162 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



CLANDESTINE ARCHITECTURAL STUDIES. A VISIT TO THE MARQUIS OF 



WESTMINSTER S STUD. STABLE MATTERS. 



Monday, 



EARLY in the morning we visited the old church of St. 

 John s, and afterwards several curious places, relics of Ro 

 mans, Saxons, and Normans, in the suburbs after all, noth 

 ing so interesting to me as the commonest relics of English 

 men but two or three centuries old. As we returned through 

 the town at seven, the early risers seemed to be just getting 

 up. Passing the cathedral as the bell tolled for morning 

 prayer, we turned in. There are services every day at 7, 11, 

 and 3 o clock. The service was performed in the Lady Chapel, 

 which we did not enter. The attendance must have been 

 rather meagre, as we saw no one going to it but two ladies 

 with an old man-servant. We remained some time hunting 

 on tip-toe for traces of the Norman transition in the architec 

 ture, and found we had had already practice enough to readily 

 detect it in various parts. Stealing softly into the choir, 

 from which the Lady Chapel opens, we examined the bishop s 

 throne. It is adorned with many figures of saints and angels, 

 kings and queens, and having been once broken to pieces, 

 in the repairs upon it the old heads were generally put on 

 young shoulders, and vice versa , producing in some instances 

 a very ludicrous effect, particularly where the men s heads, 

 beards and all. are set on female bodies. We then got out 



