CHURCH PIGEONS 



entrance-door there is a simple, flat-topped 

 tomb, the legend carved upon it being barely 

 legible to-day, but recorded as follows: 

 This craggy stone a covering is for an Architector's bed, 

 That lofty buildings raised high, yet now lyes low his head; 

 His rule and line, so death concludes, are now locked up 



in store; 

 Build they who list, or they who wist, for he can build no 

 more. 



His house of clay could hold no longer, 

 May Heaven's joy frame him a stronger. 



John Abel. 

 Vive ut vivas in vitam aeter?iam. 



The inscription is stated to have been com- 

 posed by the man who lies below; of his own 

 designing were the kneeling figures of himself 

 and of his first and second wives, together with 

 the compass, rule, and square, as symbols of 

 his craft. 



Nor is this old, time-weathered tomb quite 

 foreign to the matter which concerns us here. 

 John Abel, who, a native of Herefordshire, was 

 born in 1 597 and survived till 1 694, was famous 

 in his day and generation as an architect. He 

 was "King's Carpenter"; and, more to our pur- 

 pose, was the designer of so many of those 

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