prima tuis."--


[Illustration: Figures of effigies]

An antiquary might be perplexed by these figures, the drawings whereof I
now send you. He would find it impossible to suppose the
exquisitely-sculptured images and the slender shafts with richly-wrought
capitals, of the same date as the solid simple piers and arches all
around; and yet the stone is so entirely the same, and the workmanship
is so well united, that it would require an experienced eye to trace the
junction. In the middle of the sixteenth century, the central tower was
also found to need reparation; and the church, upon this occasion,
sustained a lasting injury, in the loss of its original spire, which was
of lead, and of great height and beauty. It was taken down, under
pretence of its insecurity; but in reality the monks only wished to get
the metal. This happened in 1557, under Gabriel le Veneur, Bishop of