On the outer ribs of Henry VII.'s chapel may be detected certain little symmetrically disposed bosses, which at first glance one would suppose to be inconspicuous crockets. But in an admirable spirit of humour, the sculptor has here carved a series of griffins, in procession, holding on for dear life, in the attitudes of children sliding down the banisters. They are delightfully animated and amusing. The well-known figures of the Vices which stand around the quadrangle at Magdalen College, Oxford, are interpreted by an old Latin manuscript in the college. The statues should properly be known as the Virtues and Vices, for some of them represent such moral qualities as Vigilance, Sobriety, and Affection. It is indeed a shock to learn from this presumably authoritative source, that the entertaining figure of a patient nondescript animal, upon whose back a small reptile clings, is _not_ intended to typify "back biting," but is intended for a "hippopotamus, or river-horse, carrying his young one upon his shoulders; this is the emblem of a good tutor, or fellow of the college, who is set to watch over the youth." But a large number of the statues are devoted to the Vices, which generally explain themselves. [Illustration: GROTESQUE FROM OXFORD, POPULARLY KNOWN AS "THE BACKBITER"] No more spirited semi-secular carvings are to be seen in England than the delightful row of the "Beverly Minstrels." They stand on brackets round a column in St. Mary's Church, Beverly, and are exhibited as singing and playing on musical instruments. They were probably carved and presented by the Minstrels or Waits, themselves, or at any rate at their expense, for an angel near by holds a tablet inscribed: "This pyllor made the meynstyrls." These "waits" were quite an institution, being a kind of police to go about day and night and inspect the precincts, announcing break of day by blowing a horn, and calling the workmen together by a similar signal. The figures are of about the period of Henry VII. [Illustration: THE "BEVERLY MINSTRELS"] The general excellence of sculpture in Germany is said to be lower than that of France; in fact, such mediaeval German sculpture as is specially fine is based upon French work. Still, while this statement holds good in a general way, there are marked departures, and examples of extremely interesting and often original sculpture in Germany, although until the work of such great masters as Albrecht Duerer, Adam Kraft, and Viet Stoss, the wood carver, who are much later, there is not as prolific a display of the sculptor's genius as in France. The figures on the Choir screen at Hildesheim are rather heavy, and decidedly Romanesque; but the whole effect is most delightful. Some of the heads have almost Gothic beauty. The screen is of about 1186, and the figures are made of stucco; but it is exceptionally good stucco, very different in character from the later work, which Browning has designated as "stucco twiddlings everywhere."