of the monks in giving him Christian interment.[54] On the whole, it is the
absence of all obtrusive and unappropriate ornament which gives to the
interior of this building that light, unencumbered, and faery-like effect
which so peculiarly belongs to it, and which creates a sensation that I
never remember to have felt within any other similar edifice.

Let me however put in a word for the _Organ_. It is immense, and perhaps
larger than that belonging to the Cathedral. The tin pipes (like those of
the organ in the Cathedral) are of their natural colour. I paced the
pavement beneath, and think that this organ cannot be short of forty
English feet in length. Indeed, in all the churches which I have yet seen,
the organs strike me as being of magnificent dimensions.

You should be informed however that the extreme length of the interior,
from the further end of the Chapel of the Virgin, to its opposite western
extremity, is about four hundred and fifty English feet; while the height,
from the pavement to the roof of the nave, or the choir, is one hundred and
eight English feet. The transepts are about one hundred and forty feet in
length. The central tower, upon the whole, is not only the grandest tower
in Rouen, but there is nothing for its size in our own country that can
compare with it. It rises upwards of one hundred feet above the roof of the
church; and is supported below, or rather within, by four magnificent
cluster-pillared bases, each about thirty-two feet in circumference. Its
area, at bottom, can hardly be less than thirty-six feet square. The choir
is flanked by flying buttresses, which have a double tier of small arches,
altogether "marvellous and curious to behold."

I could not resist stealing quietly round to the porch of the _south
transept_, and witnessing, in that porch, one of the most chaste, light,
and lovely specimens of Gothic architecture, which can be contemplated.