HEPORT OF MEETINGS EOfe 190? IGt 



considerable time to the examination of decorative details on 

 the East gable and South wall, as seen from 

 Decorative the adjoining grave-yard. Among these may 

 Details. be mentioned — (a) The great East window, 



already referred to ; [Above it may be seen two 

 seated figures, by some supposed to represent David I. and his 

 queen, Matilda ; by others to be James IV. and his queen ; 

 but in all probability representative of the Coronation of the 

 Virgin. On this East gable also there is a sculptured figure 

 which was formerly regarded as a bishop, but which more 

 minute inspection during recent repairs has proved to be 

 St. Outhbert, with the head of King Oswald of Northumbria 

 in his hand.] (b) The eight beautifully moulded windows of 

 the nave, varied in design and decorated on each side with 

 the heads of monks and nuns; (c) The flying buttresses, on 

 the finest of which is a niche, surmounted by an exquisitely 

 carved canopy, containing the statue of the Virgin and Child — 

 "the Madonna of Melrose" — mutilated in 1649; (d) The statue 

 of St. Andrew, bearing the cross associated with his name, 

 in a canopied niche adjoining; (e) A variety of grotesques, 

 utilized as rain-spouts, the most curious of which represents 

 a sow playing the bag-pi|ies ; (f) The superb window in the 

 South transept with its thirteen niches to accommodate the 

 twelve Apostles and our Lord ; and (g) The door of the same, 

 adorned with the pedestal of John the Baptist, with the 

 legend — " Ecce filius Dei " — and flanked on either side by 

 the figures of monks bearing the inscriptions — " Cwm venit 

 Jesus, seq, cessabit itmbra," and ^' Fasstts est, quia ipse voluit." 

 In the North transept attention was drawn to a mural sculpture 

 portraying a hand lightly grasping a bunch of flowers, which 

 supports one of the groins of the roof, and is regarded as an 

 example of the finest workmanship in the Abbey ; to the statues 

 of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the lovely circular window in the 

 gable ; to holy water stoups and piscinas incorporated with 

 the fabric, which here as elsewhere are in excellent preservation 

 while all traces of fonts and even of altars have disappeared ; 

 to the inscriptions on the West wall of the South transept ; 

 to the burying-places within the East end of Alexander II., 

 who died at Kerrera, a small island opposite Oban, during an 

 expedition conducted for the purpose of wresting the Hebrides 



