166 CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



and also two door-ways, with semi-circular arches, to the vestry on 

 the south side, and to the sacristy on the north, certainly appear to 

 1)6 the most ancient part of the church. The former arch is shewn 

 in the title-page. In consequence of the fire, which consumed some 

 of the cathedral in 1202, the visit of commissioners from the papal 

 see, in the following year, to inquire into the refuted miracles 

 ascribed to Wulstan, and the unqualified report of their truth, of 

 King John's pilgrimage to the canonized bones of the newly made 

 saint, and of other circumstances of great local notoriety, it is pro- 

 bable that the whole east end of the cathedral was either rebuilt, or 

 adapted and altered to the prevailing fashion of architecture, about 

 this time. It seems evident that it was newly dedicated in 1218. 

 —-The interment of the body of King John in this cathedral (a. d. 

 1216), was an event of no small importance to the monastery and 

 see, at the time, nor of less local consequence afterwards He died 

 at Newark-upon-Trent, of poison, as some chroniclers report, and 

 his corpse was conveyed across the country, to Worcester, where he 

 had ordered, in his will, that it should be interred. The tomb, near 

 the east end of the choir, with the effigy of King John on its slab, 

 is of a date long subsequent to his decease. It was probably made 

 at the time when Prince Arthur's chantry-chapel and tomb were 

 erected." 



Externally this cathedral does not exhibit much of architectural 

 interest or beauty, which is rightly accounted for by the barbarous 

 use made of a common stone called red sand-stone, of a staring brick- 

 dust colour, which is soft and^'porous, and with which the Goths, 

 who are charged with the management of these matters, have, 

 for the sake of its cheapness, always used in preference to the Port- 

 land or other building stone. With the same barbarous taste, com, 

 mon white or yellow wash has often been used to renovate its inte- 

 rior walls. 



The engravings in this volume convey such full and complete 

 information relating to the forms, sizes, relative proportions of parts, 

 and the varied architectural members of this cathedral, that it must 

 be unnecessary to describe geometrical plans, sections, and elevations 

 . — we, therefore, refer our readers to the book itself, wherein these 

 matters, with all others connected with this edifice, will be found 

 circumstantially detailed even to the most minute point. 



On its list of prelates, the see of Worcester has certainly enrolled 

 many names of high historic celebrity. It presents one pope, four 

 saints in the Catholic calendar, six lords chancellor of England, 

 three lords treasures, one king's chancellor, eleven archbishops of 

 Canterbury and of York, one Roman cardinal, and many men of 

 general learning and of literary merit. 



The marble monuments are numerous, and amongst them are the 

 masterly works of Roubiliac, Chan trey, and the younger Bacon. In 

 the great north transept stands Roubiliac's, to the memory of Bishop 

 Hough ; in the lesser north transept, called the Bishop's Chapel, is 

 .Chantrey's commemoration of Charlotte Elizabeth, wife of the Rev. 



